The European Commission is to investigate who owns airport landing slots in a move that could add billions of pounds to the airlines’ value.
The transport consultants Steer Davies Gleave are expected to lead the review into how slots are traded.
The potential value of the slots is enormous, with Continental paying $209 million for four pairs at Heathrow two years ago. At that time, bmi British Midland valued its slots at the aiport at £770 million, which would make the Heathrow market worth about £7.5 billion.
In theory, landing rights belong to the Government, but some airlines believe that slots are assets that should belong to them — particularly if they have paid millions for them.
If the Commission rules in their favour, it could strengthen company balance sheets. British Airways, for example, has about 41 per cent of Heathrow’s slots that could be worth more than £3 billion based on the bmi valuation — more than doubling the airline’s current market value.
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Landing rights are traded in secret but in an attempt to pre-empt the Commission’s investigation, the airline industry has decided to publicise the trades. Airport Co-ordination Limited, a company owned by the big airlines, has set up a website to allow other airport users to track the trades.
Chris Bosworth, managing director, said: “We wanted to give airlines somewhere they can buy or sell slots easily.”
ACL’s data shows that summer 2010 has already been the busiest period for slot trading in a decade with 435 trades per week, compared with 74 in 2001.
The high number this year is because of bmi, which has sold 212 slots to other carriers to raise money and reduce capacity. Virgin Atlantic has also leased 42 landing rights to Aer Lingus.