The COVID-19 pandemic has upended many airlines' strategic plans. Yet other airlines -- especially those with strong balance sheets and a focus on the leisure market -- are forging ahead with their plans, seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to gain market share from weakened rivals.

Last year Air France-KLM, a legacy carrier, sold a single daily landing and take-off slot at London Heathrow, Europe’s most congested airport, to Oman Air for $75m. The slots owned by Monarch. The carrier also applied for 21 weekly slot pairs at London Heathrow but failed to secure them. In fact, out of all the carriers that applied for a total of 697 weekly slot pairs at Heathrow, ACL only allocated two new slot pairs to Shenzhen Airlines (ZH, Shenzhen) and denied all other requests. “SpiceJet has secured slots at London Heathrow Airport to operate flights effective September 1. This is under the bubble arrangement between India and UK and effective up to end of summer schedule, which is October 23,” the airline said in the filing. A slot allows an airline to land and depart at a particular airport at a designated time.

• The airline holds more than half of the slots - which give planes the right to take off and land at a certain time - at Heathrow. The slots, particularly the ones at peak times, can be worth.
• UK Aviation News reports that JetBlue has secured London Heathrow slots for it planned new London service starting in 2021. Report: JetBlue Secures Slots, Will Serve London Heathrow In April 2019, JetBlue announced it intended to serve London (and eventually additional destinations in Europe) using Airbus A321XLR aircraft.

JetBlue Airways(NASDAQ: JBLU) is firmly in the latter camp. While the company has deferred some aircraft orders, it still plans to take delivery of its first Airbus A321LR next year, allowing it to launch its long-awaited service to London. Earlier this week, one of the last puzzle pieces fell into place, as the airline was granted slots allowing it to operate up to three daily roundtrips to London starting in the summer 2021 season.

JetBlue secures slots

Several of London's major airports are typically overcrowded. As a result, airlines must apply for takeoff and landing slots if they want to fly to London. Heathrow Airport, the region's primary airport, is the most extreme case. The cost of a single slot-pair, allowing one roundtrip flight, has averaged tens of millions of dollars when traded on the private market. Gatwick Airport has also been operating near capacity in recent years.

Airlines have dramatically reduced slot utilization because of the pandemic. Normally, they would have to give up their unused slots, but the standard use-it-or-lose-it rules have been suspended in the U.K. until at least next spring. Thus, JetBlue had to go through a competitive slot-allocation process to get the slots it needs for its planned London flights.

Earlier this week, reports from Airport Coordination Limited -- the company that manages slot allocations for the London airports -- showed that JetBlue has received slots for up to three daily roundtrips to London. However, they are spread across two airports.

At Gatwick Airport, JetBlue received 14 weekly slots -- half of what it had requested. That's enough to operate one daily roundtrip, which it will use to fly to New York's JFK Airport. JetBlue also landed all 28 weekly slots it requested at London Stansted Airport, which it will use for up to two daily roundtrips to Boston.

The big prize remains elusive

While having JetBlue's flights split across two London airports is not ideal, it's not a shocker, either. More than a year ago, company president Joanna Geraghty said the airline might fly to two London airports.

The bigger disappointment was that JetBlue wasn't able to get slots at Heathrow, the preferred airport for most business travelers. JetBlue's planned London flights would almost certainly be more successful at Heathrow than at any other airport.

That wasn't exactly a surprise, though. (Heathrow only awarded four new weekly slots, good for two weekly roundtrips. Airlines had requested 1,394 weekly slots!) JetBlue's management thinks the pandemic could ultimately make it easier to pick up slots at Heathrow, but slot holders have no incentive to give up slots until the use-it-or-lose-it rules are reinstated. Remedy slots designed to ensure adequate competition could provide another avenue for JetBlue to gain access to Heathrow, but probably not until at least 2022.

This can work -- for now

Gatwick Airport is a well-established alternative to Heathrow and has sustained plenty of flights from the U.S. over the years. However, many pundits are concerned that JetBlue's planned Boston-London flights via Stansted Airport are doomed to fail. Previous attempts to offer transatlantic service from Stansted haven't been commercially successful.

In reality, JetBlue's prospects aren't that bleak. JetBlue mainly caters to leisure travelers -- even for its premium lie-flat 'Mint' service. Leisure travelers tend to be more flexible about which airports they use (particularly if they're getting a good deal). Furthermore, Stansted is the closest major airport to Cambridge, a key U.K. tech hub. Boston is also a major base for technology companies, so JetBlue could potentially develop a lucrative niche carrying tech-related business traffic between Boston and Stansted.

Additionally, Gatwick is a major base for Norwegian Air, which was struggling before the pandemic and is now on the verge of collapse. Even if Norwegian does survive, JetBlue will probably be able to pick up additional Gatwick slots in 2022 if it decides Stansted isn't working. Beyond that, there's a chance that regulators will force other airlines to make room for JetBlue at Heathrow in the next few years to preserve competition in that key market.

For now, JetBlue just needs a foothold so it can offer access to London to its customers and start to build name recognition in the U.K. The slots it has secured at Gatwick and Stansted will allow it to do just that.

Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of JetBlue Airways and is long January 2022 $10 calls on JetBlue Airways. The Motley Fool recommends JetBlue Airways. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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A landing slot, takeoff slot, or airport slot is a permission granted by the owner of an airport designated as Level 3 (Coordinated Airport), which allows the grantee to schedule a landing or departure at that airport during a specific time period.^[1] Slots may be administered by the operator of the airport or by a government aviation regulator such as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.^[2]

Landing slots are allocated in accordance with guidelines set down by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Worldwide Airport Slots Group. All airports worldwide are categorized as either Level 1 (Non-Coordinated Airport), Level 2 (Schedules Facilitated Airport), or Level 3 (Coordinated Airport). At Level 2 airports, the principles governing slot allocation are less stringent; airlines periodically submit proposed schedules to the administrating authority, rather than historic performance. Participation is not mandatory, but reduces congestion and non-participants are penalized if the airport must later be designated level 3.^[2]

As of summer 2017, a total of 123 airports in the world are Level 2 airports, and 177 are Level 3 airports.^[3]

Allocated landing slots may have a commercial value and can be traded between airlines. Continental Airlines paid US$209 million for four pairs of landing slots from GB Airways at London Heathrow Airport, $52.3m each.^[4] The highest price paid for a pair of take-off and landing slots at Heathrow Airport was $75m, paid by Oman Air to Air France–KLM for a prized early morning arrival, reported in February 2016. A year before, American Airlines paid $60m to Scandinavian Airlines.^[5]

As supply is limited, slot trading became the main solution to enter Heathrow and transfers grew from 42 in 2000 to 526 in 2012 and over 10 years the average priced slot was equivalent to £4 per passenger.^[7]

If an airline does not use an allocation of slots (typically 80% usage over six months), it can lose the rights. Airlines may operate ghost or empty flights to preserve slot allocations.^[8] To avoid pollution and financial losses caused by an excessive number of empty flights, these rules have occasionally been waived during periods of temporary but widespread travel disruption, including after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and during the SARS epidemic, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic.^[9]

Level 3 coordinated airports^[3][edit]

Australia[edit]

Austria[edit]

• Innsbruck Airport (winter season only)

London Heathrow Airport Airlines

Belgium[edit]

Brazil[edit]

Cambodia[edit]

Canada[edit]

Cape Verde[edit]

Colombia[edit]

Cuba[edit]

China[edit]

Czech Republic[edit]

Denmark[edit]

Finland[edit]

France[edit]

Germany[edit]

Ghana[edit]

• Kotoka International Airport - Accra

Greece[edit]

• Chania Airport (summer season only)
• Chios Airport (summer season only)
• Corfu Airport (summer season only)
• Heraklion Airport (summer season only)
• Kalamata Airport (summer season only)
• Karpathos Island National Airport (summer season only)
• Kavala Airport (summer season only)
• Kephalonia International Airport (summer season only)
• Kithira Airport (summer season only)
• Kos Airport (summer season only)
• Mykonos Airport (summer season only)
• Mytilene Airport (summer season only)
• Patras Airport (summer season only)
• Preveza Airport (summer season only)
• Rhodes Airport (summer season only)
• Samos Airport (summer season only)
• Sitia Public Airport (summer season only)
• Skiathos Airport (summer season only)
• Thira Airport (summer season only)
• Volos Airport (summer season only)
• Zakynthos International Airport (summer season only)

Greenland[edit]

Hong Kong[edit]

Iceland[edit]

India[edit]

• Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport - Mumbai
• Indira Gandhi International Airport - Delhi
• Chennai International Airport - Chennai
• Rajiv Gandhi International Airport - Hyderabad
• Kempegowda International Airport - Bangalore

Indonesia[edit]

• Ngurah Rai International Airport - Denpasar
• Soekarno-Hatta International Airport - Jakarta

Ireland[edit]

Israel[edit]

Italy[edit]

• Lampedusa Airport (summer season only)
• Linate Airport - Milan
• Malpensa Airport - Milan
• Orio al Serio Airport - Milan
• Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (summer season only)
• Pantelleria Airport (summer season only)
• Ciampino Airport - Rome
• Fiumicino Airport - Rome

Japan[edit]

Malaysia[edit]

Mauritius[edit]

• Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport - Mauritius

Mexico[edit]

Morocco[edit]

Netherlands[edit]

New Zealand[edit]

London Heathrow Slots Online

Norway[edit]

Pakistan[edit]

Philippines[edit]

Poland[edit]

Hotels Near Heathrow London Airport

Portugal[edit]

• Faro Airport (summer season only)

Russia[edit]

• Sheremetyevo Airport - Moscow
• Vnukovo International Airport - Moscow

Saudi Arabia[edit]

Singapore[edit]

South Africa[edit]

• King Shaka International Airport - Durban
• OR Tambo International Airport - Johannesburg

South Korea[edit]

Spain[edit]

• Ibiza Airport (summer season only)
• Menorca Airport (summer season only)

Sri Lanka[edit]

Sweden[edit]

Switzerland[edit]

Taiwan[edit]

Thailand[edit]

Hilton London Heathrow Terminal 5

Norwegian London Heathrow Slots

• Suvarnabhumi Airport - Bangkok
• Don Mueang International Airport - Bangkok

Tunisia[edit]

Turkey[edit]

• Antalya Airport - Antalya (summer season only)

Ukraine[edit]

London Heathrow Slot Price

• Boryspil International Airport - Kiev

United Arab Emirates[edit]

United Kingdom[edit]

United States[edit]

• John F. Kennedy International Airport - New York City
• LaGuardia Airport (not on IATA list, but slot controlled)^[10]
• Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport - Washington, D.C. (not on IATA list, but slot controlled)^[10]

Vietnam[edit]

• Noi Bai International Airport - Hanoi
• Tan Son Nhat International Airport - Ho Chi Minh City

References[edit]

1. ^'Worldwide Slot Guidelines, 9th Edition English Version'(PDF). IATA. 1 January 2019. p. 14.
2. ^ ^abSlot Administration - U.S. Level 2 Airports
3. ^ ^ab'List of all Level 2 and Level 3 airports'. iata.org. 29 May 2018.
4. ^'Continental pays Heathrow record'. Financial Times. March 3, 2008.
5. ^'Oman breaks Heathrow record with deal for slots'. The Sunday Times. 14 February 2016.
6. ^'Heathrow Airport's slot machine: hitting the jackpot again?'. CAPA centre for aviation. 8 May 2013.
7. ^'Heathrow Airport: An introduction to Secondary Slot Trading'(PDF). Airport Coordination Limited. 30 September 2012. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016.
8. ^Green anger at 'ghost flights'
9. ^Paul Sillers (12 March 2020). 'Ghost flights: Why our skies are full of empty planes'.
10. ^ ^ab'Airport Reservation Office'. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).