Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), the world’s busiest cargo airport, is extending its slot-use rule waiver until October this year, superseding an earlier announced deadline of resuming the normal slot use rule by March 2022.

The Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department (CAD) said it will continue to allow airlines flying to and from the financial hub to keep their airport slots until October 29, 2022, even if they decide to cut capacity, for now, as the industry is yet to fully recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Currently, lockdown measures are also still being implemented in countries that continue to battle new strains of the coronavirus.

CAD told Asia Cargo News that it is extending the waiver it earlier implemented governing the use of airport slots through the International Air Transport Association (IATA)’s Summer 2022 season due to still ongoing restrictions related to the pandemic.

The Hong Kong Schedule Coordination Office (HKSCO), under the CAD, performs the schedule coordinator function for the HKIA and the city’s aviation regulator said the HKSCO adopts and maintains a “neutral, transparent and non-discriminatory slot allocation mechanism in accordance with the Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines (WASG) and applicable local guidelines.”

This is to ensure the efficient utilization of existing airport infrastructure and meet the demand as far as possible, it added.

“The HKSCO has also been closely monitoring the impact of Covid-19 on slot usage of airline operators at the HKIA,” CAD said in a statement to Asia Cargo News.

“In consideration of the latest Covid-19 situation and to facilitate planning by airline operators, the HKSCO has informed airline operators at HKIA that the waiver on the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ slot usage requirement will continue to be applied at HKIA for the Summer 2022 IATA season,” the Hong Kong aviation regulator added.

The IATA Summer season is from March 28, 2022, to October 29, 2022.

The World Airlines and Suppliers Guide (WASG)’s use-it-or-lose-it rule stipulates that “historic precedence” is only granted for a series of slots if the airline operator can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the coordinator that the series was operated at least 80% of the time during the period allocated in the previous equivalent airline season.

Hong Kong earlier extended the same slot-use rule waiver in the IATA Winter season 2021 from October 31, 2021, to March 26, 2022, citing the continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the aviation industry.

The Hong Kong aviation regulator first waived the slot-use rule for the Winter 2020 season and for both the Winter 2019 season (October 27, 2019, to March 28, 2020) as weak demand continued to grip the airport. It has since been extended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Although airlines have started adding capacity and passengers on some routes, some parts of the world continue to implement lockdown measures and tight restrictions due to Covid-19, including China and Hong Kong.

The continuing disruptions in shipping and the recent breakout of the Russia-Ukraine war are also adding more uncertainty to the pace of aviation recovery.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also earlier announced that it is extending its temporary slot waiver protection for international flights at several major U.S. airports during the northern summer 2022 season due to the “evolving and highly unpredictable situation globally with respect to ongoing impacts from Covid-19.”

This means that carriers will be allowed to cut back their international schedules at these airports without losing their slots.

The latest ruling means that waivers for international flights will remain in place for the summer season – through October 29 – at New York John F. Kennedy (JFK), New York LaGuardia (LGA), and Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA). The FAA also extended the relief at Chicago O’Hare, Los Angeles, Newark, and San Francisco.

“Based on global vaccination rates, changing infection rates and the threat of new virus strains, continued unpredictability of travel restrictions, and the disparity between demand for domestic air travel and demand for international air travel, extending the current limited, conditional waiver for international operations by all carriers, is reasonable,” the FAA said.

Meanwhile, the European Commission announced on December 15 that its modified slot relief rules for airlines were also extended.

“The Commission adopted an extension to the slot relief rules of the 2022 summer scheduling season, running from March 28, 2022, until October 29, 2022,” the commission said.

“Instead of the normal requirement to use at least 80% of a given slot series, airlines will only have to use 64% to retain historic rights in those slots during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” it added, noting that while air traffic has not yet fully recovered to 2019 levels, it reached levels above 70% in the second half of the summer 2021 scheduling season.

The commission noted that traffic forecast estimates that annual air traffic in 2022 will be 89% of 2019 levels.

By Charlee C. Delavin

Asia Cargo News | Hong Kong