Monday
Feeling positive today despite the setback of being told in court that we can’t sell Monarch’s Gatwick slots for millions of pounds. This is clearly the wrong decision. Why shouldn’t we be allowed to sell things that the company we’re representing never owned, to someone else who won’t own them either, even after they’ve bought them from us? It’s obvious.
Tuesday
Woke up feeling troubled. I thought I’d got my head round the slot allocation thing but in my dreams I keep seeing cartoon aeroplanes queuing outside the locked gates of a crowded airport, begging to be given a chance to fly, while inside on the runway big old cigar-smoking jumbos are parked in front of the terminal waiting to take off (half empty), for the daily hop to Paris. “Use it or lose it!” they all shout as each plane takes off. Made myself a strong coffee and sat down to read the House of Commons’ Airport Slots briefing paper for the 11th time since Monarch stopped trading. Reminded myself this document was written as the definitive idiot’s guide to help MPs understand slot allocation rules.
Wednesday
Feeling much better now. Spent all day yesterday beefing up on the slot allocation process then practised my explanation on my six-year-old nephew:
“OK little Johnny, this is how it works.” I took a deep breath.
“Slots are allocated by Airport Coordination Ltd, twice a year, for the summer season and the winter season at coordinated airports. ‘Grandfather rights’ entitle an airline to continue using the same slot in the next scheduling period, provided that it has used that slot for at least 80% of the previous period. Once grandfathered slots are accounted for, the remaining slots are pooled and ‘new entrant’ airlines have priority access to 50% of these slots free of charge.”
Johnny: “Is Monarch the Grandfather?”
“Er, sort of”.
“But isn’t Grandfather dead? How can he continue using something after he’s dead? Shouldn’t his slots go to new entrants?”
I love little Johnny but I wish he’d stay out of things he doesn’t understand!
Thursday
I can hardly believe it… we won the appeal! The new judge disagreed with the old judge so now we’re free to sell the slots to the highest bidder. Rang Johnny to tell him he was wrong but he’d already gone to school.
Friday
Good grief! I’ve just been told that Oman Air set a record by paying $75 million for a pair of take-off and landing slots at Heathrow in early 2016… and Scandinavian Airlines sold two pairs at Heathrow to American Airlines for the same amount in March 2017. Sent Johnny a WhatsApp. Asked him to price up six mid-morning Gatwick-Palma slots.
Derek Jones is chief executive UK of Der Touristik
