Go! Easyjet!

Easyjet are having a pop at the powers that be because Easyjet would love to get their hands on some of the presently unused slots at, inter alia, Gatwick. Major, mainly legacy, airlines are screaming foul and are asking the powers that be to suspend the rule that says that they must use their slots 80% of the time, or lose them. The present slot owners are caught between a rock and a hard place, they do not want to lose the slots beacuse they will need them when things, hopefully, pick up again so are compelled to use them flying even more empty aircraft to Cardiff and back - though at the same time, they hoped to save money by simply putting the slots on ice, pro-tem. Of course, slots at major airports are worth a lot of money - and appear as assets in most airline balance sheets. Having to sell them off cheap - worse, lose them through non-use would make a fairly sizeable hole in the already recession-ravaged aforementioned balance sheets. Easyjet have a good point, though. Why should the legacy airlines be able to hold on to them? If they cannot make money using them, let someone have them who can. Naturally, there are not too many takers at present and whereas a pair of slots at Heathrow would still cost a few bob, those at Gatwick should simply be put back in the pot. Another issue is the runway capacity saga - which will now be artificially inflated simply because slot owners are using re-cyclable slots to run empty aircraft - with all the associated environmental issues. This is all totally, mind-numbingly crazy. Legacy airlines talk about modern marketing and new business models, are supposed to seek out the wisest heads (er.., really?) to run their operations, yet when it comes down to it, they are still the same leaden, unimaginative, disaster areas that resulted in the advent of the low cost carriers in the first place!