ALLOCATION OF AIR TRAFFIC SLOTS IN THE MILAN AIRPORT SYSTEM
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
THE COMPETITION AUTHORITY HAS REPORTED A POTENTIAL RESTRICTION ON COMPETITION IN THE MILAN AIRPORT SYSTEM TO THE MINISTER OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENAC
At its meeting on 20 February 2003, the Competition Authority resolved to submit a report to the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport and to ENAC regarding the modalities for applying the Ministerial Decree of 5 January 2001 to the allocation of air traffic slots in the Milan airport system.
This decree specifically provides that airlines may operate 'point-to-point' services between Milan's Linate airport and other European Union airports up to the volumes provided by article 1 of the Decree, calculated in terms of both the number of daily return flights using the related slots, and the passenger traffic volumes in the 1999 calendar year.
The Authority agrees with the purposes for which these rules have been introduced, and has no intention of passing judgment on the merits of the quantity thresholds set out in the aforementioned decree. But it does hope that the way the decree is applied will make it possible to attain the intended results, with the fewest restrictions possible, in compliance with the principles of competition and efficiency.
The Authority therefore deems it appropriate to point out that the construction placed on its implementation by "Assoclearance - Italian Association of Clearance and Slot Management" is likely to unjustifiedly favour certain airlines, namely, the ones belonging to corporate Groups, to the detriment of others, and therefore be in manifest violation of the case law principles of the European Community (see table). According to that interpretation, the slots are to be allocated to companies on an individual company basis, such that each airline is considered to be a single carrier by virtue of possessing the licence, even when they are members of one and the same group.
Table: number of slots allocated to Alitalia, Volare and other individual airlines, for the individual airports of Naples, Catania, Palermo and Brindisi, linked to Linate.
| Airport | AZ | EEZ | RD RD | XM | ALITALIA Group | VA | PE | VOLARE Group | VOLARETotal ALITALIA + VOLARE Groups | Air One | Meridiana | Other Airlines |
| Napoli | 4 | - | 2 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 14 | 4 | 4 | - |
| Catania | 4 | - | - | 4 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 14 | 4 | 4 | - |
| Palermo | 2 | 2 | 2 | - | 6 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 2 | 2 | - |
| Bari | 2 | - | - | - | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2 | - | - |
| Brindisi | 2 | - | - | - | 2 | 2 | - | 2 | 4 | 2 | - | - |
Source: Taken from Assoclearance data - summer 2002 data
Legend: ALITALIA (AZ); EUROFLY (EEZ); ALITALIA TEAM (RD); ALITALIA EXPRESS (XM; VOLARE (VA); AIR EUROPE (PE).
According to the Community principle of "the unity of an economic undertaking", an "undertaking" is an economic unit even though, from the legal point of view, it may formally comprise several natural or legal persons. An interpretation of the Decree consistently with that principle would require the time slots to be allocated to a Group considered as a single whole, and not to the individual companies belonging to the Group.
The Authority therefore hopes that the provisions of the Ministerial Decree of 5 January 2001 will be applied with a less narrow interpretation, in accordance with the fundamental principles of proportionality and nondiscrimination, in order to guarantee greater competition on the markets for the routes between Milan's Linate airport and airports in certain Italian regions.
Rome, 5 March 2003