How do airlines react to slot displacements? Evidence from a major airport

Abstract

The main strategic mechanism developed by the aviation industry to manage airport capacity is IATA's Slot Allocation Process. At airports where such mechanism is in place, airlines need to be assigned slots by an independent slot coordinator to schedule their flights. The slot allocation process involves multiple steps spanning several months of negotiations between airlines and slot coordinators. The most critical step is the initial slot allocation during which the coordinators communicate to airlines whether their slot requests have been accepted or need to be displaced (i.e., moved to a different time of the day). In this article, we use logistic regression models to analyze the reactions of airlines to slot displacement decisions by coordinators and the subsequent need to change their flight schedules. We focus our analysis on Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Airport, one of the busiest worldwide. Our results indicate that even a small displacement (of less than 30 min) can decrease substantially the odds of a flight being scheduled, but that these odds vary widely with the type of airline involved, the time of the day and several other factors. This information could be used by coordinators to make initial slot allocation decisions that take into account their expected flight scheduling implications. Ultimately, this would contribute to more efficient use of the scarce capacity available at congested airports and increased responsiveness to the mobility needs of air passengers.