LOW-COST carrier Flybe has suspended plans to take over vacant landing slots at Heathrow which it had planned to use for Scottish flights, blaming the hub's "rigid charging regime" for pricing out smaller operators.
The slots have been available since Virgin axed its Little Red domestic service in 2014, which operated direct flights from Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The move left British Airways as the only airline flying between Scotland and Heathrow.
It emerged in April that FlyBe was in talks with a view to taking over the slots, which cannot be used by BA on competition grounds, but the airline confirmed today [Mon] that it had pulled out.
FlyBe CEO, Saad Hammad, said: “A decision regarding Flybe’s start of commercial operations to and from Heathrow is now wholly dependent on the relevant stakeholders, led primarily by Heathrow. A regional airline with smaller aircraft cannot connect the UK regions viably to Heathrow without appropriate concessions and support.
“It is clear that the allocation of Heathrow slots to domestic regional operators is futile if the airport’s rigid charging regime cannot be adjusted to accommodate smaller aircraft.
"It is unreasonable to expect operators of 78-118 seat aircraft to absorb the same charges levied on carriers operating those with 850 or more."
Mr Hammad welcomed Heathrow's plans to offer a £10 per passenger discount for flights departing Heathrow to other UK airports from January 2017, but added that "this not enough".
He encouraged those involved in the talks to have "a rethink".
Slot allocation at Heathrow is controlled by an independent company, Airport Coordination Ltd (ACL), which also controls slot allocation for Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports as well as dozens of others in the UK and overseas.
It is owned by a consortium of eight UK-based airlines: BA, Virgin Atlantic, FlyBe, Monarch, Thomas Cook, Thomson, Easyjet and Jet2.
The 14 pairs of daily take-off and landing slots have been ring-fenced to serve UK domestic destinations since IAG, BA's parent company, was forced to relinquish them by UK competition watchdogs in 2012 as a condition of its bmi takeover.
The ruling also stipulated that half the slots had to be used for flights serving Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said he was "working constructively" with Flybe, but stressed the need for expansion at the hub.
He said: "A third runway would enable us to increase the number of domestic routes served, and it is for that reason that easyjet, 38 airports across Britain and chambers of commerce in each region and nation of the UK think Heathrow expansion is the right choice."
The Department for Transport confirmed last week that no decision will be taken on a new runway in the south-east until a new Prime Minister is in place.
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