The Irish budget airline Ryanair will lose several important landing and departure rights at Eindhoven Airport – which is used by many Belgians – this summer.
Ryanair was told by airport coordinator ACNL that it must surrender two so-called slots per week next summer because evening flights from Bulgaria and Italy were repeatedly late last summer.
According to ACNL director Hugo Thomassen, the airline will have to make do with approximately 60 fewer slots at Eindhoven throughout the entire summer season (out of a total of approximately 10,000 slots).
However, the airline is taking this decision to court and has also filed an appeal with the European Commission. Ryanair considers this an "unprecedented, irrational, and disproportionate decision" and says it expects the measure to be reversed after its appeal.
15 minutes or an hour
According to a Ryanair spokesperson, ACNL is penalising airlines for delays that are actually the fault of air traffic control. Additionally, the flights were only 15 minutes late – which the spokesperson says is "completely out of line" with most European airports, where the threshold is much higher and more reasonable.
ACNL clarifies that if the slot time is repeatedly exceeded, it will enter into discussions with airlines. However, at Ryanair, this "did not lead to sufficient improvements."
Additionally, the Ryanair flights were almost an hour late, and this was only partly the fault of air traffic control, according to the coordinator. Eindhoven Airport must be strict due to its strict noise regulations, they added, especially during the evenings.
