Part 2: Air traffic Section 12: Airport slot allocation
Section 12 amends retained Council Regulation (EEC) No 95/93 of 18 January 1993 on common rules for the allocation of slots at United Kingdom airports ("Regulation 95/93"). Subsection (2) inserts a new Article 10aa, which provides the Secretary of State with a power to make regulations to amend or modify Regulation 95/93 or the Airports Slot Allocation Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/2665) and to make provision about the allocation of airport slots to air carriers in respect of specified periods. These powers are exercisable until 24 August 2024 and may not be exercised in respect of a scheduling period after Winter 2024/25; and only if the Secretary of State considers that as a result of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 there has been a reduction in the level of air traffic compared to the corresponding period in a relevant previous year and the reduction is likely to persist.
	The power to amend Regulation 95/93 or the Airports Slot Allocation Regulations 2006 is a general power to amend those enactments to make provision about the allocation of airport slots in respect of specified periods. It may, in particular, be used to make provision about: requiring slot coordinators to consider slots allocated as having been operated by the carrier to which they were allocated (subject to any conditions which may be specified); to modify the percentages referred to in Articles 8(2), 10(2) and (4) and 14(6) of Regulation 95/93 (again subject to any conditions which may be specified); to add to the reasons for which non-utilisation of slots can be justified; to give the slot coordinator powers to withdraw slots from an air carrier for the remainder of a scheduling period, where the coordinator has determined that the air carrier has ceased its operations at the airport concerned; making provision for enforcement including modifying Article 14 of Regulation 95/93 or regulations 14 to 19 of the Airports Slot Allocation Regulations 2006; modifying any provision of Regulation 95/93 relating to the allocation of slots to new entrants (including modifying the definition of new entrant) and making provision relating to co-ordination parameters.
	Subsection (3) amends Article 13 of Regulation 95/93, to provide that regulations made by the Secretary of State under the new Article 10aa are subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament.