The photo was taken on Friday by a France Télévisions correspondent returning from Rome by plane and has been shared many times on social networks. You can see the interior of the aircraft and almost all of its empty seats. "There were only 14 passengers," said François Beaudonnet on Twitter.
#Coronavirus:
Air France flight Rome / Paris:
boarding completed
Photo: Hakim Abdelkhalek @ infofrance2 @ france2tv @franceinfo #Italie pic.twitter.com/iHhWH9EOaR
While the coronavirus paralyzes several European countries, in particular Italy and France, the airlines continue to provide connections, despite numerous travel cancellations, especially to Italy where 15 million inhabitants are confined.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the number of passengers has decreased by 24% on flights from Western Europe (Austria, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom). To cope with the crisis, Air France reduced its flight capacities by 20% for the month of March on the entire European network and by 30% for northern Italy. Easy Jet has taken similar steps. This does not prevent some planes from flying empty and spilling thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
The economic challenge of slots
Airlines are in fact subject to Community regulation 95/93 on air slots, which entered into force in 1993. The European Commission defines a slot as "authorization to land or take off on a date and at a time given in a saturated airport ”. Twice a year, in November and then in June, these slots are distributed to airlines and put back on the market according to the "used or lost slot" rule. If a company does not use at least 80% of its niche over the season, it loses it to the benefit of another company.
Each member state has its own coordinator, as does the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland. In France, it is Cohor which allocates approximately one million slots at the largest French airports since 2017. Except that "the regulation does not provide for provision when there is a sudden drop in attendance", points Eric Herbane, delegated coordinator at Cohor. According to him, a temporary amendment is necessary "at least until the end of June both to avoid flying empty planes, and to ensure the stability of slots".
For its part, the European Commission says it is working on a solution. "In the case of flights from or to China and Hong Kong, the European slot coordinators have allowed the companies to invoke a case of force majeure, which means that they will not lose their slots during the year next. In the case of the other routes, the committee is currently analyzing the impact of the coronavirus on the aviation industry. We are evaluating all the options on the table, including the possibility of modifying the regulation on slots to deal with the crisis, "said a spokesperson for the institution.
Between $ 60 billion and $ 110 billion in losses
In the past, exceptional measures had been taken to limit the losses of airlines, particularly after the September 2001 attack or during the financial crisis, as the Association of European Airport Coordinators (EUACA) recalls in a press release published on Monday. EUACA requests that the companies' "slot histories" be reprogrammed for the next season, disregarding the 80% rule.
Last Thursday, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated the potential losses for airlines linked to the coronavirus between 60 and 113 billion dollars. "In a little more than two months, the prospects for the industry in a large part of the world have become dramatic," alarmed its director Alexandre de Juniac, ex-CEO of Air France, while asking for "reductions in matters of taxation, royalties and allocation of slots ”.
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At a press conference held Monday morning, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, assured to have "intervened with the European Commissioner to ask him that the airlines can keep their air slots without having to run their planes empty in the sky ". The British Minister of Transport, Grant Shapps, had already taken the initiative last Thursday by making the same request. In 2018, airplanes emitted 918 million tonnes of CO2, or 2.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study by the International Clean Transport Council.
