The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) uses runway slots to limit scheduled air traffic at certain capacity constrained airports. In the U.S., those airports are John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), LaGuardia Airport (LGA), and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). In addition, the FAA monitors scheduled air traffic demand at other airports and has a formal schedule review and approval process at several airports. Those airports are Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), and San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
At EWR, JFK, LAX, ORD, and SFO, the FAA generally follows the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Worldwide Slot Guides (WSG) to the extent they do not conflict with U.S. laws, rules, or procedures. WSG is a set of standards and best practices developed by IATA Member airlines along with the airport coordinator and facilitator communities. These guidelines are a comprehensive set of procedures for the allocation and management of slot administration. The principal users of these guidelines are airlines, airport coordinators and airport facilitators. The Calendar of Coordination Activities specifies the deadline dates of the facilitation process to be followed by airlines and facilitators. See the current IATA Calendar of Coordination Activities(PDF). [1]
Carriers may contact the Slot Administration Office in the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) at the FAA for more information about operations at slot-controlled or schedule-facilitated airports: 7-awa-slotadmin@faa.gov.
The Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines (WASG), provide the industry with a single set of guidelines for airport slot management and allocation. The slot planning process is the essential back bone to allow the industry to plan operations to the world’s most congested airports, avoiding what would otherwise be chaos.
Heathrow Landing Slots Allocation
The Worldwide Airport Slot Board (WASB) has provided industry recommendations to ensure best practice approaches for slot coordination, airport capacity and slot allocation management throughout the crisis. We strongly encourage all global slot coordinators, airports and airlines to adopt these to ensure consistent slot coordination and management. Slot Allocation In light of the growing problem of capacity constraints at airports and in airspace, which are becoming an increasing challenge to the continued growth of air transport, the ICAO Secretariat undertook and completed a study on the allocation of flight departure. WSG is a set of standards and best practices developed by IATA Member airlines along with the airport coordinator and facilitator communities. These guidelines are a comprehensive set of procedures for the allocation and management of slot administration. The allocation of the slot pool is done according to priorities fixed by Circular n°2399 and IATA rules. SAL distribution After the initial coordination, a SAL message is sent to each airline in standard format showing the slots allocated vs the slots requested and the reasons for the changes if any.
1 The FAA publishes notice of the initial submission deadline for each scheduling season in the Federal Register. The FAA rules and orders include additional information on slot return dates and historic slot determination at U.S. Level 3 airports.
This page was originally published at: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/systemops/perf_analysis/slot_administration/
Slot Allocation
