EU airlines seek Commission’s backing to put off transfer to troubled Milan airport

Date: 29/07/1999

By Renée Cordes

EIGHT leading airlines have called on the European Commission to stop the Italian authorities from forcing them prematurely to reroute their Milan flights to the city's overburdened new Malpensa 2000 airport.

The move by Air France, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Deutsche Lufthansa, Iberia, Olympic Airways, Sabena and Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) is just the latest in a series of troubles to have dogged Italy's showpiece millennium airport.

The airlines will present their case at a meeting with Commission officials next Monday (2 August).

Malpensa - Europe's fifth largest airport - has been at the centre of controversy since long before it opened its doors to the public last October, after Rome sealed a last-minute deal with the EU ending a five-month-long dispute.

Under the compromise deal, Italy agreed to allow 34% of flights (except those already destined to move to Malpensa) to stay at Milan's older Linate airport until road and rail links were ready and the new facility could handle the additional traffic.

"I believe in the success of Malpensa 2000," Acting Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock said at the time. "It is because I want to see it attract praise and confidence, not criticism, that I have invested so much time in urging the Italian government to find a traffic distribution system that is compatible with the law."

The airlines were recently told by Italian authorities that none of the slots for European airlines for the 1998-99 winter season and the current summer season would be reassigned at Linate after 31 October this year.

But they fear that the new facility, which has experienced massive delays from day one, is not ready to handle millions of additional passengers. They also fear that completion of the necessary road and train links is nowhere in sight.

As the clock ticks away, the eight carriers are growing increasingly anxious that, without any guarantee from Italy that they will not lose slots when they are forced to transfer to Malpensa, planning for the summer 2000 season will be difficult.

"If you divert millions of new passengers and hundreds of new (flight) frequencies to Malpensa then the airport, which is not functioning as it is, will become an absolute disaster," said a Brussels-based airline source. "This would cause great harm to airlines now forced to move."

Italian officials have also sparked anger by indicating that they will allow national carrier Alitalia to continue operating flights from Milan to Rome out of Linate. Alitalia and its partners will also be allowed to operate out of Malpensa's newest terminal, while all other European carriers will have to use the older terminal. Other airlines fear that this will give Alitalia an unfair competitive advantage.

In the ten months since it opened, Malpensa has acquired the worst punctuality record in Europe. These delays have occurred even though the new airport has two terminals, two runways and 42 gates equipped to handle 19 million passengers and 700 flights a day.