Guidelines for the Schedules Facilitation

Guidelines for the Schedules Facilitation at Bratislava/M. R. Štefánik airport

Applicable as of June 1st, 2022.

General

Air carriers operating flights to/from Bratislava/M. R. Štefánik airport must provide information about all their planned operations to the Slot Coordination department. The deadline dates for data submission can be found in the Calendar of Coordination Activities of IATA Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines.

Air carriers must provide information regarding all additional operations (Ferry, Delivery, Demo, Technical, Training flights) in accordance with these guidelines.

The role of the Slot Coordination department is to collect data on the planned operations  and to process schedule requests and adjustments by airlines to avoid exceeding the airport´s coordination parameters

Procedure for Slot Requests

All Slot requests must be submitted to [email protected].

Slot requests must be submitted in strict compliance with IATA SSIM Chapter 6 provisions. The SCR messages will be accepted along with the appropriate SMA procedures.

Departure slots must be secured at least 60 minutes prior to operation, arrival slots must be secured prior to the aircraft departing from its point of origin.

Slot requests will be processed during the office hours only. Air carriers are therefore encouraged to submit their requests well in advance of the planned operation to ensure having their slots secured within the specified time limits. Urgent requests for flights during the out-of-office hours should be kept to a minimum and must be sent to [email protected].

Slot requests for ad hoc operations will be processed after the Historics Baseline Date for the respective IATA Scheduling Season.

Slot Tolerances

Air carriers are expected to operate exactly to the timings mutually agreed with the schedules facilitator.

Intentional off-slot operations will be considered as not respecting mutually agreed airport slots and will imply lower handling priority of such operations. Bratislava/M. R. Štefánik airport operator is not responsible for any delay that might arise in these cases.

Re-Clearing Airport Slots

a) Operational Delays

• Commercial services (passenger or freight) must not re-clear slots following on-the-day operational delays. Slot data are used to update the airport´s flight information displays and operational systems. Rescheduling a delayed passenger service will cause confusion as the new slot time will not match the ticket times.
  
  Such a service must re-clear airport slots with the facilitator following operational delay of more than 3 hours together with exceeding the date line.
• Ad hoc non-commercial services (Ferry, Delivery, Demo, Training, Technical Tests & Stops) must re-clear airport slots with the facilitator following operational delays of more than 3 hours.
  
  This does not mean that such flights may intentionally operate at a time different from the timings mutually agreed with the facilitator within this 3 hour window.

b) Early Operations

• Air carriers wishing to advance the planned time of a flight (arrival and/or departure) must re-clear airport slots.
  
  Early arrivals for operational reasons (e.g. due to unexpected winds) do not need to re-clear slots. This does not mean that flights may intentionally operate at a time different from the timings mutually agreed with the facilitator.

Flight Cancellations

All aircraft operators must notify the schedules facilitator of flight cancellations as soon as possible not to waste the scarce airport capacity. Late flight cancellations will be recorded as a slot misuse unless justified according to IATA WASG provisions.

Special operations

For the following types of operation operators must apply for a slot in advance, however these flights will not be regulated:

• State Flights (Service Type „E“)
• Diplomatic Flights (Service Type „I“)
• Military Flights (Service Type „W“)

Exemptions from Airport Slot Coordination

The following flights are exempted from airport slot coordination (slot request is not needed):

• Emergency landings and diversions
• Quick returns after take-off from Bratislava/M. R. Štefánik airport
• Humanitarian flights (Medical Emergencies, Donor Flights, Search and Rescue, Air Ambulance)
• Transport Authority flights
• Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic flights
• General Aviation and Business Aviation flights performed by A/C with MTOM of less than 4000 kg
• Training Flights of approved Flight Training Organizations (FTO)

Applicability

Slot Coordination department will apply these Guidelines as of the above mentioned date of application. Slot Coordination department reserves the right to change these Guidelines without prior notice at any time.