The EU’s top transport official has signalled she will not bend Europe’s laws to help IAG, the Anglo-Spanish airline group that risks falling foul of post-Brexit ownership rules, if the UK crashes out of the bloc without a deal. Violeta Bulc, EU transport commissioner, said that there was no reason for airlines to be caught out by a hard Brexit, since they have had fair warning to make sure their corporate arrangements fit EU rules. These stipulate that European carriers must be more than 50% EU-owned and controlled. Some companies — including IAG, which owns British Airways — have yet to ensure they will reach the threshold after Brexit, when UK nationals will no longer count towards the tally. Those who fail to do so would risk losing their EU operating rights. The risk of a hard Brexit “has been known since the first day the British people voted to exit . . . We’ve been asking everyone to take it seriously and to prepare for different scenarios,” Bulc said. “If there is no deal [between the EU and UK], I don’t need to point out which side the EU will be on,” she said. “It’s Spain that we will have in mind.” Bulc gave no further details, but her spokesman later said that in the case of “conflicting interests” after Brexit, the transport commissioner would help EU authorities to bring European airlines’ “ownership and control structures in line with EU law”.<br/>
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A motion filed by American Airlines with the US DoT that would alter how airlines schedule their routes to Cuba has generated backlash from rivals Southwest and JetBlue. In a Sept. 28 filing with the DOT, American requested the removal of US gateway conditions that apply to all US-Cuba frequencies and prevent carriers from switching route allocations between US cities to match demand. American wrote in the filing that the request, if granted, would allow the airline to transfer its Havana (HAV)-bound route from Charlotte, North Carolina (CLT) to Miami (MIA), where it already operates five daily flights to the island nation. Since the reintroduction of scheduled service to Cuba in early 2016, DOT has allocated a maximum of 20 daily roundtrip flights for US-based carriers to Havana, which can only be flown from the specific cities awarded by the Department. If a carrier wishes to transfer a route allocation, it must return its frequency to the DOT, and then compete to earn it back during a lengthy bidding process. American is hoping to avoid those frequency allocation proceedings, which can drag on for months or years, and during which time the frequencies at issue remain unused. Moreover, there is no guarantee that American would succeed if it were to return its frequency to the DOT, as other competitors could swoop in and take the route for themselves.<br/>