A review of Britain's airport slots is long overdue

When passing through an airport, the average traveller is unlikely to give much thought to the invisible economic forces that run the place. But the way take-off and landing slots are allocated at an airport affects a range of things, not least ticket prices and the range of destinations you can reach. This week, the government has launched a consultation on overhauling the system under which these slots at Britain’s busiest airports are allocated. It’s about time.

In recent years, the airline industry has modernised dramatically. In its infancy, air travel was a heavily state-directed industry. Then, from the mid-1980s onwards, Britain became a pioneer in opening up the sector to market forces, an approach which was then adopted EU-wide in the early 1990s. It has been a huge success. Passenger numbers have exploded, fares have come down (even though air travel is now much more heavily taxed), and connectivity has improved hugely.