1.The exercise of traffic rights shall be subject to published Community, national, regional and local operational rules relating to safety, security, the protection of the environment and the allocation of slots.
2.A Member State, after consultation with interested parties including the air carriers and airports concerned, may regulate, without discrimination among destinations inside the Community or on grounds of nationality or identity of air carriers, the distribution of air traffic between airports satisfying the following conditions:
(a)the airports serve the same city or conurbation;
(b)the airports are served by adequate transport infrastructure providing, to the extent possible, a direct connection making it possible to arrive at the airport within 90 minutes including, where necessary, on a cross-border basis;
(c)the airports are linked to one another and to the city or conurbation they serve by frequent, reliable and efficient public transport services; and
(d)the airports offer necessary services to air carriers, and do not unduly prejudice their commercial opportunities.
Any decision to regulate the distribution of air traffic between the airports concerned shall respect the principles of proportionality and transparency, and shall be based on objective criteria.
3.A Member State concerned shall inform the Commission of its intention to regulate the distribution of air traffic or to change an existing traffic distribution rule.
The Commission shall examine the application of paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Article and, within six months of receipt of the information from the Member State, and in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 25(2), shall decide whether the Member State may apply the measures.
The Commission shall publish its decision in the Official Journal of the European Union and the measures shall not be applied before the publication of the Commission's approval.
4.With respect to traffic distribution rules existing at the time of the entry into force of this Regulation, the Commission shall at the request of a Member State and may on its own initiative examine the application of paragraphs 1 and 2 and, in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 25(2), shall decide whether the Member State may continue to apply the measure.
5.The Commission shall publish its decisions made under this Article in the Official Journal of the European Union.