Aviation Intelligence Reporter – April 2018
The Charge of the Light Headed Brigade: The Ride of the Brave 868
The CANSO CEO Summit: Peak Trade Association?
The A4E at Two: Have They Nearly Mentioned Airport Charges Yet?
Clarifying IATA’s Slot in Slot Regulations, However They Develop Tourism, the Wild East and the Not-So-Wild West
Cleared for Take Off: ATCO Training
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The Charge of the Light Headed Brigade: The Ride of the Brave 868
As the drums of a trade war beat louder, you will be pleased to know that preparations for the EU’s global war on unfair competition charge forward. In March, the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) agreed on bold amendments to the draft Commission regulation on ‘safeguarding’ competition in air transport, replacing the ‘ineffective’ EC Regulation 868/2004. Next stop is the Council. TRAN believes ‘fair competition’ is a matter for air transport agreements, but in the face of unfair competition, there is a need for a ‘dissuasive’ complaints-handling instrument ‘to ensure connectivity and fair competition, thus preserving jobs in European airlines’. Not European jobs, not airline jobs in Europe, but jobs in European airlines. That is clear.
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The View From the CANSO CEO Summit: Peak Trade Association?
For more than a year CANSO has been having an SMR – a Strategic Moment of Reflection. It has been looking at its long term direction. Commendably, it has involved its members in that process with a series of interactive sessions soliciting their opinions on various questions. The questions were fine, if grammatically all over the map. The issue is the answers. As any good lawyer can tell you, never ask a question you do not already know the answer to. It turns out a sizable percentage of the world’s ANSPs are extremely conservative and resistant to change. Who knew?
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The A4E at Two: Have They Nearly Mentioned Airport Charges Yet?
Defying the odds, the group that lobbies for the tiny sub-set of Europe’s airlines’ vested interests that actually overlap, the Airlines for Europe has reached the terrible twos. As all parents know, tantrums can be expected, and on cue, they were delivered. The A4E, complete with infantile spelling, had their annual summit in Brussels in March. Like a union meeting of the Massed Under Fives demanding ice cream, now, and plenty of it, one thing completely focussed the A4E’s members: airport charges.
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Clarifying IATA’s Slot in Slot Regulations, However They Develop
In last month’s Aviation Intelligence Reporter we noted it seemed incredible that IATA, perennially campaigning to promote their Worldwide Slot Guidelines, did not intervene in the Monarch Airlines slot case, or its appeal. In the appeal, Monarch’s administrator sought to overturn a ruling that Monarch had no right to be allocated slots because it was in liquidation with no prospect of reorganisation. The appeal was won by the administrator, allowing it to treat the slots as assets.
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Tourism, the Wild East and the Not-So-Wild West
Arguably, tourism is a category error. The more popular a destination is the less popular it risks becoming. Many destinations are unrelenting in marketing their exclusivity and remoteness. The destination is then faced with the dilemma of the more tourists that arrive, the greater the strain on the sustainability of the destination. Bulgaria, both the President of the European Council and newly-minted tourist paradise – it attracted nearly 9 million tourists last year – understands this conundrum.
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Cleared for Take Off: ATCO Training
Demand for commercial flights raises unrelentingly. That puts the ANSPs under increasing pressure to improve their efficiency and reduce costs. ANSPs need to find ways to address these strains. In March, a new white paper from the ATM Policy Institute suggested that the emerging market for air traffic controller training could play a role. Traditionally, the training of ATCOs has been undertaken, in-house, by the service provider for whom they work. Often, that is not the most cost-efficient way to do so. Training facilities, and trainers, can be under-utilised. In their report, the ATM Policy Institute suggests that by outsourcing training the cost of certifying ATCOs could be reduced. A study taken in 2014 stated that outsourcing these services could save a medium-sized ANSP 14% of the €7 million it would spend each year on training.
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