Aviation Intelligence Reporter – May 2012
Regular guy wants more regulation
Deconstructing the Airlines
State Aid and ‘Marketing Support’: Theirs Bad, Ours Good
If not State Aid, what about Subsidies?
The AEA: Absent Executive Authority-figure
Business aviation has a big ETS omission
What did you say? Commission to consult on noise
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click hereRegular guy wants more regulation
Regulation is back in the news. Even Rupert Murdoch, speaking at the Leveson inquiry in London got in on the act. Yes, he conceded, there is a need for regulation of the press. Stop the Presses! When the toughest, wiliest stager in the business concedes that there is a place for regulation, who are we to quibble? Well, the air transport industry, obviously. Quibbling about regulation is what we do.
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Deconstructing the Airlines
’There is nothing outside the text,’ observed Jacques Derrida, the father of the literary theory Deconstructionism. Judging by two recent legal opinions on passenger rights from the European Court of Justice and a recent resolution of the European Parliament, we are all Derrida-ist literary theorists now – if not always literate. The text is everything.
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State Aid and ‘Marketing Support’: Theirs Bad, Ours Good
Some want the government to go away, a-la Mr Anderson from Delta, but all agree it would be nice if they leave their wallet behind when they go. Everybody hates market distorting payments from governments to competitors, but marketing support and other such payments to our airline are obviously perfectly appropriate. One tranche of State Aid is fine, clearly.
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If not State Aid, what about Subsidies?
Perhaps the AEA was distracted by the fight it is having with the Gulf carriers about subsidies it alleges they receive, distorting the market. The market must be distorted, they argue: just look at their levels of commercial success. Putting that another way: this is obviously distorted, unhealthy, competition, because we are losing.
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The AEA: Absent Executive Authority-figure
Further proof of the airlines’ inability to present a coherent front is the Association of European Airlines’ so-far futile attempt to find a new director general. They have been searching for more than six months. Having hired a little-known search firm with no experience in the aviation field, the AEA executive committee then said absolutely ‘No’ to the search firm’s first candidate. Three subsequent choices offered the position took a close look and turned it down.
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Business aviation has a big ETS omission
Europe’s major trading partners are up in arms at the EU’s temerity in passing ETS unilaterally. Airlines around the world fear a trade war. Brussels is not for turning even as the jaw-jaw threatens a trade war-war. But their business aviation counterparts have been comparatively quiet.
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What did you say? Commission to consult on noise
In what must be one of the lowest key moves for some time, even if it was perhaps appropriate, the Commission has quietly announced that it is to move on to the next part of its airport package: noise. Few things get people worked up like airport noise, so presumably the tactic here is to make as little noise as possible and not draw attention to the issue.
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