Aviation Intelligence Reporter – November 2013
No Celebration without I, C, A and O
Pot Coordination
The Social Monologues
Duelling Runways
Winners and Losers in Las Vegas
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click hereNo Celebration without I, C, A and O
Graffiti was the world’s first social media. In the good old days posting something on a wall meant exactly that. But what do you call graffiti posted in the sky? Upwardly-mobile social messaging? Whatever it is, an unidentified green group took irony by the horns and commissioned a small aircraft to fly above the ICAO building in Montreal during the triennial ICAO Assembly meeting in early October, pulling a huge banner, ‘No Procrastination without I, C, A and O’.
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Pot Coordination
Slot coordinators are the Pot Noodles of aviation. Pot Noodles are a remarkable invention. Millions of pots of noodles have been sold. But here is the mystery: they have not replaced any other products. Sales of no other foodstuff are down. They found a spot in the market without displacing any other. In much the same way, slot coordinators are now an industry – they even have a trade association – created out of gossamer air, without displacing any other part of the air transport chain.
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The Social Monologues
This year’s ATCA conference, held in Washington DC in late October, had a distinctly Dickensian ring to it – it was the best of times; it was the worst of times; the ghosts of Christmases past and future stalked the halls; and the sage Micawber advice on debt (‘Total income £20, total expenditure £19,19s,11d: result happiness; total income £20, total expenditure £20,1d: result misery’) rang around the conference.
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Duelling Runways
As so very often observed, where you stand depends on where you sit. Take those engines for growth/monopoly service providers [delete as you think appropriate] airports for example. If you take a view that airports can compete, and indeed do compete, you are in one camp. The alternative view is that airports are monolithic, monopolistic, rapacious blights on the scenery that need to be controlled. It almost seems that there is no middle ground. That is why we have regulators.
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Winners and Losers in Las Vegas
The largest business aviation convention of the year – the (US) National Business Aviation Association – rolled into Las Vegas last month. Industry hoped that this mammoth get-together of manufacturers, operators, regulators, pilots, a vast array of suppliers, and perhaps one or two customers would create a collective spark of optimism. The US economy has grown 2% in 2013 and the forecast is a sturdy 3% for 2014. Isn´t it time the business aviation sector followed suit?
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