Aviation Intelligence Reporter – July 2017

The IATA AGM – Zigging Not Zagging; Canning Not Cúnning
The ACI Europe AGM: The Connectivity of Three Star Splendour
The CANSO AGM: To Canso or Not Canso? That is the Question
Grab your Partner Airline for the Trade Association Square Dance
Connectivity: Birds do it, Bees do it, Even Airlines and Airports do it…
Eurocontrol’s New DG: David 1; Goliaths Nil



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The IATA AGM – Zigging Not Zagging; Canning Not Cúnning

To Mexico for the next instalment in the ‘Austerity AGM’ series that has so gripped the legacy airline industry. After Miami and Dublin, the austerity caravan rolled into Cancún. Although, according to the IATA Communications team, it did much, much more than merely that. This is so much more than a mere trade association AGM. Oh no. According to IATA ‘the capital of air transportation’ shifted to Cancún for the duration of the IATA AGM. Where it is normally was not disclosed. Did the earth move for you? Not that it felt all that central. It was the noises off that gathered all the attention.

The ACI Europe AGM: The Connectivity of Three Star Splendour

In June 2016, airports were threatened by austerity; the risk of Greece being forced out of the EU; and the ramifications of a banking system collapse. Last year’s ACI Europe AGM could talk of little else. Then came Brexit. Then President Trump. Austerity and existential threats to EU banking systems are so last year. For airports, connectivity is now the word. In a time of economic nationalism, laptop bans and overflight as a trade embargo, the word has become that much more important. Connectivity is the hallmark of globalisation – both its means and end. Luckily, the Virtuous Circle of Connectivity was squared in early June in post-revolutionary Parisian-style at Salle Wagram near the Arc de Triomphe at the ACI-Europe AGM.

The CANSO AGM: To Canso or Not Canso? That is the Question

There are some famous questions. To be or not to be? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Was CANSO’s 2017 AGM so introspective because it included a visit to Elsinore Castle, or was the visit to Hamlet’s gaff the inevitable result of the theme of a meeting that asked some fundamental questions about its very being?

Grab your Partner Airline for the Trade Association Square Dance

Still the changes ring out over the European airline trade association landscape. The formation of the ill-thought through, derivatively named and poorly spelt Airlines for Europe, or A4E, as it pathetically wants you to think of it, was the start, not the end, of the changes. Very predictably, the A4E format has already started to bump against its self-imposed buffers, unable to talk about the things that divide them. The things that divide its members are at least as numerous as the things that bind them. Rather than that which divided them making them stronger, the original pious hope, it appears to have made them unstable. Brexit did not help either. You may recall that full membership is restricted to airlines that are from EU member states.

Connectivity: Birds do it, Bees do it, Even Airlines and Airports do it…

Who does not love a bit of connectivity? It is the word of the year. Wrap your proposals in the connectivity flag and it is almost certain to be a winner. The Commission has slapped the C word on almost every page of the package of measures it has just announced to implement its Aviation Strategy, which was in turn launched late last year.

Eurocontrol’s New DG: David 1; Goliaths Nil

There has been an outbreak of meritocracy in Brussels. For the first time in its 51 year history, come January next year, the DG of Eurocontrol will not come from one of the big four European states of France, Germany, Spain or the UK. Ireland’s Eamonn Brennan has been selected to be the next DG. Hours could be spent harmlessly speculating on the impact introducing secret voting had on the outcome. In any event Eurocontrol’s Council members voted in a series of four rounds away from prying eyes and instructions from their capital on whom to support. Pre-match favourite, France’s Maurice Georges, was eliminated in the first round, to general surprise.