Aviation Intelligence Reporter – September 2019
Heathrow’s Third Slot Machine: Who Will Get Lucky?
Airports and Airlines: Talk About Restraints of Trade
ICAO’S CORSIA: Pie in the Sky?
SUNx Malta: Climate Resilience is Vital
A Comedy of Errors
Chinese Tourism: More Mobile and More Mobile Payments
Going Postal: An Update on the IPU and ICAO Cyber Security Imbrogli
Aviation Advocacy Crossword 011 – Solution
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Heathrow’s Third Slot Machine: Who Will Get Lucky?
New runways coming on line are red-letter days for the aviation industry. So it is good that we have a number of traditions and rituals that transcend the usual quotidian parry and thrust of competition, allowing us to mark such auspicious events. We take time out, we lift our eyes to the horizon, we honour the exceptional momentousness of the occasion, and we do so in a time-honoured way. We have a huge argument about who can get access to that runway. And, fair play to us, we do that before the ribbon is cut. Before even the first sod is turned by a photo-op seeking politician armed only with a ceremonial shovel and no understanding of how to use it.
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Airports and Airlines: Talk About Restraints of Trade
You may have noticed that the Aviation Intelligence Reporter keeps banging on about a tectonic shift in competition law scrutiny, particularly in the digital market place. In May, the Commission fined Google a whopping €1.49 billion for abusive practices involving exclusive supply obligations – restraints in a vertical supply chain. In July, the EU announced that it would investigate Amazon; the US announced a sweeping antitrust review of big tech companies, including Google and Apple. In August, it was Facebook in the crosshairs of the FTC over its purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp.
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ICAO’S CORSIA: Pie in the Sky?
2016 was quite a year. We had the Brexit referendum in the UK, the election of Donald Trump in the US… and the decision to implement CORSIA by ICAO. Yes, there are commonalities! CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation), as with the Brexit vote, has generated a mindboggling administrative jungle of complexity and resource commitment without any lucid assessment of benefit. At least Brexit has only taken 3 years, so far. ICAO’s emissions mitigation mandate stretches back to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. And CORSIA has been ‘fake news’ from its inception, given the ‘R’ of Reduction. There was never any intent to reduce international aviation’s CO2 emissions through this market-based measure. The aim was ‘carbon neutral growth’, which will not be achieved, even with 100% implementation, because of various embedded exemptions. And IATA has shown that the anticipated offset costs under CORSIA will not reduce traffic growth to any extent. ICAO now admits that carbon emissions from international aviation could treble by 2045.
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SUNx Malta: Climate Resilience is Vital
SUNx Malta has been established to help bring the travel & tourism sector into the new climate economy and match the growing commitments of a wide range of Stakeholders to a carbon neutral 2050, under the 2015 Paris Agreement, with its hardening focus on a no more than 1.5°C increase by mid-century. Travel and tourism has to get into the mainstream of climate change. Aviation has to step up its leadership role and stretch its ambitions. CORSIA is a great multilateral start – in the classic IATA/ICAO ‘steady multilateral’ tradition, but it simply does not go far enough, fast enough. It was yesterday’s answer and the problem has accelerated while it was being put in place. The climate challenge has become a climate crisis, forced to the top of political agenda by visionary leaders, brave scientists and amazing young activists.
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A Comedy of Errors
Every year, Shakespearian narratives play out in aviation. This year, the fight between the Gulf carriers and their US nemeses, the big three US carriers, went up a level. It landed in the court of King Trump. But after that, who, who could have predicted the result? Sent back to face intelligent, logical judgement. It runs the risk of being rather funny. If that is not Shakespearian, nothing is. It was, in every sense of the words, The Comedy of Errors. How would the Bard himself have scripted the scenario?
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Chinese Tourism: More Mobile and More Mobile Payments
Once, when asked about the influence of the French Revolution, the late premier Zhou Enlai is reputed to have said ‘Too early to say.’ China might famously take a long view, but they have some experience of revolutions too. The western tourism industry might be about to learn of another one.
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Going Postal: An Update on the IPU and ICAO Cyber Security Imbrogli
You may recall that we recently noted the upheavals at the Universal Postal Union over the US’ notice of withdrawal over what it perceives as unfair treatment in charging relatively minimal amounts for ‘last mile’ carriage of international mail. Once a major exporter of printed material (often department store catalogues), the US is now the world’s largest importer of internet-ordered merchandise, or ‘stuff’, to give it its proper name. That withdrawal is currently scheduled for late September. States were asked to vote by mid-May on whether or not to convene an extraordinary congress – the third in 145 years, but the second in two years to attempt to resolve this impasse. The result of the poll has just been announced. The delay is because only votes sent by mail, and post-marked appropriately, were counted. Time had to be allowed for delivery. The Extraordinary Congress will be held in September and will have to decide whether or not to overhaul the UPU’s pricing scheme in a way that meets US interests. If not, the US notice of final withdrawal will be sent, presumably by registered mail.