Aviation Intelligence Reporter
December 2021 – January 2022
The Bumper Winter Edition
Sustainable Aviation: Sustainable Taxes and Sustainable Fares?
Charge(s)! Knights-Errant Airlines Attack Airport Windmills
ICAO Reform: It is not Just About the Council
Let’s Talk About SAFs, Baby
The Unbearable Lightness of Being IATA
UAM: Tough Times for Investors; Fascinating Times for Engineers
An ICAO for Space?
Creep
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Sustainable Aviation: Sustainable Taxes and Sustainable Fares?
Whisper it, but there is a growing acceptance amongst airline CEOs that airfares will rise as a result of the use of sustainable aviation fuel. Speaking at the Eurocontrol’s Aviation Sustainability Summit in late November (full disclosure: Aviation Advocacy was involved) Willie Walsh, the DG of IATA, conceded that SAFs will mean that airfares will inevitably rise. This has been the elephant in the room for some time so the acknowledgement is welcome. Walsh was supported by not one, not two, but three low cost carrier CEOs as well, in what must be an industry first. Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, easyJet’s Johan Lundgren and Wizz’s József Váradi all acknowledged that SAF’s will increase their costs. As interesting as that is in itself, it was after that, that things got interesting.
Charge(s)! Knights-Errant Airlines Attack Airport Windmills
Regular readers of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter know that we often turn to literature to help make sense of modern aviation. Is it the fact that something like aviation was so fantastical then that only through that prism can we make sense of it now? That is one theory. Or maybe the metaphors just work better. Take, for example, the current Quixotic campaign from the airlines concerning airport and ANSP charges. It is near to impossible to not think of windmill tilting when one considers it. The windmills stand there, implacable, gently turning their sails in response to the elements, but to the airlines, they are dragons that must be attacked. What else can a knight-errant do?
ICAO Reform: It is not Just About the Council
By Jacques Mason, independent aviation consultant
It may be true that a fish rots from the head. It is certainly true that the issues that ICAO faces do not start and stop with the Council. The Council’s official role is to endorse the work done by the various commissions and bureaux of the organisation. As succinctly set out by ICAO itself, ‘ICAO’s Air Navigation Commission considers and recommends SARPs and Procedures for Air Navigation Services for adoption or approval by the ICAO Council’. That sounds pretty clear.
Let’s Talk About SAFs, Baby
DG MOVE is going long SAFs. It sees SAFs as the only short-term, maybe medium-term solution that will get the rest of the Commission off its back, and Fit for 55. But from a read of the 173 page communication (COM2020/561) on the implementation of the SAF requirements, perhaps the best advice is to go long on tanker trucks. There will need to be a lot of SAFs on the road, to get the planes into the sky. The Commission is proposing a Union-wide consistent approach, rather than leaving it up to the member states to make it even more confusing – which would be racing certainty.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being IATA
Chapter Six: I start to write my report
IATA would lead with a statement on Net Zero and take a few swings at the airports and ANSPs at their AGM. That felt like a good day’s work. I went back to my office. I got into this caper to try to make sense of the unsensible, to find meaning in the weirdness of life. IATA was a tough case. It ought to make sense. And yet…
UAM: Tough Times for Investors; Fascinating Times for Engineers
It’s an old adage but a good one: how do you become a millionaire in the aviation industry? You start with a billion and buy an airline. But aviation looks like an absolute steal compared to urban air mobility (UAM). As CleanTechnica’s Michael Barnard wrote recently, UAM company stocks have lost over $16 billion in 2021. ‘At peak in 2021, the stocks, including Vertical’s SPAC, were worth $27.92 billion,’ he wrote. ‘As of close of North American markets on November 23rd, 2021, they are worth $11.82 billion, if you assume Vertical’s $2.2 billion stands up, which is a bad assumption. If that SPAC goes forward, I would expect it to be under $1 billion.’ He has a single message for investors: ‘If you are an urban planner or policy maker engaged with UAM, be aware that the bloom is distinctly off this rose, cut your losses, and pivot to regional air mobility.’
An ICAO for Space?
In mid-November, Russia conducted an anti-satellite (ASAT) test, which, depending on your perspective, went either terrifically or horribly. The event purportedly imperilled the International Space Station and received strong international condemnation, although Russia has disputed that the ISS was in danger. Unsurprisingly, Russia celebrated the test as a huge success. The test produced around 1500 pieces of trackable debris in an orbit very near the current and planned mega-constellations – Starlink of Elon Musk, Kuiper championed by Amazon and Jeff Bezos and OneWeb – feeding speculation that this was an effort to prevent Americans and other western States from gaining a first-mover advantage in space. A more plausible explanation is that Russia actually missed its target, or putting it another way, intended a very close fly-by but got too close.
Creep
With apologies to Radiohead
Few modern songs seem to have been covered, in more styles, than Radiohead’s first big hit, Creep. There is a big band version, a rockabilly version, a version imagining James Brown had sung it and even the artist formerly known as Prince did a version. There are many more variations available to those keen to search. In any event, it seems appropriate that Aviation Advocacy too does a version.