Aviation Intelligence Reporter October 2021
Reform of ICAO – A Question of Time and Place
ICAO’s High Level Conference on Covid. And to Think, Some Want Reform
What Have the Bourbons Ever Done For Us?
A SAF, A SAF, My Industry for a SAF
The Unbearable Lightness of Being IATA
Code Red for Aviation
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Reform of ICAO – A Question of Time and Place
Jacques Mason, independent aviation consultant
ICAO remains entrenched in the architecture of the 1944 Chicago Convention. The world, and notably air transport, has developed in remarkable fashion over the past 77 years. But the Convention has had only a few technical changes, notably the addition of Article 3bis (non-use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight) and 83bis (transfer of certain aircraft registration responsibilities) along with a number of administrative ones, notably those raising the membership of the ICAO Council in stages from 21 to today’s 36. The most fundamental and effective action since 1944 regarding the mandate of the organisation, made outside the Convention, was the addition of safety and security audits of Contracting States, in 1999 and 2002 respectively. Prior to that, ICAO set the Standards and left it to States to implement them without assessment or redress.
ICAO’s High Level Conference on Covid. And to Think, Some Want Reform
The generous of spirit will be hoping that the ICAO High Level Conference on Covid, to be held in mid-October, is a poisoned chalice handed to the in-coming Secretary General rather than the first output of his new reign. The draft final declaration is now being circulated by way of State Letter 2021/61 (copies available on request). Oh dear.
What Have the Bourbons Ever Done For Us?
Almost now lost in the mists of time is the dispute about refunds and vouchers. Remember that one? The one where the passengers and, generally, the regulators, took the view that with services cancelled – for reasons all accept to be for extraordinary circumstances – passengers were entitled to get their money back. The airlines took a different view and were more than happy to hold onto the cash, but happy to issue IOUs to their passengers. There were other things to think about at the time, and it sort of disappeared, like the passengers’ cash, in the general chaos of the time.
A SAF, A SAF, My Industry for a SAF
On both sides of the Atlantic, there is only one language to speak when you speak of sustainability and please, do not speak soft, when you speak of it. Shout it from the rooftops. Airlines heart SAFs. Sustainable Aviation Fuels are our future: they are extremely low in retrofit or change costs, so that is good; better than that, the industry has convinced the world that Someone Else Must Pay. In Europe, the Fit for 55 package proposed mandates for the usage of SAF. That sounds bad, but the ReFuelEU initiative is looking at pouring millions of Euros into their development. Hooray! On the US side, whilst liking the thought of subsidies and free money, the airlines tartly noted that they do not need, and do not appreciate, mandates. No, the US carriers are sanguine about the future. There will be SAFs for all, they assure us. For all we talk about connectivity and the seamless universality of aviation etc, that response was in stark contrast to the European side. In Europe we accepted that this was somebody else’s problem; that subsidies would fix it; and that mandates give us cover against claims of foot-dragging.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being IATA
Chapter Four – where I try to get back to fundamentals, which are existentially complex
There is a strong argument that all organisations are fundamentally existential entities, with each department taking on a life of its own, operating in its own reality, regardless of the direction the organisation is trying to set. Maybe to get to the core of being IATA I needed to see how its various parts operated. But, I quickly realised, that was not going to work. Rather than twist themselves to fit their own reality, IATA’s parts take this a different way. Its departments – loyal troopers to a place holder – try to twist reality to match the instructions of the board and DG. That is a brave thing to do. It is, by definition changing reality in plain sight. And then, to add complexity and existential risk, sometimes, like attempting a triple twist from the 1 metre board, they do it to their own members – that has a degree of difficulty of 3.5.
Code Red for Aviation
By Chris Lyle, an international aviation policy consultant, who has been involved with climate change issues since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, when he was the Director in the ICAO Secretariat heading up policy work on the subject
The ‘code red’ alert for the climate from the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report has particular implications for aviation. Air transport’s climate-harming emissions have grown substantially from year-to-year over decades and, with the exception of 2020, they are likely to continue to do so in the absence of much more intensive and focused action to wean the sector away from its dependence on fossil fuel. If aviation is to make its requisite contribution to the Paris Agreement targets, emissions would have to be reduced by at least half from 2019 levels by 2030 and to zero by 2050. This entails reinforced mitigation policy and action, starting right now.