Aviation Intelligence Reporter December 2022 – January 2023
The Build Back Better Edition
The 41st Assembly of ICAO: A European perspective
building back better: a poem nearly by e.e. cummings
Is IATA Building Back Better? For Some
A SAF Bet
Low Level Airspace: The New Wild West
Cargo Regulation: The Cargo Airlines Have Had a Belly-Full
Strict Sustainability Mandates Are Easier to Undermine
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The 41st Assembly of ICAO: A European perspective
By Henrik HOLOLEI, Director-General for Mobility and Transport at the European Commission*
The 41st Assembly of the International Civil Organisation marked my fifth Assembly, and it was certainly my most memorable one! From a European perspective, we had two key political objectives heading to Montréal: to secure a long-term aspirational goal for global civil aviation and to remove Russia, a country that blatantly violates the Chicago Convention, from the ICAO Council. I can proudly say that we successfully achieved both objectives. However, it certainly was not an easy feat and required extensive coordination and outreach with global partners in the weeks and months before the assembly. Let me explain why achieving these two objectives was so important for the EU and for me personally.
building back better: a poem nearly by e.e. cummings
Is IATA Building Back Better? For Some
Something is going on at IATA. Normally, or perhaps better put, historically, to measure change at IATA it was a good idea to line it up against something immobile; a post say, a mountain, ICAO, and see if there was discernible movement. It sat there, omnipresent, and at least in its own mind, omniscient. More importantly, it sat there independently wealthy. No other trade association could hope to match its reach, its clout and its resources. IATA was formed at the dawn of modern aviation, by act of parliament no less, and given a formal role in fare setting. It segued that into immunity not only for agreeing fares but for dealing with the distribution of tickets and operations more generally: from a common system of airport codes to standard bag tags.
A SAF Bet
At this point in the discussion of global warming and our hitherto collective human response, it feels like every article about the dire state of global warming should be read by that movie trailer guy from the late 90s. ‘In a world under threat; in a world where the only solution is change; in a world where every second counts, we are entrusting the survival of our planet to a bunch of fossil industry capitalists…’
Low Level Airspace: The New Wild West
If you want a glimpse of aviation’s future, it is worth visiting the Aircraft Directory pages of the Vertical Flight Society’s website. There, you will find over 750 low-level airspace programmes under development around the world, from hover bikes and personal transports (107 programmes) to vectored thrust (252 programmes), from wingless vehicles (210) and lift & cruise flying machines (132) to rotorcraft (51). Most of the start-ups behind these companies have great websites and ambitious plans to see their strange looking vehicles in service within the next three or four years.
Cargo Regulation: The Cargo Airlines Have Had a Belly-Full
In March 2020, as Covid-19 spread world-wide, Governments imposed quarantine and other limitations on passenger flows to contain the pandemic. Passenger airlines had no choice but to ground their fleets. Overlooked was that passenger airlines carry 45% of global air cargo volumes in their belly-holds. That capacity vanished overnight, at a time when air cargo was vital to supply necessary equipment and medicine.
Strict Sustainability Mandates Are Easier to Undermine
There is an old saying in the law that when the law is on your side, quote the law. When the facts are on your side, quote the facts. When neither are on your side, bang the table. Our old friends at the Europeans Four Fair Competition might need to hightail it down to an IKEA soon for a new table. They must be pretty good at putting pre-prepared kits together because this shameless Astroturf organisation takes pre-cooked pre-processed, pre-kindergarten ideas from their American role model. If only they were also prehensile.
