Aviation Intelligence Reporter July 2025
The AGM Edition
The IATA AGM. New Delhi, Old IATA
ACI-Europe’s AGM: The Time is now; the Location, Ancient Greece
Swedish Regional Airports and ATM – Mama Mia
J-P Sartre Investigates: The Existential Mystery of the Missing SAF
Overtourism: Dispatches from the Frontline of the Selfie-Stick War
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The IATA AGM. New Delhi, Old IATA
To New Delhi, the next unseasonably hot location Greta Thunberg’s secret agent, Willie Walsh, took the world’s legacy airline CEOs to experience firsthand. As an added bonus, not only was it hot, the air was virtually unbreathable. One day, Walsh is going to do the big reveal, showing he is serious about climate change, but in the meantime, he must be true to his cover story, and be seen to fight the airlines’ good fight. In other words, all the usual from IATA. A state of the industry address that was more black cloud than silver lining, except for profitability, which is being upheld by low fuel prices… no, wait… SAF was discussed, geo-politics too. The amazing Indian aviation success story was also celebrated, just in time. What was interesting was the fatalism, the despair, from Walsh about aviation in Europe (and the Western world more generally).
ACI-Europe’s AGM: The Time is now; the Location, Ancient Greece
The new Transport and Tourism Commissioner for Europe, Apostalos Tzitzikostas, is Greek, so was always going to find it hard to refuse an invitation to the ACI Europe annual general meeting, which was held in Athens in late June. To be fair to him, he did not refuse an invitation to the Airlines Four Europe CEO summit, held in Brussels in May, either. One was a home event, the other an event at his home. In both cases, and in stark, stark contrast to his most recent successors, he showed up, he committed time over and above the time it takes to read a speech – he clearly understood what he was reading in both cases – and then stayed on to meet the players. So, perhaps, the difference between the two events was those industry players, not the Commissioner.
Swedish Regional Airports and ATM: Mama Mia
When it comes to delivering a single European sky, the Commission is a fork, in a world of soup. Nothing it does gets traction. Even the good things, or things that look like they are going to be good things, get subverted by the Member States. The Member States seem to have decided that ATM is the hill on which they intend dying to resist the march of an ever-closer union. Of all the hills in the all the world, they have chosen this one. It is true that ATM is invisible, so the political benefits of doing something positive are slight, but you might think that reducing emissions, improving on-time performance and lowering costs are not terrible outcomes. They might even carry some positive political capital, properly explained. But no, when faced with a chance to do something positive in the ATM area, you can depend on the Member States to throw a tantrum. If the alternatives are to do the work and to explain, or to throw a tantrum, out of the pram come the toys.
J-P Sartre Investigates: The Existential Mystery of the Missing SAF
Chapter 4
Slasher Walsh wasted no time getting out of my office. Nothing about it gives off a First Class Lounge vibe, I had to admit. But once he left, I was in the horns of a dilemma. Every time I tried to leave the office to go and deposit my retainer cheques – and I now had three to deal with, from the Commission, Big Oil and IATA – someone else showed up to offer me another one. It was tempting to pretend to be heading to the bank forever. How many more people could be looking for this mysterious SAF stuff?
Overtourism: Dispatches from the Frontline of the Selfie-Stick War
As we come into the summer season, we recommend you stock up on camo wear, ammo, bottled water and tinned food. It might also be a good time to clear out the bomb shelter. There is a battle for the very soul of Europe on now, and its name is Overtourism. You know it is serious when juggernaut short-stay rental platform Airbnb rolls its tanks onto the lawn of the regulators and openly points the finger at hotels, making the audacious claim that hotels are exacerbating overtourism by prioritising, wait for it, short-stay bookings over community needs. Is this a false flag? Or part of a sophisticated part of the modern warfare intelligence battle, whereby Airbnb has activated its crack Second Armoured Lobbyist Battalion? The extent the greatly feared Armoured Lobbyists areinvolved and how well their attack is going might become clearer when we assess the extent that Airbnb gets arial support, from the airlines.