Aviation Intelligence Reporter November 2023
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Multiple Views on Consolidation
New Commission, New Agenda – CANSO’s Proposals for Action
Ali versus Ali-talia: A 15 Rounder
Greenwashing: The Industry Risks Getting a Rinsing
We Do Not Lack Workers, We Lack Decent Jobs
Digital Travel, Digital Tourism
Multiple Views on Consolidation
There is a very fine line between too much competition and too little. Between too many airlines and too few. Between profitable airlines making rapacious profits and unprofitable airlines scrambling around trying desperately to stay afloat. As we discussed last month, in Australia, one airline has 65% of the domestic traffic and 90% of the profit. In the US four airlines account for about 90% of the traffic and almost all of the profit. Compare that to Europe, where the top ten airlines have about 50% of the traffic. There is much less profit to be shared around, although even Europe’s airlines are making hay while the pent-up travel/recovery travel/revenge travel boom shines.
New Commission, New Agenda – CANSO’s Proposals for Action *
Written by Tanja Grobotek, Director Europe Affairs
CANSO Europe is the voice of the air traffic management industry in Europe, and our members include the air navigation services providers from 25 EU countries. Our ambition is to define long-term solutions to challenges such as capacity demand, climate change, new airspace users and cyber-security, while maintaining safety, the industry’s number one priority. In approaching this, we work alongside aviation industry partners and European institutions on all policy and regulatory issues. As we look forward to the new European Commission assuming office in just over a year, we can see a number of issues which we would like it to address.
Ali versus Ali-talia: A 15 Rounder
There are two rules in boxing. The first one is stick and move. Throw the punch, get out of the way. The second follows on from that: don’t get hit. Very simple. Yes, boxing is brutal, but there are moments of raw beauty, too. Nothing comes close to the combination of skill, strength and brutality of a heavy-weight bout. Normally, this then has a sad coda. The damage done, the blows taken, take a heavy toll on its champions. That is normally, but not for us. No, there is only one rule in aviation: Aviation is Special. In aviation heavy-weight bouts the winner is exactly that, the winner.
Greenwashing: The Industry Risks Getting a Rinsing
The topic of greenwashing has entered the conversation around the world, and last month, it also entered The Conversation, a new generation on-line magazine, offering, it claims, academic rigour and journalistic flair. An article summarising the various anti-aviation litigations around the world makes for scary reading. And it highlights a strategy that the plaintiffs are using – suing using the ground of misleading or deceptive advertising. That is a very easy bar to clear and, generally, litigation is easy to mount. Often it can be started in consumer claims tribunals. Reuters too has noted this trend. It is no longer a niche, industry thing, but increasingly mainstream.
We Do Not Lack Workers, We Lack Decent Jobs
Speaking at the recent ECAC-EU Dialogue in Valencia, Josef Maurer, of the European Transport Workers Federation, noted that the issue with the current labour shortage crisis was not that we lacked workers, but that we lack decent jobs to offer them. There are currently 0.3 workers for each job, so there is no wonder that those who are working are stretched and tired. There are also reports of the passengers being the same, which unfortunately means that complaints of third-party violence are also up. What we need, Maurer said, is some means to blacklist those passengers across all the airlines. It seems, on reflection, remarkable that we do not have a blacklist. Add to that the glass ceiling and sticky floor that female workers face – even IATA is pessimistic about the 25 by 25 campaign – and the tendency for female workers to do many more of the lower paid jobs, the increasing use of pay-to-fly schemes and what the TWF sees as attacks on the right to strike and the situation is not all that flash.
Digital Travel, Digital Tourism
Europe has seen a nearly full recovery in tourism demand since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Numbers have returned to 95% of the 2019 figures. There are certainly pockets of Europe that have experienced slower growth due to external factors, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but on the whole, the mood is good; the summer was busy. The General Assembly of the UN World Tourism Organisation opened with laudatory and hopeful comments by UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili, saying, ‘We weathered the storm of the pandemic, and now have the opportunity to achieve the long-term transformation of the sector and leave a real legacy for global tourism’.