Aviation Intelligence Reporter March 2021
Untangling Fiction from Reality at IATA: No Easy Start for Slasher Walsh
A Journey Destined for 2050 Starts with a Few Single Steps
Call Me a Flying Taxi – Arriving When? Arriving Where?
ATM Reform: The Best Laid Plans of Wise Persons…
Tourism: Certifiably Back with a Vengeance
The State Aid House of Cards
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Untangling Fiction from Reality at IATA: No Easy Start for Slasher Walsh
JG Ballard once noted that the fictional elements of political life, little by little, completely mask the real elements. Willie Walsh should keep that in mind as he walks through the doors of IATA at the start of March as its new DG. Before coming aboard he could browse its website: www.iata.org. He must put aside the fact that it looks like it was last refreshed in about 2010. Instead, he should focus on the fiction: reality interface.
A Journey Destined for 2050 Starts with a Few Single Steps
Glider pilots know more than most about hot air. Their flights depend on it. Consultants know more than most about using buzz words. Their careers depend on it. Europe’s aviation industry knows that the Green Agenda is not going away. So its future depends on getting it right. Put all these things together and what do you get? A green strategy for the European aviation industry; written by a consultant who is also a glider pilot. Now, all it needs is a catchy title: Destination 2050. Tick. To be fair, the new European industry-wide emissions strategy ticks more boxes than just a catchy title. Green campaigners concede that it is a significant advance on earlier industry positions.
Call Me a Flying Taxi – Arriving When? Arriving Where?
Depending on who you talk to, flying taxis are either about to arrive or are a long way off. Recently, SMG Consulting produced an Advanced Air Mobility Reality Index which runs the ruler over 14 of the runners and riders in the race. It looked at five factors: funding; team; technology; certification progress; and production readiness. China’s EHang and the US’ Joby Aviation came out equal first. Underwhelmed by this was Wolfpack Research, which did a deep dive on the Nasdaq-listed EHang, and found their claims severely wanting, or as it soberly put it, ‘will crash and burn’. EHang has responded, claiming this is a deceptive political attack. This fight is likely to run and run.
ATM Reform: The Best Laid Plans of Wise Persons…
In late 2018 BCE – the before times, before Covid erupted – DG MOVE put together a group of sages to help it plot a course through a looming ATM capacity crunch. 2018 was the worst year on record and 2019 showed few signs of being any better. The Wise Persons Group, as it became known, made ten recommendations. The report was fulsomely welcomed on all sides. It was called a breakthrough in the stalled European ATM reform project. ANSPs, air space users, airports, the states themselves, unions
and regulators vowed to get behind it. The report formed the basis of the new revised SES2++ proposals from the Commission, which are very much in play now.
Tourism: Certifiably Back with a Vengeance
We look before and after, we pine for what is not, Shelley noted in Skylarks and Adonis, a book of poetry that could define 19th century tourism. He pines for Naples, visits Rome and longs to be the west wind. Now, it is not only late Romantic poets that pine for what is not, it is all of us. Tourism was 7% of global trade in 2018 and 10% of employment globally, the UNWTO tells us. It also tells us that notwithstanding the pandemic, the real
challenge is climate change. The pandemic puts over 100 million tourism jobs at risk, but it allows the industry to take stock of its impact on the environment and climate.
The State Aid House of Cards
Last month we got proof, were proof needed, that the entire edifice of a European aviation industry propped up by state aid is no more than a house of cards. The assumption has been, the assumption remains, that we should preserve the industry we have, because, well, because, it is the industry we have. No ‘argument’ put forward is more lucid, or logically sound, than that. The fear, as Hamlet so well knew, is that in the sleep of death, what dreams may come… Imagine if we woke up to find we had a
rational, competitive, strong aviation industry. That, surely, is enough to stay your hand and to work tirelessly to make sure that nothing changes. And, it goes without saying that this has to be a total team effort. DG MOVE pedalling like crazy to keep the clown car going cannot be undermined by the court talking sense. So the court was required to talk nonsense. At least, in the European General Court’s defence, it was nonsense spoken in favour of a French ruling, so it was business as usual really