Aviation Intelligence Reporter September 2020
The Unbearable Inequality of Bailouts
Being the Reform We Need to See
Airlines and ANSPs Both Want RP3 to be a Step Back to the Past
The Number Comes Up for Digital Transport
Covid and Tourism: Small Enterprises; Big Impact
CRS Regulation: Reform or Totally New Approach?
Aviation Advocacy Crossword 012 – Solution
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The Unbearable Inequality of Bailouts
This year, the world’s airlines have trousered about $180 billion of aid. Some, not much, has come from the generosity of airports and ANSPs, directed by their owners – need it be said, states – holding a gun to their heads, to give the airlines fee holidays. They complied with all possible bad grace. But aside from small contributions from parts of the aviation eco-system hurting no less than the airlines, the money has gone directly from taxpayers to airlines. Some of the aid was given early, when there was no understanding of how or when the crisis would end. But, remarkably, much of it has been given even as the industry’s own prediction for a recovery is 2024 at the earliest.
Being the Reform We Need to See
As Mahatma Ghandi would have advised, change comes from within. Attributed with saying ‘Be the change you wish to see…’ in fact he said ‘If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.’ No-one but us will demand that the industry change; we will have to do the reform ourselves. But to do that we will need to see through the self-interest of incumbents and have a clear vision of the aviation industry we wish to see. We need to question the status quo. The virus did not cause the current carnage; it merely accelerated its arrival.
Airlines and ANSPs Both Want RP3 to be a Step Back to the Past
At the coal face of hard grinding regulatory change, DG MOVE has consulted on what changes to make to the Single European Sky Reference Period 3, or RP3 as it is lovingly known, in light of the pandemic. Back in those BCE days of late last year, those days before Covid erupted, the Performance Review Board was busying itself getting ready to monitor the targets it had set for RP3 – 2020-2025 for those following along at home – requiring ANSPs to reduce their charges, and meet various performance targets. Moot now, of course. It is right and proper that DG MOVE consult on a suitable way forward. It proposes a revised performance target for 2020-21 to be set retrospectively in 2021; new KPIs to be set at the Union level to measure en-route performance for 2020-2021 and an extension of the carry-over provisions from 5 years to 7 years.
The Number Comes Up for Digital Transport
At another part of the hard grind regulatory change coal face, DG MOVE is trying to bring together a complex set of agenda – the green agenda, the digitalisation agenda and the Covid recovery agenda. To get all that down to one consultation is quite a feat. The green and the digitalisation agenda were already on the work programme for this Commission. The post-pandemic recovery bit a necessary bolt-on. Digital and green transport both sound like oxymorons, so in the great consultation tradition they have been renamed. Not green: sustainable. Not digital: smart. Sustainable, smart transport sounds much better. As to the pandemic, we are looking for a ‘resilient and crisis-proof transport system’. Put that together and you are well on your way to a perfect consultation document. It is open until late September.
Covid and Tourism: Small Enterprises; Big Impact
The economic brutality of Covid-19 has been felt in every strata of every industry. Its impact on tourism is, however, worth a closer look. Tourism spans from huge organisations such as airlines and hotel chains to small and medium-sized enterprises. The smaller end of these small businesses – micro-enterprises and individuals – are vital to the smooth operation of tourism but can easily be overlooked, in spite of the catastrophic financial impact that the pandemic may have on them. And in spite of the impact it will have when tourism restarts should they have disappeared in the interim.
CRS Regulation: Reform or Totally New Approach?
Back once more at the regulatory hard grind coal face, DG MOVE is also looking at reform of the CRS Code of Conduct. You may recall this code. It has practically been around since the invention of the computer and has been wheeled out by regulators to address a number of different sins over the years. It was the go-to regulatory device for airlines abusing their market power over travel agents by biasing displays. Then, it was used for working out how to resolve issues between airlines and travel agents more generally. Then it was about the injury agents could do to the airlines. At various points of time, IATA’s hydra-headed NDC initiative has been called into question both by those opposing reform of the Code of Conduct and those demanding it. Over the thirty of so years of its existence, the CRS Code of Conduct has been the font of all trouble/last resort of the rogue [insert preferred term here]. The good news is that it is not dead yet – no, it is back for yet another encore. And, yet again, NDC is involved.