Aviation Intelligence Reporter – February 2020
The Parable of the Burning Bush
Europe’s Green Deal: Nowhere to Run; Nowhere to Hide
Passenger Rights and Passenger Wrongs
Package Headaches
ICAO’s Whistle-Blower Blowing in the Wind
Aviation Emissions at Altitude: Faster; Higher; Stronger
Aviation Intelligence Reporter’s Very Own Maverick Maverick Awards
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The Parable of the Burning Bush
According to the book of Exodus, God chose a burning bush to get Moses’ attention. Once obtained, Moses was instructed to lead his people out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. In Australia this southern summer, another religious man, the Australian prime minister, took the instruction to mean something different. He tried as hard as he could to ignore the burning bush – all 10 million hectares of it – and offered his thoughts and prayers to those affected. Initially, those thoughts and prayers were beamed in from Hawaii, where Mr Morrison, a devout Pentecostal Christian, was holidaying. He was very clear. The fires, sparked at the end of the hottest year in Australia’s history, which in turn was the fifth consecutive hottest year on record, had nothing to do with global warming. This is not a climate crisis, it is a climate debate.
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Europe’s Green Deal: Nowhere to Run; Nowhere to Hide
As it starts its five year mandate, every new European Commission needs a focus. There can be no mistaking this new Commission’s focus – it is the European Green Deal. Europe is to be carbon neutral by 2050. In all the talk of the rise of populism and Brexit, the swing to green parties was overlooked. And, Brexit further changes the European Parliament’s balance of power in favour of the Greens. The European Green Deal, proposed by new Commission President, Ursula van der Leyen, was accepted overwhelmingly by the Parliament. It is not without ramification for the aviation industry. Indeed the transport sector generally is highlighted as one of the four main sectors which will need the most transformation; after energy, buildings and industry.
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Passenger Rights and Passenger Wrongs
If you go to visit the office of the DG of DG MOVE, Henrik Hololei, as airline CEOs and other dignitaries of course do, you cannot help but notice that as you walk into the building there is a large bin of bright yellow bag tags and a sign advising you to help yourself. A bag tag is always useful, so many do help themselves. One side has the usual spaces for names and contact details. The other, a message that you have enforceable rights in the event of a delay or cancellation. In a single free bag tag there is a metaphor for the relationship between the airlines and the Commission on this very vexing topic. Airlines want to visit the DG to discuss what is wrong; the Commission, all it can to make passengers aware. But, given how few actual passengers pass this bin of tags, it is going to take a fair time to get the message out. Call it an honourable draw.
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Package Headaches
Thomas Cook, founded in 1841, invented package holidays. It developed into a package holidays purveyor to destinations across Europe, America, Africa and the Middle East as a globalisation-née-colonialism wunderkinder. But, sadly, in September of last year, the world’s oldest travel agency collapsed under the weight of a £1.7 billion debt.
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ICAO’s Whistle-Blower Blowing in the Wind
A quick update on the ICAO whistle-blower. When last we apprised you on the imbroglio surrounding the whistle-blower that told the world about security breaches at ICAO, we noted that he was going public in part to give himself the cover he might have needed to survive. His strategy was that only the glare of public attention might protect him. Whoops. He has been fired by ICAO. So much for that theory. The world owes him thanks for bringing these breaches to light.
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Aviation Emissions at Altitude: Faster; Higher; Stronger
Europe’s 2017 Emission Trading Directive required the Commission to produce a report by the first of January this year – the first ever official view, if you exclude a report from the IPCC 12 years ago – on the impact of altitude on aviation’s non-CO2 emissions. It is critical because aviation’s short-lived NOx, contrail/cirrus, water vapour, soot, black carbon and aerosol emissions, at altitude, are potentially warming the planet far more each day than the warming impact from all of aviation’s accumulated, and still remaining in the atmosphere, CO2. Yes, all of aviation’s CO2 emissions; since the Wright Brothers.
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Aviation Intelligence Reporter’s Very Own Maverick Maverick Awards
The Oxford English Dictionary notes that the word ‘maverick’ comes from a Texan rancher, one Samuel A Maverick, who did not brand his cattle. Originally, maverick was a noun to describe unbranded cattle and over time it has evolved to mean an unorthodox or independently-minded person. Words are funny like that, they start out meaning one thing and then over time, they end up meaning something altogether different. Take ‘standard’ as an example. It once meant the very best, the flag each Legion marched into battle under and defended to death. To capture your enemy’s Standard was about as good as it got. Now, it means the opposite of that – the norm, the average, the common or garden. Blame the Standard Motor Company for that change. Started in 1903, by the time it produced the Standard Vanguard, the writing was on the wall.