Aviation Intelligence Reporter – September 2018
The Aestas Horribilis
‘Even the Sky Has its Limits’ But Space Remains for Finger Pointing
Mr Holelei Goes to Washington
The Qatar Airspace Blockade: No Oil on Troubled Waters
Airbnb: Regulators Still Playing Cat-and-Mouse-Catch-Up
Unions Demand Social Monologue
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The Aestas Horribilis
Summer is over in the northern hemisphere and you are back, rested and refreshed. So now is an ideal time to take this simple quiz: Who is responsible for the less than ideal summer of air transport European travellers have endured? Is it the airlines, the airports, the ANSPs, the regulators, the unions or the weather? If you were to ask anyone in the various parts of the industry the most common answer is: ‘everyone but us. We struggle in the framework all those others give us to work within’. The answer if you are a traveller is: ‘who cares? Just fix it, and soon.’
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‘Even the Sky Has its Limits’ But Space Remains for Finger Pointing
Full page advertisements in all the mainstream German newspapers mid-August, conceded that yes, even the sky has its limits. It was published by the German Aviation Association (BDL) and signed by all of the significant German aviation players’ CEOs. Lufthansa’s Carsten Spohr was there, DFS’s Klaus-Dieter Scheurle signed up. So did the CEO’s of Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg airports. Berlin’s new Brandenburg Airport was not on the list. It was a remarkable mea culpa. More remarkable again was that it was needed at all. As we have been discussing for some time, and as Eurocontrol’s Network Manager has been warning, the writing on the wall was both large and legible.
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Mr Holelei Goes to Washington
The DG of DG MOVE, Henrik Hololei, was in Washington DC in late July. Whilst there, he gave a brave, honest most-punches-not-pulled speech to the International Aviation Club. Hololei must have felt like Tennyson’s Light Brigade: cannons to the right of him, cannons to the left of him, cannons in front of him, volleying and thundering. Into the valley of the International Aviation Club rode the Director General.
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The Qatar Airspace Blockade: No Oil on Troubled Waters
The dispute between Qatar and its neighbours (Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) has entered a new phase: the adults in the room phase. Do not, for one moment, think that by ‘adults in the room’ we mean the ICAO Council. No, over the summer, the Arab 4 filed appeals with the International Court of Justice. Inside the ICAO Council, the dispute might be about overflights, and the denial of them, but that is a symptom, not the cause of the substance of the ongoing dispute. At the start of last summer, the Arab 4 blocked Qatari civil aircraft from entering their airspace. It did this because, they claimed, Qatar had failed to honour the Riyadh Agreements – a series of agreements entered into by member States of the Gulf Cooperation Council to curb the support, financing and/or harbouring of terrorists.
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Airbnb: Regulators Still Playing Cat-and-Mouse-Catch-Up
One of life’s inviolable rules is that regulators can only ever play catch up. And sometimes even then, they struggle. Take, for example, the game of cat and mouse being played between European governments and homeowners looking to make a little extra cash by renting their spare rooms. Spurred by complaints from neighbours and the hotel industry, cities have started to write laws regulating short-term rentals on platforms like Airbnb, HomeAway, and VRBO. But regulators are indeed struggling to play catch up in the booming sharing economy. The laws that do get passed are open to interpretation and difficult to enforce. What is the difference between a short-term rental and a sublet or a roommate? How do city officials track down hosts if their full address is not online? Weak enforcement means many hosts are willing to take the gamble if it means keeping a steady stream of rental income.
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Unions Demand Social Monologue
Over and above the capacity concerns, travellers in Europe this summer might also have noticed a certain amount of industrial unrest. Pilots, cabin crew, and our old friends the French air traffic controllers did their very best to get a share of voice in a crowded market for travel misery stories with a series of rolling strikes. But it was not easy. So, in a remarkable intervention, European aviation’s most truthfully named union, the European Cockpit Association, demanded that social dialogue be conducted in a fair and respectful manner. Yes, they demanded respect.
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