That Was The Week That Was 15-19 February 2021
A week of contrasts
It was a week of contrasts this week, the week that was. We started on Monday when yet more questioning MEPs, this time Edina Tóth, Ádám Kósa and Andor Deli, all from Hungary and all from the centre-right PPR (at least for now) asked about the risk of viral transmission of Covid-19 on aircraft. Given the other political moves in Hungary, it is hard to assume there is no political sub-plot in play here. The industry has worked very hard to tell you that aircraft are safe; HEPA filters etc… But no-one seems able to answer any questions about how for example, the South African variant, or the Brazilian variant may have made it to Europe, other than from travellers. One should not doubt human ingenuity when it comes to meeting and mingling – it is believed that the first case of syphilis was reported in Moscow less than three months after Columbus and his men returned to Spain. We shall await the response given by the Commission with great interest, but the contrast between the apparently safe aircraft environment and those nasty, pesky geographically-named variants is troubling.
Also troubling was the decision of the Council to formally approve the new variant of the viral slot rule exemption that is currently ripping through all sensible aviation regulations like a plague.
By Tuesday all that was in the past – over, let it go – as news came out of Rolls Royce committing to working on an all-electric airspeed record, as it pivots to electric propulsion for UAM – that is urban aerial mobility to those in know, and flying taxis to the rest of us. It is a bit of a change for Rolls to move from powering A380s and B747 to single-seat cars but needs must. Still, quite a contrast in the offing for Rolls.
Wednesday will go down as the quintessential day of contrasts this week – contrasts between sensible European regulation and policy on the one hand and what the European General Court delivered. We can also contrast the fact that this case was about discrimination to note that the Court ruled that it is not discriminatory if you leave it possible for others to discriminate against you. That sounds almost Christian in its virtue until you think about it. Everything I want to say is in this piece on Forbes… Apparently, according to the Court, it is not discriminatory to discriminate against a company because of the country it is registered in. Replace the word ‘company’ there with ‘person’ and ‘it is registered’ with ‘born’ and see just how edifying this ruling really is.
Contrasts of a different nature came to light on Thursday. While Facebook was marking out the contrast between itself and every thinking person in the world, by blocking access to news feeds in Australia – an act of unification that we have not seen in a long, long time – and contrasting the theoretical concept of dominant market power with its Lex Luther-like actual application. Air France/KLM tried to sneak its annual results out whilst everyone was distracted. The loss of €7.1 billion really is as bad as it sounds, given that it works out as a subsidy of about €200 per passenger carried. That is a contrast, in so many ways to the sort of profits Facebook makes per passenger…
Friday by contrast, gave us all something uplifting. The NASA Perseverance on a mission to Mars gave us all something to cheer about. Wonderful news. That made a contrast to the rest of the week, the week that was.