That Was The Week That Was 14-18 June 2021
Ecosystem or Value Chain?
How do you regard aviation? For the airlines everything that is not an airline is only there as an element of a life support system. The airlines do not consider airports and ANSPs and ground handlers and indeed mainframe manufacturers as standalone entities with a purpose other than to make airlines look good – hence the complaints. An airport, an ANSP or any other part of what they consider a value chain making a profit is cause for vociferous wailing and gnashing of teeth. Willie Walsh, never afraid of speaking his mind, has even resurrected that old Giovanni Bisignani trope ‘monopoly service provider’. The then head of External Relations, Sebastian Mikosz once told an airport meeting that IATA’s members were the only reason they were meeting. When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail, after all.
There is an alternative view; that the industry is an ecosystem. All parts of it have to be healthy for the system to be healthy. The little bird that plucks the fleas from the back of the rhinoceros is as important as the rhinoceros. This is a newer way of looking at the industry. Frankly, it is a view that Aviation Advocacy would like to take some credit for promulgating. We have campaigned to the best of our ability to get the industry to see itself in those terms. Over time, we have got some traction. Sections of the industry, tired of being browbeaten by a rampaging IATA have started to adopt the term. CANSO and the ACI use the term to better place their role and contribution.
It is fair to say that IATA has not. If anything, it has doubled down. It also has the weight of 75 years of history and a very loud megaphone at its disposal. It calls the system a value chain whenever the opportunity presents itself. Generally, to date, regulators have toed that line too. Look at the slot regulations, look at the state aid money shower and so on… But, maybe, the wheel is turning. This week, speaking at an ACI Airport Economics symposium, the Director General of DG MOVE, Henrik Hololei talked about the ‘aviation value network’. A small step, but a forward one.