That Was The Week That Was 06-10 December 2021
Some Troubling Signs
Sometimes, big things happen. At other times, it is a collection of the little things, the minutiae that you almost do not see until it is too late. Finally, the little things add up and we have been overlooking them for far too long. The canary in the mine; the first flicker of a warning light on the dashboard. We need to be sure that we do not miss these things. May this week’s blog be that moment when we started to see the straws in the wind…
It started on Monday with the release by our old friends at the eponymous European Cockpit Association (not a word of a lie there) of their survey of their own members ranking Europe’s airlines as organisations to work for. The gradings went from ‘Social Excellence’ at the top of the tree to ‘Social Junk’ at the bottom. This is so close to the Christmas: Turkey interface that such surveys are routinely discounted to zero by serious analysts, but we are dealing with the pilots here, so it is sure to be infallible in any event. A third of all airlines achieve the rating of ‘Social Excellence’. Those are airlines, where pilots testify to be treated like family, take pride in working for the airline and are engaged with the company’s success. Air France tops the list, with Condor, Wideroe, KLM, Lufthansa and almost 40 others. It is to be presumed that the pilots that Air France, Lufthansa and KLM ‘retired’ during the pandemic were not interviewed.
One step behind the Social Excellence are the ‘Social Partner’ airlines, which still score high on almost all aspects but where pilots see some room for improvement. This segment includes airlines such as ASL Airlines , Brussels Airlines, Air Europa, Jet2, SAS, TAP and others. The 3rd category, ‘Social Snail’, captures what the ECA survey acknowledges they cannot classify. They are the airlines that are not grade 2, or grade 4. For want of better, and we do want for a better name, these are the ‘Social Snails’. They are doing well on some aspects but underperform (sometimes strongly) on others. Key players in this category are Turkish Airlines, Malta Air, Volotea and Aegean airlines. In the 4th category, the ‘Social Misfits’, are the prominent European low-cost players – Ryanair, Buzz, Lauda and Wizz. Those airlines score low on almost all aspects and pilots indicate little appreciation or satisfaction with these employers. Finally, the lowest scoring airlines, the ‘Social Junk’, are smaller players that often fly below the radar of public attention and scrutiny, such as SmartLynx and Avion Express.
Where to start? First, there must be a fairly intense review underway at Ryanair HQ to find out how they had slipped up to category 4. But away and above the most troubling aspect is that the pilots agree that airlines like Lufthansa have a reputation for lower pilot turnover. Is no-one going to call this out for what it is? It is surely apartheight. The lower pilots are retrenched. Why should shorter pilots incur the wrath of the ops department? Outrageous.
Tuesday brought even the tallest pilots back to earth. We all know the trope, that aviation is only 2% of global emissions. That number is no longer true, in fact, or was no longer true in 2019, the last time such calculations were valid. The number has grown, given growth and the work other industries do to reduce their emissions, so let’s for the sake of the argument, say it is 2.5%. Keep that number in your mind, and then look at the chart below, from Hannah Ritchie at the University of Oxford:
Anyone want to suggest that Germany, or France, or Australia need do nothing?
But, please, put all that behind you, because Wednesday is the anniversary of the Pearl Habour bombings and thus the start of war in the Pacific. It was a bold display of the awesome power of aviation to shape the world. So it is ironic that it is also the day that in 1994, the UN designated as International Civil Aviation Day, a festivity for which we need to thank Twitter for making known. Ask yourself, when did the knowledge of yet another fake day make its way into your life? Hand up if you had ever heard of it? It is the anniversary of the signing of the Chicago Convention, a mere 77 years ago. More troubling is why we think this is still worthy of celebration, rather than an annual reminder that we need to do something to fix it.
Thursday saw still more troubling news. The UNWTO felt the need to bring out a press release that will chill you all. They want you to know that they are completely against blanket travel restrictions. Who knew that blankets were being threatened with travel restrictions? This is an outrage! They will start with the blankets, then it will be the towels and napery and finally, outrage of outrages, patchwork quilts will be banned too. To be fair, as an industry we are against patchwork quilts of various things, most normally regulations, but if that bothers you at all, one can only hope that you did not celebrate World Aviation Day… oh wait, they all did. IATA, A4E, A4A all the other clingers-on. You cannot have it both ways. Either you celebrate the Chicago Convention or you dislike patchwork quilts. Nonetheless, it is best not to ban blankets travelling. This message does not deserve to be swept under the carpet!
Taking us to Friday when yet another update on the lack of progress towards a Single European Sky was tabled. Nothing witty or funny to say about that meeting, or the lack of progress, but if ever there were troubling signs, it were these.