A cornucopia of news, opinion, views, facts and quirky bits that need to be talked about. Join our community and join in the conversation on all matters aviation. The blog includes our weekly round-up of the bits of European aviation you may otherwise have missed – That Was The Week That Was
Once, Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress was relevant to aviation mostly because extra flights were needed to get delegates there. Not any more. Last week kicked off with a further merger of aviation and telecoms. OneWeb announced a partnership with Airbus, airtel, Delta, and Sprint – the Seamless Air Alliance. The problems with in-flight connectivity are myriad, but they are not technical. ‘Seamless’ is an inspiring goal. In commercial aviation, ubiquitous gate-to-gate service is the Holy Grail. It can mean telecommunications authorisations for every earth station on every aircraft from every jurisdiction you fly to – a tangled regulatory morass. We wish the Seamless Air Alliance bonne chance.
Tuesday all eyes focused on Bulgaria. There, IATA’s scream of frustration at the snail’s pace of reform that is the Single European Sky went up several decibels. Divide and conquer is the strategy and this week IATA separated Bulgaria from the herd. IATA is working with Bulatsa to improve things. It did not start well. The press release from IATA’s crack comms team was a dialogue of the deaf. The Bulgarians talked about the importance of transport; IATA demanded Bulgaria, as President of the Council of the EU, give the airlines more money. It was not even subtle.
Wednesday was devoted to tourism. Stats were presented, importances underlined and views with the DG of the UNWTO exchanged. This is now, officially, the Year of Chinese Tourism. Wow. The legacy carriers were worried about the Gulf carriers. Did they know that outside their usual circle of partners-du-Stockholm Syndrome, DG GROW was smothering their efforts at controlling growth?
One of the big issues identified was the lack of Chinese speakers. The Chinese airlines have lots of them…
Thursday saw the most shocking revelation of the week. How did this pass without comment? As the great Tom Lehrer said when Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize, ‘What can a satirist say that is funnier than real life?’ Maybe there was no comment because none were needed. After a week of US corporations finding anti-gun religion and withdrawing special offers to members of the NRA – hoping no doubt for some retrospective passive goodwill – Delta, never slow to sniff a chance to dress piously, lost their state fuel tax break for jumping on that band wagon. Wait a minute, this is not just State Aid – something that Delta wants no airline, other than themselves, to get the benefit of – being taken away for failing to support the NRA. Hats off to the Gulf carriers for not making much, much mileage from this.
On Friday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May stood firm on negotiating Brexit. Well, sort of. She did capitulate to demands of the aerospace industry to allow the movement of goods between the UK and EU in light of warnings about processing chaos for cargo at airports and Airbus saying it may have stockpile parts like wings made in the UK. All this while cosying up to the US in a bid to replace what they are currently about to Brexit from – an open skies agreement. Remember, the fall back is Bermuda II. The sticking points? Ownership and control – the US is not all that interesting in liberalisation – and US fifth-freedom rights out of the UK (not on their metal, of course, but on code-shares). The UK will need to agree that with the EU. Will the legacy carriers in continental Europe think that a good idea? Interlining may live again!
