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
Regular readers of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter will know of our occasional forays into poetry. A copy of our collected works is available for the discerning. We bow to no-one in our love of aviation poetry, and are more than happy to shout out to Norwegian Air, which over the weekend responded to a passenger complaint poem with a poem. Encore!
But then it was back to prose. On Monday, US Senator Chuck Schumer requested that dynamic airfare pricing – allegedly discriminatory – be investigated by the US Federal Trade Commission. Intriguingly, the FTC’s mandate does not extend to airlines. So, who is the investigation targeting? The DoT has exclusive authority to investigate airlines’ unfair and deceptive practices. It shares jurisdiction with FTC for agents. The travel agents are on board. So Schumer’s call for an investigation does not target direct sales by airlines to passengers. Perhaps the investigation is directed at players with massive data collecting capabilities who have the ability to disrupt GDSs? Any guesses? Answers on a postcard…
Meanwhile, it was business as usual for the European Business Aviation Association, despite losing their Executive Director late last week – to spend more time on his other business (as usual) interests. Monday also saw yet another study that tries to put a value on the value the biz-av community delivers to Europe. It is a perennial issue. Biz-Av represents about 12% of the IFR flying but the EBAA does not wield 12% of the influence. That some of the biggest players are Russian oligarchs is not helping. However, that explains the press release’s focus on medical evacuations and air ambulances. Ominously, the release also described the report as containing ‘engaging infographics’. You have been warned.
You may recall the IAG CEO’s incredibly thin-skinned dummy-spit last week when, outraged by a true story in the Financial Times, he Trumpianly called the FT the ‘Fake Times’. Clearly, it hit a sore spot. Adding to his sense of persecution would have been the announcement on Tuesday that the FT was the UK Society of Editors’ Newspaper of the Year. No, this is not fake. Just news.
It has been a dog of a twenty-first century for United Airlines on the customer service front, and things just keep getting worse. Not content to break guitars and forcibly off-load doctors, the customer anti-service geniuses at United have turned their focus to animals. First, they came for the rabbits. Now, realising that it is the Year of the Dog, canines are in the cross-hairs. One dog was killed after being forced to travel in the overhead bins – a temptation for flight attendants certainly, but one that should be resisted. Then, in a stroke of comedy gold, on Wednesday they re-routed a German Shepherd due to fly to Kansas to Tokyo. When the family showed up in Kansas to claim their dog they were offered a Great Dane instead. To date, the owners of the Great Dane, presumably in Tokyo, have not come forward.
On Friday, finally, the Airport Council International got religion. For years, we have been fighting a lonely fight that perhaps the slot allocation regime was not in the industry’s best interests. Aviation Advocacy has been criticised for this position. To be fair, the ACI did go to the last ICAO General Assembly with a paper gently suggesting the issue be looked at. Now, at last, Angela Gittens, the ACI Global DG, has come out publically advocating change. Perhaps she was emboldened by Henrik Hololei’s speech to the European Aviation Club earlier in the week noting his displeasure at the abuse of grandfathering rights.
