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The theme this week was control. Who is in control matters in air transport. The most famous question of control is the test of nationality of an airline. Yes, you might think that is an antediluvian topic to even consider, but hey! Welcome to the regulation of aviation, where the calendar is permanently stuck on 1944. That is the most famous control, but there are others.
Monday saw the response of the Commissioner for Transport, Violetta Bulc to yet another pointed question about the effective control of Air Italy, formerly Meridiana, following the acquisition of 49% of it by Qatar Airlines. This is a minefield because it has Brexit Implications. Every airline with significant operations from the UK is now in the middle of doing the ownership and control two-step. Airlines are applying for EU27 AOCs, or UK1 AOCs, as the case may be, so that they can continue their pan-European operations. UK airlines, like easyJet for example, now operates on its new Austrian AOC. Airlines like Ryanair and Wizz are proud owners of new UK AOCs. So that is ownership sorted. What about control – the woogie of what was once boogie woogie – which part of these manoeuvres addresses that? Mrs Bulc is fully aware of the implications so she trod a very fine line. She blamed the Italians.
Tuesday looked at an altogether different sort of control. Caribbean Airlines launched a ‘signature cocktail’. Rum-based; of course. Lufthansa took a different course. It went all ‘ground control’. Houston, we have a catering option for you: dine on astronaut food, straight from the zero-gravity can. Channel your inner Major Tom, by sitting in tin can, far above the world, and hum along to your favourite Bowie tunes.
Wednesday saw controls of several different sorts. China announced that it is pulling out of CORSIA. You might think this a big deal, because it is, but the control freaks that have tried to tell the world that CORSIA is the Only Hope for saving the planet could not allow word to get out that it is falling apart. As if allowing petroleum-based fuels to count as emission friendly was not enough. They tried to bury that too, the industry boosters, by focusing on the procedural step of agreeing some standard practices that were always foreshadowed, but slowly, reality is dawning.
Control was also the topic for consideration at the European Court of Justice. On Thursday it pondered which of the marketing carrier or the operating carrier should a delayed passenger sue? Anybody involved in code-shares knows the answer to this: the marketing carrier has the contract with the passenger and is liable. It controls the operation of the flight even if it outsources parts of it to the operating carrier. It is hard to think of clearer thinking in aviation, and the ECJ agreed. In a surprise move, it even added to the clarity. A note of respect to the lawyer that convinced the client this was a question worth litigating all the way to the ECJ though.
Aussies do airport regulation differently. The Australian Airport Association – the airports’ trade body – announced a new policy earlier in the week. Profitable businesses should subsidise those that are struggling. Thus, profitable airlines should help unprofitable small airports (a tautology). Presumably, the reverse is also true and profitable large airports (also a tautology in Australia) should support struggling airlines. That was certainly the view of one of Australia’s small, albeit profitable, regional airlines, which upped the ante on Friday. Game on.
