{"id":1025,"date":"2020-07-12T20:18:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-12T18:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2020-07-12T20:18:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-12T18:18:07","slug":"twtwtw-6-july-to-10-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1025","title":{"rendered":"TWTWTW 6 July to 10 July"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A week when IATA\u2019s survey agreed with Bill Gates, not Tim Clark in a battle to leave a legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CEOs like to go out with a big legacy-leaving bang. Monday<\/strong> saw a textbook example of this, with Tim Clark predicting Covid-19 will only cause a temporary blip in demand.  \u201cThe thirst for knowledge, experience, business, leisure \u2014 that isn\u2019t going to change,\u201d Sir Tim told The Times<\/a>. \u201cAir travel has been growing at 7% a year on four billion passengers a year. Do the maths. In the next 10 years, the number will double to eight billion. Give it a year or two and travel will come roaring back.\u201d The 70-year Brit, who will be stepping aside from his position at the helm of Emirates, also disagrees with the view of Bill Gates that the novel coronavirus will alter business travel significantly. According to the Microsoft founder, post-Corona-era business air travel will be less necessary due to the rise of technologies like Zoom, Teams and GoogleMeet. 2019 could have been the \u201cpeak year\u201d in air travel. Nonsense, according to Clark. \u201cWe heard these kinds of predictions a lot, for example after the invention of the videoconference, after 9\/11 and after the financial crisis. But even after that, air traffic grew.\u201d Of course, with nearly $50 billion of assets, including 115 Airbus A380s, standing largely idle nobody would expect the soon-former Emirates president to admit that the \u201cbig bird\u201d and the super-connector model he built might be crippled by a virus.  Mind you, in 2015 Gates predicted<\/a> the greatest risk of global catastrophe most likely to be a highly infectious virus. He also warned we were not ready for the next epidemic. Gates\u2019s personal estimated net worth is $102 billion \u2013 slightly more than EK\u2019s assumed aircraft worth\u2014 so perhaps should not be dismissed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another promising projection was made by EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan. The Irish Commissioner \u2013who last month revealed he would not mind not switching jobs, and become the next head of the WTO, after being less than a year in his current job\u2014 pledged tough action in the ever-lasting Boeing-Airbus subsidy dispute between Brussels and Washington at the \u2013<\/a>yes\u2013 WTO. \u201cI want to reassure people that we are ready to act decisively and strongly on the European Union side if we don’t get the type of outcome that we expect from the United States in relationship to finalising this 15-year-old dispute,\u201d he told<\/a> the European Parliament’s trade committee. Don\u2019t expect a quick move from word to deed though. The WTO ruling on possible damages in the subsidy case against Boeing is delayed till September and the US continues to snub the Commission\u2019s negotiating paper for an amicable settlement. In the meantime, let\u2019s cross fingers the US Trade Representative does not realise new aircraft deliveries have virtually stopped due to Covid-19 and the 10% duty on the import of new Airbus jets is worthless. BTW, Hogan dropped his WTO ambition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday<\/strong> in a rare burst of introspection, IATA admitted passengers remain reluctant to fly due to concerns over the risks of contracting the novel coronavirus and that the industry will need to communicate the facts about cabin air quality and on-board social distancing \u201cmore effectively.\u201d Just a thought, but how effective is it to demonstrate via Twitter and YouTube videos, opportunely supported by Airbus and Boeing, that modern aircraft\u2019s HEPA filters capture well over 99.999% of germs, including the coronavirus, while some airlines demand economy passengers wear a face shield visor in addition to their face mask throughout the flight? How can passengers\u2019 confidence be restored if an airline proclaims that \u201creducing the overall number of customers on every aircraft across the fleet is one of the most important steps we can take to ensure a safe experience for our customers and people\u201d while industry bodies, including IATA and Airlines for Europe, insist that there is \u201cno requirement for social distancing measures on board the aircraft from highly respected aviation authorities such as the US Federal Aviation Administration, EASA or ICAO.\u201d  The survey<\/a> of leisure and business travellers in 11 countries, conducted in February, April and June on behalf of IATA, highlights the quandary and the thorny issue that low fares alone will not be enough to stimulate demand. \u201cThis crisis could have a very long shadow. Passengers are telling us that it will take time before they return to their old travel habits,\u201d noted IATA\u2019s DG, Alexander de Juniac.  84% of passengers \u2014 that is more than 8 out of 10\u2014 surveyed in June are afraid to travel until the virus is contained, up from 74% in February,  Just 45% said that they will travel again in the first months after the pandemic subsides. In early April 61% said that they would.<\/strong> About two thirds are seeing less travel in their future \u2014be it for vacation, visiting friends\/relatives or business. And 84% of passengers said they would be concerned of possibly contracting the virus as the result of sitting next to someone who might be infected, 76% by touching hard surfaces on the plane such as seat or tray table, and 72% as the result from the cabin air quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With most \u2013 most, not all \u2014 of the EU\u2019s internal borders open, German chancellor Angela Merkel travelled to Brussels on Wednesday <\/strong>for a pow-wow with the presidents of the three main EU institutions and to present<\/a> the German Council Presidency priorities to the European Parliament.  On top of the agenda, she told MEPs, \u201cis to try to contain the pandemic and to overcome the consequences. Those are health-related, social, and economic consequences.\u201d  Nevertheless, she added, it is important not to lose sight of the other challenges, including climate change. There can only be a global solution to climate change if Europe acts as trailblazer in the field of climate action, she said. In other words: the German presidency is dedicated to move the Green Deal forward. This was music in the ears of the EP\u2019s ENVI committee, whose members are irate about the change of the CORSIA baseline and steadfast in their goal to strengthen the bloc\u2019s emissions trading system for airlines. ICYMI: the Commission opened an eight-week \u201cfeedback period<\/a>\u201d on new rules for the ETS and how to combine the scheme with CORSIA. A public consultation on the issue is \u201cplanned\u201d for the third quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday<\/strong>, the Commission sent out a communication<\/a> to remind us what we almost and happily forgot: that it is time \u2013 again \u2013 to prepare for Brexit, or more accurately for the possibility of a no deal relationship between the EU and the UK when the transition period ends December 31. No deal: no worries; no change. The document does not hold anything new for aviation and aerospace. The readiness notices for air transport, aviation safety, aviation security, and REACH were published in spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday<\/strong> demonstrated that the Netherlands is more than a committed member of the so-called Frugal Four in discussions on the EU\u2019s next long-term budget and the \u20ac750 billion Covid-19 economic recovery fund, but also a committed defender of human rights. The Dutch government is taking Russia before the European Court of Human Rights for its \u201crole in the downing\u201d of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014. \u201cAchieving justice for 298 victims of the downing of Flight MH17 is and will remain the government\u2019s highest priority,\u201d said foreign minister<\/a> Stef Blok. \u201cBy taking this step today \u2013 bringing a case before the ECtHR and thus supporting the applications of the next of kin as much as we can \u2013 we are moving closer to this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week when IATA\u2019s survey agreed with Bill Gates, not Tim Clark in a battle to leave a legacy CEOs like to go out with a big legacy-leaving bang. Monday saw a textbook example of this, with Tim Clark predicting Covid-19 will only cause a temporary blip in demand.  \u201cThe thirst for knowledge, experience, business, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16,12,40,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airports","category-climate-change","category-competition","category-covid-19","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}