{"id":1352,"date":"2022-07-11T10:31:36","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T08:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1352"},"modified":"2022-07-11T10:31:36","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T08:31:36","slug":"that-was-the-week-that-was-04-08-july-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=1352","title":{"rendered":"That Was The Week That Was 04-08 July 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jesters gotta Jest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a wonderful, glorious, history of jesters.  They were employed to entertain guests and to keep the mood light.  Court Jesters had a secondary role. Their job was to speak truth to power.  They all of them knew that to do that, they had to blend that uncomfortable truth in humour.  Or as King Lear put it, \u2018jesters do oft prove prophet\u2019.  Exactly.  Get it wrong and you might lose your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, take it from me, there is a certain amount of skill in wrapping that truth up in something funny.  It has to be funny, for a start.  Secondly, it is helpful if you can catch the audience unawares.  No, not like a jack-in-the-box, but in terms of getting the truth to hit the mark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the self-appointed court jester to the aviation industry, this week, the week that was, your correspondent is in something of a dilemma.  There has been a rash of new jesters taking the stage.  Should I welcome the sudden surge in competition in the jestering market, or discourage it?  All the world may be a stage, but as Shakespeare knew, you only need one jester per play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would be tempted to suggest with these Johnny-come-latelies that we have a jester-off, but frankly, I am not sure I would win.  It will take first class jester work to top some of what we saw this week.  One contender even went all meta, being funny when trying to be serious, instead of the more traditional being serious when trying to be funny.  The other refused to wear the costume.  You know, the hat, the fancy pants.  The form was being played with from the start this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dressed in disguise, and first out of the blocks this week, was a combined entry from China and Russia, who chose the ICAO High Level Group for a Long-Term Aspirational Goal as its stage.  Bet you did not see that coming.   Already, it has the makings of great comedy.  What would Shakespeare (or his jesters) have done with \u2018long-term aspirational goals?\u2019  Sadly, we will now never know.  Still, working hard to bring the lols to the High Level Group, you just have to sit back and admire the quality of the jestering in this submission<\/a> from China and Russia.  Two-handed comedy is hard, but wow, this is quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is important for the jester is to say the truth but make it funny.  Tick, tick, tick.  Note the truth, which comes early.  Paragraph 1.2 in fact.  Pow.  CORSIA is a failure, and not fit for purpose; incompatible with the Paris goals.  Pow; zap.  After a start like that, even if disguised, the jester has to bring the laughs.  They do not disappoint.  Rather than simply stopping there and being all serious, they did the comedy bit.  Respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were not happy to merely criticise, they put forward a suggestion.  Aviation produces about as many emissions as uncontrolled bush and wildfires, the paper notes, so, why not use aeroplanes to put out those fires!  Job done!  Presumably, the emissions required to fly the aircraft that put out the fires can be factored in by lighting more fires\u2026  Think of it as a sort of off-setting.  As Shakespeare so very nearly said, put out the fire by putting out the fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If China and Russia came along in their suits and turned jester by surprise, the well-known group of aviation jesters (well, never wrong on aviation ever jesters) McKinsey showed up in the traditional costume.  We know what we are going to get from their corporate image.  But then, they too went meta.  Instead of trying to be serious by being funny, they were funny whilst attempting to be serious.  Whoa\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The McKinsey contribution was an article called the \u2018Six Secrets of Profitable Airlines\u2019<\/a>.  Hard not to assume that such a thing was serious.  But roll out the humour.  The secrets, each of them, are well worth the read.  You might enjoy knowing that successful airlines work hard on their image.  Michael O\u2019Leary would agree.  He works hard at Ryanair\u2019s image.  Always has. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the winner, the meta-jest of the week, was the one that said that profitable airlines create \u2018pockets of privilege\u2019 with their route network.  Right.  Newcastle-Wroclaw for example, is such a pocket.  There are millions more.  Great comedy is a gift that keeps on giving after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesters gotta Jest There is a wonderful, glorious, history of jesters.  They were employed to entertain guests and to keep the mood light.  Court Jesters had a secondary role. Their job was to speak truth to power.  They all of them knew that to do that, they had to blend that uncomfortable truth in humour.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","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=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1353,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions\/1353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}