{"id":19,"date":"2009-06-11T18:53:20","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T16:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=19"},"modified":"2009-07-20T10:58:47","modified_gmt":"2009-07-20T08:58:47","slug":"the-iata-agm-direct-from-the-great-hall-of-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=19","title":{"rendered":"The IATA AGM – direct from the Great Hall of the People"},"content":{"rendered":"June is annual general meeting month for air transport – and IATA set the ball rolling in Kuala Lumpur with a scream of pain that must have been heard in Singapore.\u00a0 The situation is so dire that even Giovanni Bisignani\u2019s speech writers seem to be running out of purple prose.\r\n\r\nThe IATA AGM runs with all the cool spontaneity and sophistication of the Chinese Communist Party Annual General Assembly at the best of times, and this year, it seems that some of the Great Leader\u2019s personal management theories came into their own.\u00a0 You know the ones: wonderful slogans; activity not action; friends close, enemies closer; that sort of thing.\r\n\r\nAnd true to the workings of the Great Leader, we are to have a solution right out of 1950.\u00a0 \u2018Centralise in the hands of the party!\u2019 the Chairman exhorted.\u00a0 \u2018Expel the running dog lackies of the imperial service providing profit making class!\u2019\u00a0 OK, I might have paraphrased that last bit.\r\n\r\nWhat was actually said, in nearly so many words, was \u2018give us the regulatory freedom to dictate to everyone else what they need to do for us\u2019.\u00a0 No part of the service chain was left unscathed from the attack.\u00a0 Travel agents have never had it so good, so they need to give some of their profits to the IATA carriers; airports – well airports, they need to be taught a lesson and regulated back into the ground; labour – flogging is too good for them; and as for ANSPs?\u00a0 Well, clearly, the solution is more, more and then still more regulation.\u00a0 What could airports and ANSPs know about their businesses that the airlines couldn\u2019t dictate to them via their friendly regulators?\r\n\r\nSee the pattern?\u00a0 Everyone is out of step except us – so make them lose step.\u00a0 Not for nothing are they called legacy carriers.\u00a0 That is legacy, as in a gift of property.\r\n\r\nAnd true to the Mao style of management, it is important that the slogan says the exact opposite of the actuality.\u00a0 For example: \u2018We don\u2019t want any subsidies or State Aid\u2019 actually means \u2018please ensure that no-one else touches these slots, because they are mine, even if I am not using them right now\u2019.\r\n\r\nAnother Mao-ian touch was in the environment area – an area, it is true, ripe for such flourishes.\u00a0 IATA proudly announced a new target for carbon neutrality.\u00a0 2020.\u00a0 Like your hindsight.\u00a0 Mark your calendars.\r\n\r\nSounds great, until you remember that the aim of the Copenhagen meeting in December, and all the preparatory meetings leading up to Copenhagen, is to reduce emissions by 20% by 2020 around the world.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need a very strong calculator to work out that if everyone else is reducing by 20% and you are staying still then everyone else will need to reduce by more than 20% to reach the target.\r\n\r\nAnd the next 5 year plan for agricultural production will mean that we can feed all of the people in China, or something.\u00a0 See what I mean?\u00a0 It is quite addictive, once you get into the habit.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June is annual general meeting month for air transport – and IATA set the ball rolling in Kuala Lumpur with a scream of pain that must have been heard in Singapore.\u00a0 The situation is so dire that even Giovanni Bisignani\u2019s speech writers seem to be running out of purple prose. The IATA AGM runs with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","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\/19","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=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}