{"id":728,"date":"2017-08-31T18:09:50","date_gmt":"2017-08-31T16:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=728"},"modified":"2019-07-23T11:44:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:44:27","slug":"the-final-word-on-new-business-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=728","title":{"rendered":"The final word on new business models?"},"content":{"rendered":"In early August, our friends at the European Cockpit Association announced their wholehearted support for a new \u2018Practical Guide\u2019 issued by EASA on \u2018Management of hazards related to new business models of commercial air transport operators\u2019.\u00a0 This should come as no surprise, given that the chair of the working group that drew up these recommendations just happens also to be the ECA Technical Affairs Director.\u00a0 There has been, however, one small problem.\u00a0 After trumpeting the new guide, and how very sound it was, it has now been withdrawn.\r\n\r\nPerhaps unsurprisingly, there is now no trace of the ECA press release on the ECA website.\u00a0 There is however a note saying that \u201cthe Practical Guide has been retracted by EASA from its website as it was published by mistake on 7 Aug, \u2018before completion of the final internal validation steps\u2019. Upon request by the Agency, ECA has removed the content of its press release issued on 8 Aug as well as the links to the Practical Guide.\u201d \u00a0Luckily, at Aviation Advocacy we closely monitor EASA publications and have retained copies of both the Practical Guide as inadvertently distributed and ECA\u2019s press release.\r\n\r\nAccording to its first iteration, EASA was tasked by its Member States to identify hazards and access risks stemming from the development of these new business models and to develop possible mitigation measures. You may recall the Dutch Presidency of the Union conceding to the squeakiest wheel of all that this should be reviewed.\u00a0 To do this, EASA set up a Working Group on New Business Models.\r\n\r\nThere is an interesting side question as to why, how and under what conditions such a task falls within EASA\u2019s remit?\u00a0 The issue for EASA is not the nature of the operations; it is the safety of the operations.\u00a0 Instead, this study, completely politically motivated, was commissioned to address the issues that the hard ECA lobbying on \u2018asymmetric contracts\u2019 had demanded.\u00a0 This is part of their \u2018Social Dumping\u2019 campaign.\u00a0 It is mind-blowing that funds were devoted to this industrial strength putting of the cart before the horse.\r\n\r\nMake no mistake. \u00a0\u2018New Business Models\u2019 is a euphemism for \u2018low cost carriers\u2019.\u00a0 According to ECA\u2019s press release, the Working Group was chaired by Johan Glanz, ECA Board Director.\u00a0 To be fair, it also included representatives from Ryanair, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Aer Lingus and Luxair.\u00a0 That might explain why the pre-release draft of the practical guide was somewhat nebulous. \u00a0For the most part, in fact, the guide focused on possible potential dangers of outsourcing, and like most high-level policy documents, could be interpreted to mean just about anything.\u00a0 That is its strength.\r\n\r\nStill, getting ahead of the release of this document is not a good look, particularly from the chair of the working group. \u00a0What might possibly have motivated this?\r\n\r\nThe ECA is never afraid to resolve all ambiguities in favour of itself, nor is it shy about attempting to dictate the agenda concerning issues it gets its teeth into.\u00a0 Perhaps it wanted to get ahead of the curve and dictate the tone of the discussion about the guide when it was released?\u00a0 If we compare the ECA press release with the practical guide, that certainly seems to be the case.\r\n\r\nFor instance, the ECA press release suggests that new business models\u2019 “high focus on cost cutting\u2026according to EASA puts human factors, crew resource management and safety management under intense pressure”. \u00a0Wow, if a working group that includes LCCs is saying that, this is dynamite.\u00a0 Except, of course, this notion is mentioned not once in EASA\u2019s practical guide.\r\n\r\nLikewise, the guide makes no claim that “crew atypical employment\u2026can negatively impact safety”.\u00a0 Unlike the ECA press release.\u00a0 Instead, the guide notes that “Different employment models \u2026 might have a negative impact on the operator\u2019s safety culture”.\u00a0 They may not too, but that point is not discussed at all.\r\n\r\nOne might wonder whether EASA has an agenda against atypical employment.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Oh wait<\/a>\u2026They do.\u00a0 They have been on the warpath about this topic for years, with idiosyncratically interpreted surveys and other documents to light their way.\r\n\r\nThe business practices of the LCCs have upset many previously well-entrenched practices built up over many years by airlines and their staff.\u00a0 The general marching order under which those practices were built up was to avoid industrial action.\u00a0 It was a different time.\u00a0 Airlines were largely government owned and one concern was always a loss of face, followed by the loss of an election if the government airline disrupted too many summer holiday plans.\r\n\r\nThat meant that pilots were not then, and are not now, in the poorest paid employment category and the hours they work not the most demanding \u2013 although, yes, of course, they are safety professionals.\u00a0 No-one wants to be in an aircraft in an emergency with an exhausted pilot.\u00a0 But the current practices stop significantly short of allowing that to happen.\u00a0 Nor are moves to reduce feather-bedding likely to have an impact on that.\u00a0 Not that those that are being asked to change will concede those points.\r\n\r\nWithout question, many of the problems raised in the practical guide are worth addressing. \u00a0However, they need to be addressed dispassionately.\u00a0 The taint of ECA influence on the practical guide is obvious.\u00a0 Amongst the references supporting the EASA document is an article that refers to \u2018airline greed\u2019 \u2013 an article that can also be found on the ECA website, incidentally.\u00a0 Ask yourself which group of working group members is likely to have included that?\r\n\r\nWhy the practical guide were retracted is unclear.\u00a0 Was it a roll-out SNAFU?\u00a0 A simple mistake, as is possible when dealing with bureaucracy? \u00a0Likely, we will never know.\u00a0 In ECA\u2019s now withdrawn press release, Glanz is quoted saying, \u201cThis new Guide is only a first step and more will be needed from EU institutions.\u201d\u00a0 We look forward to the seeing the final version.\u00a0 Then we can all assess whether more is needed.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early August, our friends at the European Cockpit Association announced their wholehearted support for a new \u2018Practical Guide\u2019 issued by EASA on \u2018Management of hazards related to new business models of commercial air transport operators\u2019.\u00a0 This should come as no surprise, given that the chair of the working group that drew up these recommendations […]<\/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-728","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\/728","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=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}