{"id":793,"date":"2018-03-16T17:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=793"},"modified":"2019-07-23T11:43:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:43:34","slug":"that-was-the-week-that-was-12-16-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"That Was The Week That Was: 12 \u2013 16 March"},"content":{"rendered":"Regular readers of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter <\/em>will know of our occasional forays into poetry.\u00a0 A copy of our collected works is available for the discerning.\u00a0 We bow to no-one in our love of aviation poetry, and are more than happy to shout out to Norwegian Air, which over the weekend responded<\/a> to a passenger complaint poem with a poem.\u00a0 Encore!\r\n\r\nBut then it was back to prose.\u00a0 On Monday<\/strong>, US Senator Chuck Schumer requested<\/a> that dynamic airfare pricing \u2013 allegedly discriminatory \u2013 be investigated by the US Federal Trade Commission.\u00a0 Intriguingly, the FTC\u2019s mandate does not extend to airlines.\u00a0 So, who is the investigation targeting?\u00a0 The DoT has exclusive authority to investigate airlines\u2019 unfair and deceptive practices.\u00a0 It shares jurisdiction with FTC for agents.\u00a0 The travel agents are on board<\/a>.\u00a0 So Schumer\u2019s call for an investigation does not target direct sales by airlines to passengers.\u00a0 Perhaps the investigation is directed at players with massive data collecting capabilities who have the ability to disrupt GDSs?\u00a0 Any guesses?\u00a0 Answers on a postcard\u2026\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, it was business as usual for the European Business Aviation Association, despite losing their Executive Director late last week \u2013 to spend more time on his other business (as usual) interests.\u00a0 Monday also saw yet another study<\/a> that tries to put a value on the value the biz-av community delivers to Europe.\u00a0 It is a perennial issue.\u00a0 Biz-Av represents about 12% of the IFR flying but the EBAA does not wield 12% of the influence.\u00a0 That some of the biggest players are Russian oligarchs is not helping.\u00a0 However, that explains the press release\u2019s focus on medical evacuations and air ambulances.\u00a0 Ominously, the release also described the report as containing \u2018engaging infographics\u2019.\u00a0 You have been warned.\r\n\r\nYou may recall the IAG CEO\u2019s incredibly thin-skinned dummy-spit last week when, outraged by a true story in the Financial Times, he Trumpianly called the FT the \u2018Fake Times\u2019.\u00a0 Clearly, it hit a sore spot.\u00a0 Adding to his sense of persecution would have been the announcement<\/a> on Tuesday <\/strong>that the FT was the UK Society of Editors\u2019 Newspaper of the Year.\u00a0 No, this is not fake.\u00a0 Just news.\r\n\r\nIt has been a dog of a twenty-first century for United Airlines on the customer service front, and things just keep getting worse.\u00a0 Not content to break guitars<\/a> and forcibly off-load doctors<\/a>, the customer anti-service geniuses at United have turned their focus to animals. \u00a0First, they came for the rabbits<\/a>.\u00a0 Now, realising that it is the Year of the Dog, canines are in the cross-hairs.\u00a0 One dog was killed after being forced to travel in the overhead bins<\/a> \u2013 a temptation for flight attendants certainly, but one that should be resisted.\u00a0 Then, in a stroke of comedy gold, on Wednesday <\/strong>they re-routed<\/a> a German Shepherd due to fly to Kansas to Tokyo.\u00a0 When the family showed up in Kansas to claim their dog they were offered a Great Dane instead.\u00a0 To date, the owners of the Great Dane, presumably in Tokyo, have not come forward.\r\n\r\nOn Friday<\/strong>, finally, the Airport Council International got religion.\u00a0 For years, we have been fighting a lonely fight that perhaps the slot allocation regime was not in the industry\u2019s best interests.\u00a0 Aviation Advocacy has been criticised for this position.\u00a0 To be fair, the ACI did go to the last ICAO General Assembly with a paper gently suggesting the issue be looked at.\u00a0 Now, at last, Angela Gittens, the ACI Global DG, has come out publically<\/a> advocating change.\u00a0 Perhaps she was emboldened by Henrik Hololei\u2019s speech to the European Aviation Club earlier in the week noting his displeasure at the abuse of grandfathering rights.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular readers of the Aviation Intelligence Reporter will know of our occasional forays into poetry.\u00a0 A copy of our collected works is available for the discerning.\u00a0 We bow to no-one in our love of aviation poetry, and are more than happy to shout out to Norwegian Air, which over the weekend responded to a passenger […]<\/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-793","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\/793","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=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":795,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}