That Was The Week That Was 18-22 January 2021
Kicking an industry when it is down
We all know that the aviation industry is having a hard time at the moment. A very hard time. New travel restrictions are coming into place; the golden glow of hope that vaccines would be an immediate answer has lost its lustre; new variants are rearing their very ugly heads. But how low can things be when Europe’s train industry has a free hit at you as well? The trains! Not content to sit back and gloat over this being officially the Year of the Train, on Monday the Community of European Railways wants more. The ETS scheme in place for aviation is nowhere near good enough. In the interests of fairness, the CER asserts, Europe should see the EU-ETS/CORSIA approach as a dead duck and go to a full carbon tax. Otherwise competition is distorted says a transport sector that gets more than any other in state assistance and subsidy.
Maybe this love affair with rail is buried deep in our psyche. Look at the way we talk. Vaccines are going to ‘roll out’ we heard on Tuesday, not ‘take off’. Things are getting ‘back on track’. The roll out of the vaccine is the head of the spear of pent-up demand, the European Transport Commission noted, subliminally noting that the tourism and travel will be by rail. Even at the sub-conscious level, everyone wants to kick the aviation industry. At almost the same time as this press release, to the minute, new restrictions and border closures were announced. Generally, the new restrictions require certification of test results for air and sea travellers, but not rail travellers across Europe. That cut across IATA’s push to swing its weight behind a push for a common digital vaccination certificate.
That IATA supported it was surely not the only reason for the next move, but more sand was thrown in the gears of the ‘vaccines are the answer’ crowd on Wednesday when no less than the EU Commissioner for Internal Markets, Thierry Breton said that vaccination certificates alone are not the answer. No, we are stuck with testing for the foreseeable future. Another kick to an industry that the ACI then self-described as in ’systemic collapse’. The solution, of course, is more State Aid. Of course it is. Perhaps we should applaud the ECR and their railway colleagues for not getting into the swing of having another swing at aviation by suggesting that more train stations are the answer.
So by Thursday the industry needed someone to punch back – step forward Carsten Spohr, the CEO of the Lufthansa group, speaking on Eurocontrol’s StraightTalk Live… He fought fire with fire. The sustainability argument that says journeys of less than 500klms must move onto trains does not scare him. Knowing his Europe as well as he does, he merely noted the French solution, which was to exempt flights connecting to long-haul hubs. Viola!
But all of this is moot, if the mood of Friday is to be believed. Reports from a late night European Council meeting on Thursday made hard reading. Turns out planes and trains are in the same boat. Travel is to be ‘strongly discouraged’ whether by train or plane.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I was the person interviewing Spohr on Thursday.