That Was The Week That Was 27 June-01 July 2022
What a week! Delayed sustainability and bread (and the occasional circus)
Well, finally, after all this time, something happened in aviation and just like trams, you wait ages then everything happens at once. It was like the good old days for a moment. Yes, the good old days: the big airlines demanding that their position be defended, at the cost of truth and climate change. Yes, the good old days, when the ICAO Council was ignored by one of it is biggest member states. Yes, the good old days when the European Council comes down with an ambivalent decision that nonetheless disappoints. Yes, the good old days … Did you miss them?
Back from the triathlon that was the AGM season, a year, a month, squeezed into one week, it was time to get back to reality. Every AGM talked about it, but once the rubber hit the road, well, that was another story. I am talking of course, about sustainability. For the devout of mind and training, is fair to say that the airline industry is the St Augustine of our times. St Augustine once prayed ‘make me chaste, but not yet.’ Our prayer? Make us sustainable, but not if we have do anything about it to make it so.
Monday started with the European Parliament’s TRAN Committee voting on a revised Emission Trading Scheme for aviation. It has two interesting/scary/fundamental requirements [insert preferred adjectives here]. The first, that the ETS be accelerated and expanded, bringing forward the end of the free allowances, and increasing the need for SAFs – which would make fuel more expensive and act as a de facto fuel tax; and secondly, to expand the ETS to all flights into and out of Europe, regardless of the nationality of the airline. Currently the ETS applies to intra-European flights only. The legacy carriers are congenitally allergic to the first, but the second is more interesting. The low-cost carriers are sick of 100% of their fuel being subject to the ETS whilst the network carriers can slip some of their production under the wire. The solution proposed, on the other hand, would make 100% of their production subject to the ETS but only a fraction of their international competitors’ production subject to it.
Extensive, desperate, intensive lobbying ensued. To no avail if you were a network carrier, for good, if an LCC. TRAN voted for the changes. Not to worry, or look out, there were two stops left. The full European Parliament and then the European Council. It is a European politics geek’s week!
Tuesday on the other hand, saw a change of pace and of venue. Off Schumann, off Luxemburg, much closer to the airport, the DG of Civil Aviation in Spain, Raul Medina Caballero was selected as the next DG of Eurocontrol. He will inherit an organisation much changed and much more forward looking than his immediate predecessor, Eamonn Brennan. We wish Raul all the very best. But after that diversion, it was back to deferred sustainability. Tuesday also saw the TRAN Committee proposal go to the full plenary of the European Parliament. It was carried comfortably.
From there to the Council which was meeting in Luxembourg. It started to consider the Parliament’s proposal. got us back to business as the European Council – which started on this on the Tuesday but only decided it on the Wednesday at about 0230, wound back the Parliament’s proposal, on the grounds that it would undermine CORSIA. You cannot make this up. We the honourable, pray for sustainability, but not now, and try to bolster the CORSIA system that only Europe complies with in any substantial way. Really?
As if to troll the Council we also had to lift our eyes to the horizon and ask what happens when the international system breaks down. Or fails, or whatever words you want to use. It might be interesting to know, because the single most advanced reason for doing less, not more on sustainability is that it will breach the ICAO ring of solidarity.
Wednesday gave us all we need to know. You may recall that when the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, Russia in effect ‘nationalised’ all registrations bringing them onto the Russian registry. So upset was ICAO at this development, it passed a resolution. No, sorry, nothing that definitive. It called on Russia to stop. That will have them pondering their next steps in the Kremlin. Dual registration is a violation of the Chicago Convention. The purpose is transparency vis-à-vis safety – States vet each other’s safety procedures including the use of approved replacement parts, which are no longer available to Russia. Even China recognises that, banning the flight of Russian western-leased, dual registered aircraft in its airspace. It also begs the question of why (dual) registration of the stolen aircraft in the first place? If Russia is so disillusioned with the western legal system, then why quasi-conformance via registration? Why not completely ignore the system rather than conforming with it in a cack-handed way? The attempt at the appearance of propriety lends credence to John McCain’s statement that Russia is a ‘gas station masquerading as a country.’ So much for the norms of our international framework.
Back in Luxemburg, to be fair, the Council did propose a form of anti-ETS certificate for SAFs that were used. Airlines get credits for the SAFs that they use, above the statutory minimum. That is not in CORSIA.
There is a limit to how much excitement one week can contain, and Eurocontrol tried to calm things down, whilst keeping the pressure on by releasing another of its think pieces on spectrum on Thursday. Safety critical, as Eurocontrol notes, but saturated and getting very crowded. In the year 2000 IATA ran a very successful campaign to protect its spectrum from the then new technology of mobile phones. Now, that wave is impossible to ignore. It will be a fascinating conversation to watch. Do please contact the author if you want war stories from the WRC2000.
Friday saw Czechia take over the Presidency of the European Union, with a plan that puts Europe on a war footing. Energy security is important for example. At the same time, it is full steam ahead for SAFs. That is not what the Americans wanted to hear at the G7 meeting. Their concern is that we are putting food into aeroplanes (and cars and ships) if we do that. Energy is important, feeding the people is also important. T&E pointed out the dilemma. Full steam hydrogen then. Or, as someone much closer to St Augustine noted, what the people need are bread and circuses.