A cornucopia of news, opinion, views, facts and quirky bits that need to be talked about. Join our community and join in the conversation on all matters aviation. The blog includes our weekly round-up of the bits of European aviation you may otherwise have missed – That Was The Week That Was
It was a week that was for contemplating international relations, with a side dish of Brexit. On Monday, the Financial Times reported that US have offered the UK a worse open skies deal than that currently in place for the EU. Quelle surprise. The negotiations – the UK is not supposed to negotiate with third countries until after Brexit is finalized, so strictly, speaking, negotiations about what negotiations might be about – have gone into extra time. Negotiators (negotiate-about-negotiators?) stayed on. Diaries were rescheduled. So, the FT was likely accurate. That is not good news. The inconceivable is that there will be no scheduled services between the UK and the US, at least for a time. Inconceivable like Brexit? Like Trump’s election? There probably will be services, but at what price for the UK?
Meanwhile in Madrid, the CANSO membership was asked to consider their future. Trade war alert – a sizable minority, certainly a non-ignorable minority, do not want any new style ANSPs to be admitted as members. UTM providers, companies that provide services at towers are not traditional ANSPs, they argued. They can be Associates. Ah ha – they like their money, just not their business models. Or is it that they actually have business models they don’t like?
On Tuesday, Willie Walsh responded to the FT article: ‘There will be a comprehensive open skies agreement. Anybody who doesn’t believe that is living in cloud cuckoo land. It is absolute madness.’ The FT, he said, was ‘the Fake Times’. Walsh also said that he thinks that airports should merely be ‘sheds’ into which his first-class passengers will no doubt enjoy being herded. It was an A4E jamboree and predictably, the national sport of the A4E – airport bashing – was engaged in at full throttle.
Driving this frenzy on was the unrelenting drum beat of President Trump’s trade war. So Qatar’s embassy in Brussels tweeting that it had just signed an Air Services Agreement with Belgium was not welcome news. Qatar and the EU are currently negotiating an open skies pact. It would be bad form for a bout of divide and conquer to take place. Turns out, the ASA between was initialled before the EU mandate was granted and only formally signed March 6.
On Wednesday, the EU rejected the UK’s plans for a post-Brexit EU trade relationship. European Council President Donald Tusk circulated a new set of draft guidelines on Brexit reinforcing the EU position that the UK will be out of the single market. In a statement following the release, however, tantalisingly, Tusk remarked that he is ‘determined to avoid that particularly absurd consequence of Brexit that is the disruption of flights between the UK and the EU.’ Laudable, but neither Tusk nor the draft guidelines offer any insights into how this will be achieved. And what about the Commission line of no negotiations on sectoral agreements?
No less baffling is Theresa May saying that the UK is willing to stay in EASA. But what about the ECJ Red Line? Anything contradictory the EU can do, the UK can do better.
On Thursday Walsh’s fears of airports as not-sheds went into cyber space. Frankfurt airport was awarded the prize of being the best e-commerce platform in the airport and travel sector. The future of airports crystallises. No need at all for bricks and mortar. Just a runway and a shed. Sorted.
Friday, the airports, mad as hell, signalled they are not taking it anymore. Sick of the gratuitous bashing the A4E dishes out, they published their own ‘verified facts’. It is hard to see ‘Verified Facts’ having the same ring as ‘Fake News’ but we live in hope. It would certainly slow down the flow of words thrown about if there was a need for verification – or is that to live in cloud cuckoo land?
It was a week that was for contemplating international relations, with a side dish of Brexit. On Monday, the Financial Times reported that US have offered the UK a worse open skies deal than that currently in place for the EU. Quelle surprise. The negotiations – the UK is not supposed to negotiate with third countries until after Brexit is finalized, so strictly, speaking, negotiations about what negotiations might be about – have gone into extra time. Negotiators (negotiate-about-negotiators?) stayed on. Diaries were rescheduled. So, the FT was likely accurate. That is not good news. The inconceivable is that there will be no scheduled services between the UK and the US, at least for a time. Inconceivable like Brexit? Like Trump’s election? There probably will be services, but at what price for the UK?
Meanwhile in Madrid, the CANSO membership was asked to consider their future. Trade war alert – a sizable minority, certainly a non-ignorable minority, do not want any new style ANSPs to be admitted as members. UTM providers, companies that provide services at towers are not traditional ANSPs, they argued. They can be Associates. Ah ha – they like their money, just not their business models. Or is it that they actually have business models they don’t like?
On Tuesday, Willie Walsh responded to the FT article: ‘There will be a comprehensive open skies agreement. Anybody who doesn’t believe that is living in cloud cuckoo land. It is absolute madness.’ The FT, he said, was ‘the Fake Times’. Walsh also said that he thinks that airports should merely be ‘sheds’ into which his first-class passengers will no doubt enjoy being herded. It was an A4E jamboree and predictably, the national sport of the A4E – airport bashing – was engaged in at full throttle.
Driving this frenzy on was the unrelenting drum beat of President Trump’s trade war. So Qatar’s embassy in Brussels tweeting that it had just signed an Air Services Agreement with Belgium was not welcome news. Qatar and the EU are currently negotiating an open skies pact. It would be bad form for a bout of divide and conquer to take place. Turns out, the ASA between was initialled before the EU mandate was granted and only formally signed March 6.
On Wednesday, the EU rejected the UK’s plans for a post-Brexit EU trade relationship. European Council President Donald Tusk circulated a new set of draft guidelines on Brexit reinforcing the EU position that the UK will be out of the single market. In a statement following the release, however, tantalisingly, Tusk remarked that he is ‘determined to avoid that particularly absurd consequence of Brexit that is the disruption of flights between the UK and the EU.’ Laudable, but neither Tusk nor the draft guidelines offer any insights into how this will be achieved. And what about the Commission line of no negotiations on sectoral agreements?
No less baffling is Theresa May saying that the UK is willing to stay in EASA. But what about the ECJ Red Line? Anything contradictory the EU can do, the UK can do better.
On Thursday Walsh’s fears of airports as not-sheds went into cyber space. Frankfurt airport was awarded the prize of being the best e-commerce platform in the airport and travel sector. The future of airports crystallises. No need at all for bricks and mortar. Just a runway and a shed. Sorted.
Friday, the airports, mad as hell, signalled they are not taking it anymore. Sick of the gratuitous bashing the A4E dishes out, they published their own ‘verified facts’. It is hard to see ‘Verified Facts’ having the same ring as ‘Fake News’ but we live in hope. It would certainly slow down the flow of words thrown about if there was a need for verification – or is that to live in cloud cuckoo land?