General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Mary Robinson says it is time for everyone, including aviation, to take their share of climate responsibility
Writing in the Hindustan Times, in India, Mary Robinson - who is a former president of Ireland and president of the "Mary Robinson Foundation — Climate Justice" - talks of the impacts of climate change on the poor in the developing world. Shailesh Nayak, secretary, Indian ministry of earth sciences, said climate change may be causing extreme weather. It is the poor who are picking up the tab for the carbon profligacy of developed nations. Taking into account all the climate impacts of aviation, estimates put aviation’s overall contribution to global warming at 4.9%. ICAO anticipates CO2 emissions from international aviation (about 60% of total aviation emissions) will grow from about 400 million tonnes in 2010 to 650 million tonnes by 2020. So aviation bears a share of responsibility for the accelerated drought-flood cycle that climate change will bring to countries like India. "The time for everyone to take their share of the responsibility and to act is now. And this must include the aviation industry."
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Ryanair issues 2nd profit warning in 2 months expecting a loss for 2nd half of 2013/4 – due to “weak demand”
Ryanair has issued its 2nd profit warning in 2 months. It expects losses in the 2nd half of 2013-14 which is its first fall in profits for 5 years. The airline has recently cut fares, in an attempt to attract more passengers against increased competition, less demand and weak economic conditions. Ryanair is as determined as ever to keep on growing (for growth's sake). It aims to increase its passengers from 79.3m in 2012-13 to 110m in 2018-19 . It now says its forecast profit for the year to March 2014 will be some €500 to €520 million, while in September it predicted more like €570 million. Ryanair hopes low fares attract more passengers, who then spend more on other extras and services. Other budget airlines are competing for Ryanair's customers, eg. Norwegian Air Shuttle, Vueling and Wizz Air. Ryanair is to offer fully allocated seating from 2014 to try and improve its image - and attract business customers - as passengers complain about the rush to get on board to secure the best seats.
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Justine Greening: Expand Heathrow and we risk a plane crash in London
Cabinet minister Justine Greening has warned that expanding Heathrow would increase the risk of a plane crashing on London, stressing that “we cannot beat the odds forever”. She said it would be more likely that a plane would crash into a highly populated area of west London — either due to human error or a terrorist attack — if there were more flights. If that happened, there could be a lot of deaths and injuries. She was giving evidence to the Airports Commission when she said that despite Heathrow’s good safety record, human error meant that the risk of a crash could never be reduced to zero. She added: “In addition to that, aviation clearly faces other risks, not least terrorism. ...The higher the absolute number of aircraft movements, the higher the danger that even an ‘extremely low probability’ event may occur." She warned that allowing expansion at Heathrow would be “one of the biggest planning and transport strategy mistakes of this century, irreversibly blighting Londoners’ quality of life”.
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SSE tell Airports Commission robust evidence will be needed on financial viability of any new runway
The speech delivered by Sir Howard Davies, on 7 October 2013 was described as setting out the Airports Commission's 'Emerging Thinking' on aviation capacity in the UK. It took the form of setting out some of the main arguments against increasing runway capacity in the UK, and it then dismissed each in turn - and stated that "Our provisional conclusion is that we will need some net additional runway capacity in the south east of England in the coming decades". Stop Stansted Expansion has submitted their comments, which advise against building any new runway capacity. They argue that the speech contained very little in terms of hard evidence to support the conclusion favouring a new runway. SSE question the financial viability of a new runway, as there is already so much spare runway capacity, and say people will expect to see robust evidence to demonstrate the Commission's grounds for its confidence that projects proposed have commercial viability. SSE also says the current DfT demand forecasts are not nearly strong enough - or reliable enough - to support a business case for a new runway.
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Reported airline ancillary revenue $27.1 billion in 2012 – up 19.6% from 2011
Globally the amount of money that airlines made from ancillary services is growing faster than the amount they make from tickets. Research figures indicate that airlines made some $27 billion from ancillary services in 2012, up about 19% from 2011. Ancillary services include baggage fees, onboard food and drink, early boarding benefits, commission based activities, frequent flier activities, insurance, holiday booking, car hire and hotel booking. According to the research by Idea Works and Car Trawler, ancillaries now account for 6% of all airline revenue. Optional services such as onboard food and drinks, checked baggage and early boarding access now account for a bit over half (56%) of total airline ancillaries. The other 44% is "business opportunities linked to a passenger’s trip such as hotel and car rental bookings, and even the use of a co-branded credit card to accrue frequent flier miles or points.” Based on the total amount airlines earn from ancillary services, globally Ryanair was 6th in 2012 with € 1,064,200,000, AirFrance/KLM 7th with €924,000,000 and easyJet was 8th with €880,903,848.
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Green organisations tell Sir Howard Davies that allowing another runway jeopardises UK climate goals
Eight of the key environmental organisations in the UK have written an open letter to Sir Howard Davies, Chairman of the Airports Commission, to express their concern about the Commission's "emerging thinking" that more runway capacity is needed for the south east, as expressed in Sir Howard's speech on 7th October. They have serious concerns about how adding a new runway could be compatible with UK climate targets, and they call on the Commission to demonstrate how its recommendations will avoid gambling on our future ability to meet the UK climate target. The NGOs say the Committee on Climate Change's analysis concluded that stabilising UK aviation’s emissions at their 2005 level could translate to a maximum 60% growth in the number of passengers at UK airports. They set out 4 key arguments why no new runway capacity is needed even if passenger numbers are permitted to grow by up to 60%. They also urge the Commission to retain a “no new runways” option in its deliberations as the best way of achieving the targets set in the UK Climate Change Act. The eight green NGOs which have signed the letter are: Aviation Environment Federation; Campaign for Better Transport; Friends of the Earth; Greenpeace; RSPB; Stop Climate Chaos; The Woodland Trust; WWF-UK.
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Opposition in Kerala, southern India, to proposed airport at Anakkara – with displacement of people and destruction of agricultural land
The Indian government is keen to increase the flow of tourists into Kerala. Though there are two large airports which serve the area, at Kochi and Thiruvanthapuran, there is pressure to build more. One of the sites under threat of an airport is Anakkara, which is inland, and less than 150 km from Madurai airport. There is considerable opposition - one source says the local people are united in their opposition - in the area, which is an agricultural area. The airport would take well over 500 acres, much of which now grows paddy, as well as pepper, coffee and cardamom cultivation areas. There is an Anti-Airport Agitation Council that is fighting the plans. They say hundreds of families would have to be relocated, as the area is densely populated. The purpose of the airport is solely to increase tourism, and would largely benefit the private sector. Those opposing the Anakkara plans have set up social networking campaign sites such s Save Anakkara Blog and Anti-Anakkara Airport on Facebook, explaining reasons why the airport project should not be implemented.
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Heathrow payment of £160 million boosts profits at Ferrovial
Heathrow Airport paid out £160m to its majority shareholder Ferrovial in the first nine months of the year, helping to boost net profit at Ferrovial by 2%. Ferrovial received dividends of €355m from its investments in airports and toll roads - causing Ferrovial's net profit to rise to €485m (£414m) in the nine months to September 30th. Heathrow had performed “exceptionally well” during the period, paying out £476m to its shareholders - including the Qatari and Chinese sovereign wealth funds -during the period, although the sum was inflated by a £300m one-off return from the sale of Stansted to MAG in February. Last week Ferrovial sold an 8.65% stake in Heathrow to the Universities Superannuation Scheme, for £392m, pushing its holding down to 25%. Ferrovial said funds from the USS deal would “greatly enhance the company’s flexibility to undertake new investments orientated towards international expansion”. British Airways has accused Heathrow of generating “excessive” returns for its shareholders at the cost of its customers.
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IATA air freight data over the past year month by month – slowing very small growth
IATA monthly data show global air freight is only rising very slowly indeed, with falls in some months. For instance, measuring FTK (Freight Tonne Kilometres) the increase was +0.5% in September 2013; + 3.5% in August; + 1.2% in July; + 1.2% in June 2013; + 0.8% in May 2013; + 1.4% in April 2013; - 2.3% in March 2013; - 6.2% in Feb 2013 ; + 5.0% in Jan 2013; - 0.3% in Dec 2013; + 1.6% in Nov 2012; and -.3.5% in Oct 2012. For all of 2012, the amount of freight was down - 1.5% compared to 2011. And in 2011 the total number of freight kilometres was itself down by - 0.7% compared to 2010. At present, the total freight traffic market shares by region of carriers in terms of FTK are: Asia-Pacific 38.8%, Europe 23.9%, North America 20.8%, Middle East 12.0%, Latin America 3.1%, Africa 1.4%. In 2012 the only regions that saw a growth in air freight were Africa and the Middle East. All other regions saw a decline; this was - 2.9% in Europe. In 2011 there were approximately 29.7 millions tonnes air freighted.
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UK looks to increase number of UK – China flights through renewed bilateral agreement
UK Transport minister Patrick McLoughlin has agreed to start negotiations with China in early 2014 to increase the number of flights allowed between the two countries. This would need an updated bilateral agreement with China. At present each country has a "bilateral agreement" with each other country - the aim of which was initially to prevent airlines of rich countries dominating those of poor countries, in providing air links. Currently the bilateral agreement between the UK and China, which was signed in 2004, limits each country’s airlines to a total of 31 return flights per week between 6 destinations in both the UK and China. Patrick McLoughlin hopes that increasing this number of flights would be good "for trade, tourism and forging new partnerships, strengthening the links between our two countries.” The DfT said more flights could increase the amount that visiting Chinese nationals spend in the UK, which was around £300 million in 2012. The DfT also hopes this could "benefit the increasing number of UK companies who regularly travel to China.”