General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
The need for “Arctic free fuel” – can ethical businesses justify using oil drilled in the Arctic?
In his blog in Business Green, James Murray writes of the potential to get businesses which aspire to be ethically and environmentally responsible to refuse to use oil drilled from the Arctic. James says it is clear that not all is the same ethically, and the dangers of damage to the Arctic from drilling make it even worse than other sources. Should an ethical business be using fuel that has been sourced from one of the world's few remaining pristine habitats, particularly when the record of those companies seeking to drill in some of the planet's most hostile conditions is already laughably poor? Oil companies will try to claim Arctic oil cannot be separated from other oil, but that really should not be beyond the wit of oil executives.. Now is the time for the world's biggest corporate consumers - the airlines, the food giants, the logistics companies - to declare that they want no part of the reckless oil rush in the Arctic, and they won't buy Arctic oil. What's needed is a group of progressive CEOs, from airlines, consumer goods firms, clothing companies etc to send out the "Arctic-free fuel" message.
Click here to view full story...
Economist: Proposed EU rules on state aid aim to stem the flow of money from taxpayers’ pockets to Ryanair
Article in the Economist gives a useful set of insights into airport subsidies at small airports across Europe, which are now due to be reduced after consultation. The Economist says Europe has over 450 airports, mostly small and loss-making. About 85% are publicly owned. Local politicians’ enthusiastic sponsorship of airports, to boost regional economies, has in turn contributed to the rapid growth of low-cost airlines, since the airports have used their subsidies to offer cheap landing fees and other sweeteners to persuade the cheap carriers to fly there. Ryanair is the sole or dominant carrier at many of the airports under investigation, and has been getting effective subsidies of as much as €11 per passenger. There may be as much as €3 billion of taxpayers’ money given in EU-approved aid to small airports each year, and more that is not sanctioned. EU laws ban state aid if it seriously distorts markets and though there have been many investigations into this, none has yet reached a conclusion. Some smaller airports will find it hard to pay Ryanair and other budget airlines enough to keep them flying there. With tighter rules, some of the 80-odd European airports with under 1m passengers will be at risk of closing.
Click here to view full story...
“BackHeathrow” (paid for by airport – not a grass roots campaign), send biased scare-mongering survey to half a million
A lobbying group - called BackHeathrow - funded by Heathrow Airport is to distribute a survey to half a million homes, to try and get some favourable views on a new Heathrow runway.They are using fear as a tactic, to get local people worried that they might lose their jobs if the airport was not allowed to expand. There is, of course, no prospect of Heathrow being closed - the BackHeathrow tactic is irresponsible and ill-advised. John McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, bordering Heathrow to the north and under threat from a northern runway, said it was just another front organisation funded by the airport and another cynical spurious public relations exercise. John Stewart, chairman of HACAN, said BackHeathrow claims it is a grass roots campaign but no grass roots campaign has the sort of funding to send out half a million surveys. This is astoturfing, not a real citizens' initiative. BackHeathrow survey results must be treated with great scepticism, when/if they come out. It's so badly worded & biased as to be valueless. The "Have you stopped beating your wife?" type questions in the BackHeathrow survey are so loaded they'd make you laugh if they didn't make you angry.
Click here to view full story...
Speech against the “Grands projets inutiles et imposés” at European Commission’s Trans-European Transport Networks conference
There was a European Commission conference in Talinn on 16-17th October, organised through Infrastructure TEN-T (Trans-European Transport Networks). A similar meeting has been held annually for several years. Its aim was for European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas, Ministers, Members of the European Parliament and key stakeholders to gather to discuss the future development of the trans-European transport network. One of the speeches at the conference was by Madeleine Wahlberg, who has spent many years researching and lecturing in the planning and public policy field, particularly focusing on the decision processes behind major schemes. She spoke of the Grands projets inutiles et imposés (big, unnecessary imposed projects) across Europe - such as huge road schemes, airport building, high speed rail lines, motorways and barrages. She made the point that opponents of these huge schemes want social justice,and they want transport that is environmentally responsible, that adopts a Life Cycle Assessment and that applies the precautionary principle. Current TEN-T proposals embody massive environmental destruction.
Click here to view full story...
‘Norwegian’ to challenge BA and Virgin by launching £150 flights to New York from Gatwick
Transatlantic fares from £150, one way, will be on offer from the UK when the low-cost carrier, Norwegian, begins new long-haul services from Gatwick in summer 2014 - using a Dreamliner 787. From July 2014 it will fly from Gatwick to New York (3 times per week), Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale (twice a week each). The introductory fares, one way, will be New York £149, Fort Lauderdale £179 and Los Angeles £199. Norwegian's chief executive Bjorn Kjos said: ‘There's great demand for high-quality flights at a low fare between the UK and the US, particularly to and from Gatwick." These are largely holiday flights. Gatwick is excited about the new flights, as it wants to compete with Heathrow for long haul routes. Norwegian currently offers 320 weekly flights and 25 routes from Gatwick, and in January 2012, it announced a large aircraft order,of 122 Boeing 737 aircraft as part of a significant expansion. Last month Ryanair's Michael O’Leary announced he is planning ‘ten buck’ transatlantic flights to the United States, when he can get the right planes.
Click here to view full story...
Put the “No New Runway” option back on the table, AEF tells Sir Howard Davies
Writing in the Huffington Post, James Lees ( (Research and Communications Officer, Aviation Environment Federation - AEF) says the Airports Commission is wrong in its preliminary conclusion - announced by Sir Howard Davies on 7th October - that a new runway is needed. In his blog James goes through the list of strong arguments why no new runway capacity is needed. These include climate impacts. The CCC guidance suggests the number of air passengers could perhaps rise by 60% over 2005 levels, by 2050. However, this does not take any account of the non-CO2 impacts of air travel. Even allowing for 60% more passengers means the carbon emissions from UK aviation would rise to be a quarter of total UK emissions and require large carbon reductions from other sectors to meet the UK's 2050 target. And if a runway is built, how do we put the brakes on the aviation industry's growth? James concludes that Sir Howard is aware of all these arguments, but has made the wrong conclusion. "To show that he really is 'alive to the climate change problem', Sir Howard should put the no new runway option back on the table."
Click here to view full story...
Is there a need for extra airport capacity? No says GACC in their response to Sir Howard Davies
In his speech on 7th October, Sir Howard went carefully through a list of reasons why more airport capacity in the south east is not needed, before concluding - in the second part of his speech gave his preliminary conclusion that a new runway would be needed. His speech is out for consultation until 31st October. In their response, GACC (Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign) say there is no need for a new runway. A few of their reasons include deficiencies in forecasts of future numbers of flights and passengers; also that over the past 20 years the number of passengers per aircraft had been increasing by 2% a year but DfT forecasts only assumed a 0.2% annual increase in future. GACC suggests the use of larger aircraft could be encouraged if airports based their landing charges on a per aircraft basis rather than, as at present, on the aircraft size and per passenger. GACC says the environmental disadvantages of each potential runway site may be so great that they should and will influence the decision as to whether or not extra capacity should be provided. There would also be adverse north-south in-migration problems.
Click here to view full story...
Irish Republic to scrap air travel tax – which was only €3 (had been €2 and €10 till 2010)
The Irish government has announced that it will be scrapping its tax on air travel. At present there is a tax of just €3 per flight, and this will end in April 2014. This has led to concerns about the potential impact on Northern Ireland's airports, where there is still Air Passenger duty of £13 per passenger (€26 per return flight) for short haul flights (not for long haul flights). Ryanair has immediately said it will increase its traffic at Irish airports by one million passengers a year - which is rather surprising, if the difference in tax from what it is now is just €3. It is not thought likely that many people will travel from Northern Ireland to Dublin to save €20 - the trip there and back might cost more. George Best Belfast City Airport said the move was "very unlikely to cause a stampede to Dublin for cheap flights". Stormont Finance Minister, Simon Hamilton, said the move by the Republic was "not really a surprise" and that it would be prohibitively expensive for Northern Ireland to match the cut. "The cost to the NI block grant and other public services would be significant - between £60 - £90 million a year," he said.
Click here to view full story...
European Commission proposes applying EU ETS only to European regional airspace from 1 January 2014
The European Commission has proposed amending the ETS so that aviation emissions would be covered just for the part of flights that takes place in European regional airspace (including over the North Sea or Mediterranean). The adjustment in the legislation would apply from 1 January 2014 and until a planned global market-based mechanism (MBM) becomes applicable to international aviation emissions by 2020, according to ICAO. European Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, said "Europe is taking the responsibility to reduce emissions within its own airspace until the global measure begins'. Also that the aviation sector, like other sectors, has to contribute to cuts in EU carbon emissions, as aviation emission are increasing fast – doubling since 1990. The proposal needs to be agreed by the European Parliament and the Counci, before April 2014. The proposal covers all CO2 emissions from flights between airports in the European Economic Area (EEA), including Norway and Iceland. Parts of flights outside the EEA are not covered, and flights of developing countries - of which their aviation emissions are less than 1% of the global whole - are not included.
Click here to view full story...
Grey day for environment as Europe reduces its aviation ETS coverage to only European airspace
The European Commission has, under intense international pressure, proposed to reduce its ETS for aviation to only cover flights in European airspace. The proposal would only cover 35% of aviation emissions compared to the original aviation EU ETS. It would cover flights by all airlines, except from less developed countries, which contribute 1% or less of global aviation CO2. Bill Hemmings, aviation manager at Transport & Environment, said: “It is disgraceful that foreign and industry pressure has obliged Europe to shrink its own aviation emissions law to the bare minimum.” The EC’s text comes shortly after the conclusion of the ICAO triennial assembly, where delegates, in a political decision, finally agreed to talk about the details of a global market based measure for 2020 but rejected interim measures like the EU ETS. The current proposal would leave the vast bulk of EU aviation emissions - which come from long-haul flights – unregulated. T&E urges the European Parliament and Member States to include an option to extend the aviation emissions coverage of the ETS to a 50/50 basis in 2017.