General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Airspace consultation launched by NATS and Gatwick Airport – for Gatwick, London City, Southend & Biggin Hill airport areas
NATS, the UK’s provider of air traffic services, and Gatwick Airport have started a joint consultation today on proposed airspace changes over southern England. It is called the London Airspace Consultation (LAC) and it will run for 14 weeks, until January 21st, 2014. The public can respond. The consultation is on swathes of airspace - not exact routes - which will be determined after consideration of the consultation feedback. That makes commenting difficult. NATS says this is the first stage in a wider programme of proposed changes to deliver the UK’s Future Airspace Strategy (FAS), which is being developed by the CAA. The intention is that the FAS will help airlines make efficiencies in fuel use, and perhaps reduce noise for those over-flown. New European legislation requires all member States, including the UK, to revise airspace and maximise the use of new technologies, to get noise and CO2 benefits. The current NATS consultation involves airspace around Gatwick and also London City Airport. Later stages will deal with other areas of airspace in other parts of the London airports network, and should be completed by 2020. Local residents fear the real motive is to pack in more flights.
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Osborne says UK visas will be simplified to attract more Chinese visitors to Britain
Chinese nationals visiting the EU will not need to submit separate visa applications for Britain, if they book with selected travel agents. Currently, Chinese visitors can apply for a single visa to visit much of Europe, but a separate one is required to travel to the UK. Chancellor George Osborne made the announcement during a week long trade visit to China, where a Chinese firm was announced as a substantial investor in Britain's first Airport City in Manchester. It is thought that extra paperwork and cost of UK visas is deterring many Chinese visitors from including the UK in a trip to Europe - where one cheaper visa covers the Schengen area. A mobile visa scheme which already operates in Beijing and Shanghai will be expanded where officials go out to the applicants to collect their paperwork and biometric data. According to the government, last year 210,000 visas were issue to Chinese nationals and they contributed around £300m to the economy.
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8 x 4ft fuselage panel of Air India Dreamliner falls off mid-air, but plane lands safely
A panel of the fuselage of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight en route to Bangalore from Delhi fell off mid-air on Saturday. Detachment of the fuselage created a hole about 8 ft x 4ft in the belly of the Air India flight, but it landed safely. Surprisingly, the pilots of the Dreamliner were unaware of the hole in the aircraft, or that the panel had fallen off, as no alarm was raised inside the cockpit. The cockpit was alarmed by the ground staff who was preparing for the flight’s landing who saw the large opening in the aircraft. There were 148 passengers on board. There was no sign of the fallen panel near the airport, so it had fallen off somewhere en route - and presumably crashed to the ground. Meanwhile, aviation experts are shocked that the falling off such a big panel did not raise a cockpit alarm. Airlines remain keen to buy 787s,due to its better fuel economy. So far 60 airlines have placed orders for more than 950 aircraft. Production of the 787-8 is approaching its target of 10 aircraft a month by the end of the year, and the 787-9 is now in the test-flight phase. Boeing has also launched the 787-10, capable of carrying up to 330 people about 13,000km.
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Stop Stansted Expansion lodged papers at High Court alleging Airports Commission criteria “infected by apparent bias” due to Geoff Muirhead
The Stop Stansted Expansion group (SSE) have lodged papers at the Royal Courts of Justice alleging that the criteria being applied to decide on possible options for new runway sites in England are “infected by apparent bias”. SSE want High Court judges to order the Government-appointed Airports Commission to delay the publication of any shortlist of options until the criteria have been re-determined. They argue that there was apparent bias because Geoff Muirhead, a recently-resigned member of the Commission, had a conflict of interest. Mr Muirhead is a former chief executive of Manchester Airports Group (MAG), the owners of Stansted since February. He stepped down from the Commission three weeks ago after SSE warned Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin they would take legal action if he stayed. “For almost a year, Mr Muirhead was allowed to play a pivotal role on the Commission.” The High Court is being asked to order the Commission “to re-visit certain key decisions made by the Commission during the time that Mr Muirhead was involved”.
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Bankrupt Alitalia to get € millions of state aid from Italy’s state postal service
The near-bankrupt Italian airline Alitalia is to receive an emergency capital injection from Italy's state-owned post office. Italy's government did not say how much Poste Italiane SpA, the Italian postal service, would be investing - but it might be up to €100 million. The Italian government hope the link between Poste Italiane and Alitalia would lead to a synergy of logistics, in passengers and cargo. Italy’s civil aviation authority had warned just hours earlier that the airline risked being grounded if new financing was not found urgently. Alitalia needs some €455 million to stay afloat. The Italian government justified what amounted to state intervention saying Alitalia was considered a national asset. It filed for bankruptcy in August, as high staff costs, industrial relations issues and surging oil prices further dented its finances. It is being suggested that Alitalia might be able to merge with Air France-KLM to help get it out of its financial problems. Alitalia went bankrupt in 2008, and was re-launched in 2009.
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Richard Branson – claims to be a UK patriot but moved abroad 7 years ago to avoid UK tax. Morality?
Richard Branson, who takes pride in dressing himself in the Union Jack to display his ‘Britishness,’ has saved millions of pounds in tax from his earnings in Virgin Group by surrendering his residency status and accepting limitations on visits to the UK. He is someone who has been obsessed with money since his teenage years. He says he has been a tax exile for 7 years and claims it has nothing to do with avoiding UK tax. But the net effect is that he does indeed avoid UK tax. Branson says: “Seven years ago we decided to move permanently to Necker [Caribbean] as we feel it gives me and my wife Joan the best chance to live another productive few decades. We can also look after our health (Joan is approaching 70 and I’m not far behind)." Heaven help us if he lives decades more. One senior aide said: “He probably spends more time flying around the world than he does on Necker.” One comment about Branson and his hypocrisy said: "This is also the man who exhorts us all to 'save the planet' by reducing our CO2 emissions...... whilst flying to/from his private Caribbean resort. He may have money but he lacks morals."
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New rail franchise includes requirement for more night trains to serve Luton Airport
Britain’s biggest ever rail franchise will include a requirement for more trains to serve Luton Airport Parkway station. There have been complaints for years that Luton airport does not have a good enough rail service, to too many passengers arrive by road. Documents supporting the new rail franchise, issued on September 26, stipulate there must be a minimum of two trains per hour arriving at Luton Airport Parkway between 3am and 6.59am from Blackfriars on Monday to Saturday morning, with a maximum interval of 40 minutes between consecutive arrivals. The Department of Transport says the new combined Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern (TSGN) Franchise will be the largest UK rail franchise ever let. It is anticipated the successful bids will be announced in May 2014. The Thameslink and Great Northern elements of the TSGN franchise will start in September 2014 with the Southern element being phased in by July 2015. The franchise will run for seven years.
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Stop Stansted Expansion calls time on Airports Commission and DfT with High Court challenge on 14th October
Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) has called time on the Airports Commission and the Secretary of State for Transport and on 14th October will file a Judicial Review application to ensure fairness in determining the way forward on the issue of aviation capacity. Specifically, SSE will be asking the High Court to order the Commission to re-determine the 'sift criteria' (in effect the selection criteria) for assessing airport expansion options and to delay the publication of any shortlist of options until the sift criteria have been re-determined. SSE's legal challenge is on the grounds of apparent bias and concerns the role played by Mr Geoff Muirhead, one of five commissioners appointed to the Airports Commission last year. Mr Muirhead resigned from the Airports Commission three weeks ago, after an initial intervention by SSE's lawyers. Details will be available from 12 noon on 14th October. Brian Ross, from SSE, said: "With proposals on the table from MAG to make Stansted the world's busiest airport with four runways handling up to 160 million passengers a year, there is far too much at stake to allow the issue of apparent bias to go unchallenged."
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FT article on merits of large planes and hubs cf. smaller point-to-point aircraft
An article in the Financial Times by John Gapper says with its sale of composite, fuel-efficient A350 jets to Japan Airlines this week, Airbus entered a market that Boeing has, until now, controlled. It also proved Boeing’s point. The era of the grand aviation project, symbolised by Airbus’s decision more than a decade ago to build the A380 as a superjumbo rival to the Boeing 747, is over. Airlines do not want jumbos. They want midsized aircraft that are cheap to fly and easy to deploy – as the Boeing 787 will be if the company can stop its lithium-ion batteries catching fire. He says airlines such as JAL and Lufthansa are getting rid of their fuel-inefficient 747 fleets and buying more flexible A350s and 787s. Also that Airbus is never likely to recoup the A380’s huge development costs and struggles to get the 30 orders a year it needs to make a small profit. He says future changes in aircraft sizes and fuel efficiency could have a significant impact on patterns of travel, and the balance between hubs and smaller airports. More smaller planes on point to point trips, rather than huge hubs.
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London First getting businesses to fund campaign “Let Britain Fly” to press for airport expansion
London businesses are to fund a major campaign for airport expansion after Sir Howard Davies said the Airports Commission provisionally is backing new runways in the South-East. Business group London First will put pressure on the main political parties to heed the Commissions's recommendations when published after the 2015 election. The “Let Britain Fly” campaign will cost £250,000 and London First is seeking £25,000 each from businesses, trade unions and London boroughs. The cash will be used to fund academic studies and advertising. The lobby group insists it will not campaign in favour of one particular airport. It believes extra flights can be put on at Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick in the next five years regardless of the outcome of a decision on runways. The City of London Corporation is set to contribute to the campaign, with Canary Wharf Group, Sir Robert McAlpine, the Berkeley Group, John Lewis and Segro also committed. “London First” is an aggressively pro-growth lobby organisation, whose stated mission is to “make London the best city in the world in which to do business.”