General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Single European Sky – EU’s ambitions to harmonise air traffic control continue to have problems
Across Europe, air traffic is expected to grow by up to 3% annually and the number of flights may rise by 50% over the next 10-20 years. There are some 9 million flights cross Europe's skies each year. The industry fears unless there are efficiencies, this growth will not happen and Europe would also be vulnerable to delays and flight cancellations on an unprecedented scale. There are already costs to airlines (and passengers) due to delays etc. The Single European Sky is intended to harmonise air traffic control better, as they are fragmented and inefficient. EU airspace is in 27 national air traffic control systems, providing services from some 60 air traffic centres while the airspace is divided into more than 650 sectors. That means airspace is currently structured around national boundaries and so flights are often unable to take direct routes. Nine Functional Airspace blocks (FABs) are intended to replace the current patchwork of 27 national air traffic blocks. European Transport Workers’ Federation accused the Commission of trying to put “the economic stability of the sector at risk by introducing competition, liberalisation and more and more market principles."
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Airports Commission will hold public evidence sessions on 9th & 10th July on climate, connectivity and operational models
The Airports Commission will hold public evidence sessions on 9th July 2013 (on climate change and on connectivity) in Manchester and 10th July 2013 (on operational models of airports) in London. The sessions will be chaired by Sir Howard Davies and attended by the other Commissioners. The sessions are focused on the Commission’s work assessing the nature, scale and timing of the UK’s aviation needs. They will develop the evidence base on the subjects of discussion papers already published by the Commission. They will not discuss any specific potential locations for new aviation capacity. The Commission's website says it "intends to hold further public evidence sessions on this issue in 2014, should it conclude in its interim report that additional aviation capacity is needed." People can attend the sessions, though it is necessary to give prior notification to the Commission by email, and they anticipate organisations, not individuals, attending. The Commission has now published a list of meetings it has had (up to 9th May) showing the date and who the meeting was with. .
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Ryanair buys 175 jets – with speculation it will get into cheap (€10?) transatlantic flights
Ryanair has signed a deal - first publicised in March - to buy 175 Boeing 737-800 jets.. It may also buy another 200 Boeing 737 Max planes by the end of the year. Michael O'Leary is reported, at the Paris Air Show, as saying Ryanair had a unique opportunity to crack the transatlantic market and offer passengers fares of €10 or $10 to fly to the US. It would need 30- 50 suitable planes for that. O'Leary said: “There is an opportunity with the EU-US open skies to, on a fairly big scale, connect 15-20 European cities with 15 of the big US cities, almost from day one.” But back in March 2013 O’Leary’s right hand man Michael Cawley, said Ryanair’s business model (with high load factors and rapid turn-arounds) is not suited to the long-haul market and he did not "think it is ever envisaged that Ryanair would get into the long-haul market." Boeing claims the 737 Max has 19% greater fuel efficiency over its rivals, and so 8% lower costs per seat. Long-haul budget flights have become popular in Asia in recent years with (AirAsia X, Jetstar, Jetstar Asia, Scoot) but it has been hard for airlines to make money with long-haul budget flights.
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GACC submits response to Airports Commission discussion on airport operational models
The Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC) has submitted a response to the Airports Commission's discussion document on Airport Operational models - on the rival merits of hub airports vs. point-to-point airports. GACC suggests that, if the number of passengers per plane continues to increase, there will be no need for any new runway. In 2011 the average number of passengers per flight at Heathrow was 146 compared to 138 at Gatwick. But if - with ever larger planes - over the next 20 years the average number of passengers per aircraft were to increase to 200 that would be roughly equivalent to two new runways in the South East. GACC suggests estimates of greatly increased demand for runway capacity may be exaggerated. At London’s airports the number of flights was exactly the same in 2012 as in 2002. The total number of aircraft movements at Gatwick has only increased by 2% in the past 10 years. And the number of business flights abroad by UK residents has fallen by 20% in the past 10 years. GACC gives examples of where the creation of over-optimistic 'models' have resulted in 'castles in the air' - desolate and empty airports.
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EasyJet agrees to buy 135 new planes from Airbus – it has 190 planes now
EasyJet says it has entered into arrangements to buy 35 A320 planes and 100 A320neos, for an undisclosed price - but which includes a large discount. Sir Stelios, who still owns 37% of easyJet, has been against buying so many new planes, saying it is a "vanity exercise" and the cost is too high.” The undiscounted price for a A320 is some $76m, and $92m for the A320neo. EasyJet said it could make savings, largely on fuel, of some 11 - 12% with the new planes, compared to the A319. It could then pay more from its profits to its shareholders in future. Shareholders of easyJet have to vote on whether to agree the sale of the planes at their meeting on 11th July. EasyJet now has around 190 planes, and of the 135 new planes, 85 would be used to replace less fuel efficient models. The other 50 would be for more growth. Easyjet said: "Whilst the announcement today will deliver a fleet of 276 aircraft by 2022, as of today, the new arrangements also give easyJet the ability to manage the fleet size to between 165 and 298 aircraft in 2022 depending on economic conditions and opportunities available."
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Heathrow report backing its case to grow as UK hub – but would need public funding for expansion
Heathrow, which is currently enjoying 4 nights of BBC programmes this week on "Airport Live" giving hours of free publicity, has had a new report published. This is called "Heathrow: Best placed for Britain" (by AECOM and Quod) and its purpose is to set out Heathrow's case that it is far better value to the UK economy and the UK taxpayer to expand Heathrow rather than to build a brand new airport in the Thames Estuary, or expand Stansted. Also that the UK must have one huge hub airport, and no other solution will do, as the airlines will only make enough profit by using the hub. Heathrow does admit that the taxpayer will have to contribute funds for expansion plans involving at least one new runway. However, it is coy on the matter and gives no indication of how much. The report says: "Financing additional capacity at Heathrow entirely from the private sector will be challenging and will need an appropriate investment framework. The recent difficulties in securing investment for new UK nuclear power stations are a reminder of the difficulty in securing commercial finance for major infrastructure projects without an attractive and stable return." Heathrow makes out that rejection of its proposals could consign a generation to economic stagnation.
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Nantes campaigners say: Let’s bury the Notre Dame des Landes airport project for good ! 3rd & 4th August – huge summer gathering.
Over the weekend of 3rd and 4th August, at Nantes, there will be a weekend gathering of all those who have worked over the past years to oppose a new airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes. This is part of a series of protests against Imposed Useless Major Projects (les Grands Projets Inutiles et Imposés) across and outside France. There will be music, forums and debates, on a range of subjects such as threats to agricultural land, environmental and energy transition, urbanization, spatial planning, transport, water and biodiversity. Thecampaigners say this will be "The essential rally this summer to defend the land and agricultural jobs that are threatened, for better use of public money, and to stop projects as useless as destructive, here as elsewhere!" It will also be THE place to invent and create, in solidarity, essential alternatives on the fight against global warming and the return to solid citizen representation, which they feel has been removed from local people during the process of forcing through the new airport plans.confiscated. They say: "No giving up ! Neither here, nor anywhere else!"
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Flybe expected to announce loss of £23 million for the year and more job losses
Regional airline Flybe is expected to announce annual losses for the year to March will be bigger than feared at around £23 million when it reports annual figures on Friday after a turbulent year. Fly be says it has been squeezed by higher fuel costs and the tough economy. It has been taking tough action reverse the losses, recently quitting Gatwick Airport by selling its 25 pairs of landing slots there to easyJet for £20 million, while also slashing jobs and cutting its pilots' pay by 5%. Flybe currently has about half a million domestic passengers per year at Gatwick. The airline also revealed another 80 redundancies, on top of almost 600 staff - or 22% of its workforce - who have been axed so far as part of plans to save at least £35 million a year. In January Fl ybe reported a loss of £1.3m in the six months to 30 September. That compared with a profit of £14.3m a year earlier.
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World Bank study shows carbon footprint of First Class passengers can be up to 9 times that in Economy
The World Bank Group seeks to offset the travel of its staff. The Bank acknowledges that passengers in premium (First and business) classes on a plane have a higher carbon footprint, so they have recalculated the World Bank Group footprint from their air travel, taking the class of travel into account. The Bank estimates that emissions per passenger in First class can be as much as nine times as high, and those in Business class can be three times as high, as those in Economy class. Those in premium classes not only have larger seats and more space per passenger (meaning that there can be fewer passengers, overall, in the plane) but there is often a lower load factor (the proportion of seats occupied) and they can take on more luggage (meaning more fuel has to be used to transport it). A Guardian journalist looked into the class issue in 2010 and concluded that the more passengers pay for a square metre of cabin, the more profit the airline makes and the more the premium travellers subsidise the cheaper classes of tickets. "Put another way, if no one flew business or first class, the price of economy travel would have to rise, leading ultimately to lower occupancy rates, fewer flights and less global warming." .
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Airbus A350 completes maiden test flight (claims it will be 25% more fuel efficient than current wide-bodied planes)
The Airbus A350 is a new wide-bodied aircraft, and their equivalent of the Boeing Dreamliner 787. The A350 has now made its maiden test flight of 4 hours, to and from Toulouse. The Airbus A350 is designed to be more fuel-efficient, and Airbus claims that, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines, the A350 will use about 25% less fuel than previous generation wide-bodied aircraft. Like the Dreamliner, the A350 is made largely of advanced materials, particularly carbon composites in some 50% of the plane, and also use of titanium and advanced aluminum alloys, in order to save weight. Airbus said, about 70% of the plane's airframe is made with "advanced materials". The A350 is slightly larger than the 787 and there are 3 variants of it, the A350-800 XWB (extra wide body), the A350- 999 XWB and the A350-1000 XWB. They will seat between around 315 to 440, depending on layout, and will have a range of around 9,700 miles Airbus has already taken more than 600 orders for the new plane, whereas there have been 890 Dreamliner orders so far. The plane's wings are manufactured at Broughton in Wales.