General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Former Tory transport ministers attack Coalition over Heathrow and HS2
The Telegraph, as part of its campaign for a Heathrow 3rd runway, has located three old Tory grandees, who used to have senior roles in transport, many governments back. John Stewart commented on Twitter that "For the Sunday Telegraph to wheel out Cecil Parkinson in support of a 3rd runway is desperate even for an August story". The Telegraph has Lord Parkinson, Steve Norris and Christopher Chope saying they believe the Government’s delay over its airport policy is damaging Britain’s economic interests.They realise an airport in the Thames estuary is unrealistic financially. Steve Norris enthused about a “twin hub” of Heathrow and Stansted, with Heathrow to a major hub serving the US and South America and Stansted as a hub servicing Europe and Asia. They all also opposed HS2. Then Steve Norris replied, irritated by the Telegraph, pushing his idea about Stansted being developed - with 4 runways - as the new hub airport.
Click here to view full story...
NATS has data on its first 6 months of new flight efficiency metric, 3Di
NATS has released data from the first 6 months of operation of its new metric to reduce aircraft emissions of planes in UK airspace, through improved efficiency of airspace management and flight path directness. The metric is called 3Di. Flights are given a score depending on how fuel efficient their course has been, by continuous climb departures, cruise levels as requested by airspace users and continuous descents, as well as most direct point-to-point routeings - ie. horizontal and vertical line. . NATS claims the 3Di tool will give huge fuel savings, it " is designed to deliver 600,000 tonnes of CO2 savings over the next 3 years – the equivalent to 10,000 flights from London to New York." The challenge for NATS is sorting out direct flight paths with a high volume of flights and limited runway capacity (at some times of day) at Heathrow, as well as bad weather.
Click here to view full story...
IAG expects to make a loss in 2012 due to problems in Spanish economy
IAG - which owns BA - will make a loss this year, due to Spain's growing economic problems. IAG is planning a major restructuring of its Spanish business, describing Iberia's problems as "deep and structural". This will involve cutting back the network and job losses at a time when Spanish unemployment is soaring and it is in dispute with the airline's pilots. BA meanwhile made an operating profit despite rising fuel prices while Iberia's losses deepened. Any benefit from cheaper jet fuel has been more than offset by the deterioration in Spanish economic conditions. Overall IAG made an operating loss of €253m for the first half including €50m of losses from its recent acquisition, bmi. There were also €38m of restructuring charges related to bmi. In July BA cancelled plans to issue its first secured bond backed by its Heathrow ake-off and landing slots due to insufficient demand.
Click here to view full story...
Breakthrough on efforts to reduce emissions from aircraft
Efforts to tackle emissions from aviation have taken a hesitant step forward, with the news that ICAO has endorsed an expert group’s recommendation on the way to measure fuel burn in flight. The recommendation is for a ‘metric’ system and test cycle to be the basis for setting fuel efficiency standards for new aircraft. However, many concerns remain. In 2009, ICAO began work on a standard for new aircraft, and has now produced a methodology for measuring in-flight fuel burn and thus CO2 emissions. This will form the basis for a minimum standard of fuel efficiency that all new aircraft will have to meet on CO2 emissions. The ICAO proposal for the CO2 metric are not yet public. The environmental groups working with ICAO are working to ensure the standard set is stringent enough.
Click here to view full story...
Easyjet sees dip in demand over Olympics dates
Easyjet has seen a fall in demand for flights into airports around London during the Olympics – particularly from inbound business travellers. EasyJet sales are down for both inbound business and leisure customers to airports in the south-east. But forward bookings “show a recovery” after the games end on August 12. Despite the slowdown over the Olympics, Easyjet said it expected to make a pre-tax profit of between £280 million and £300 million for its financial year ending in September – better than city analysts’ forecasts of £272 million and last year’s profit of £248 million. The airline is set to benefit from lower fuel prices. Meanwhile Ryanair is offering some cheap tickets, if Irish or British athletes win medals - presumably to boost their passenger numbers after the Games too. BA seems to have done well out of the Olympics - hence their rather cynical "Home Advantage" campaign.
Click here to view full story...
The cynicism of BA’s apparent patriotism and self sacrifice in its Olympic sponsorship publicity
The British Airways advertising campaign, launched in June, to promote the Olympics was a bit mysterious. Its slogan was "Don't fly. Support Team GB". BA is official airline partner of the London 2012 Games, Team GB and ParalympicsGB and it is sponsoring the games to some huge financial extent. But why a campaign asking Brits to stay at home during the summer, and not fly? Surely this must be admirably self sacrificing, and public spirited? Not a bit of it. Just a cynical use of manipulation of people's sense of patriotism. They are only asking that flights and holidays with BA are postponed to a later date, as they are already full over the summer with Olympic travellers. So this is just to get more travellers. And now there is a new scheme to get more long haul passengers after the Games, by giving cash returns if travellers back a certain athlete and they win a medal. They are now pushing the Caribbean hard for this autumn. So cynical.
Click here to view full story...
Ryanair claims it is cutting flights to Spain due to airport tax – actually not that at all.
Ryanair has become the latest budget airline to axe flights to Spain. It says this is due to the recent doubling of Spanish airport taxes. EasyJet announced last week that it was closing its Madrid base and cutting the number of flights to Spain by 7% this winter, and says this is due to the higher charges. In practice, this has very little if anything to do with APD, it is purely a commercial decision. Ryanair always cut back on flights during the Winter. They have recognised demand is soft and demand to fly to countries in financial and political difficulty is softer than most so are cutting back there. They always find an excuse to have a pop at APD as they hate passenger's money going to anyone other than Ryanair.
Click here to view full story...
China to build 82 new airports and expand 101 existing ones by 2015 – whether needed or not
The director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, has announced his country will build 82 new airports and expand 101 existing ones during the current five-year plan, , which ends in 2015. By then, China will have 230 airports, up from the current 182. The number was 175 in 2011. In 2011 some 130 of China's 175 airports lost money but Beijing will support them to boost local economic growth. At the end of 2006, the number of Chinese airports was 147, and it was expected that there would be 192 airports by 2010. That rate of airport building appears not to have happened.
Click here to view full story...
Comment on the government aviation consultation from RSPB, Stop Stansted Expansion and AirportWatch
There have been several comments from environmental groups to the government aviation policy consultation. Below are those from RSPB, from AirportWatch, and from Stop Stansted Expansion. The RSPB said “The government has also delayed consultation on the economic arguments for a hub airport until later this year, and in doing so has harmfully segregated the debate. We cannot consider the economic arguments for expansion and specific hub proposals without taking into account the environmental impacts such as noise, pollution and climate change. We need a bold new vision for the UK’s wider transport strategy. Instead of thinking about aviation expansion, the government should be investing much more in improving the UK’s surface transport network, in new technologies for efficient and electric vehicles, and in using existing airport capacity better.”
Click here to view full story...
AirportWatch’s initial comments on the Government’s Aviation document
This is an initial comment, after a quick reading of the government's aviation policy consultation document. John Stewart comments that the consultation is still a document which envisages a lot of growth in air travel. Whether that level of growth is compatible with climate change and noise concerns is highly debatable. But the consultation document is more honest than we have seen from previous governments. It recognises that there is a tourism deficit, due to air travel, and that the UK is already about the best connected country in the world, contrary to the aviation industry's spin. It also recognises that landing slots need to be sorted out, as they are a major hindrance to efficient use of airport capacity. However, the document is weak on climate.