General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Possible UK plan for “air bridges” letting in passengers from some countries, so people can have foreign holidays…
Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, has said there might be “air bridges” between countries with low coronavirus infection rates. The 14 day quarantine, that might be imposed from around the start of June on arriving passengers (still not confirmed) might then be relaxed in favour of a more targeted focus on people from high-risk countries. It seems likely that the 14 day quarantine will start, for all passengers, with spot checks on people and possible £1,000 fines for those who breach the rules. Any restrictions would be reviewed every 3 weeks to ensure that they “remain effective and necessary”. The idea of "air bridges" is to let people enter the UK - presumably without quarantine, if the R number (itself very hard to calculate or get a reliable figure on, without widespread effective testing) is below (?about) one. So the thinking is that it would be OK for people to arrive in the UK, as long as they only spread Covid to less than one other person, on average. The travel and aviation industries are desperate to get people flying again, and trying to convince people that the risk of personal infection is low - and convince governments that Covid infection, costing the UK a fortune, will not rise again, due to imported virus.
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14 day quarantine for anyone arriving in the UK from abroad
It is expected that there will soon be official announcement of the requirement for anyone entering the UK to be in quarantine (self-isolate) for 14 days. This would not only mean air passengers but those arriving also by ferry or the Channel Tunnel. It seems likely that the suggested exemption of those coming from France will be abandoned, as that could not logically be defended. Ministers are expected to meet today to agree what one called “a very tight set of exemptions”. Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, said that the policy was “idiotic and it is unimplementable”, and many people would refuse to follow the rules. He wants people filling up his planes and making him money as fast as possible, and quoted some study implying that if everyone wore masks in planes and airports, it would cut Covid transmission by ?98% or so. It is understood that hauliers, lorry drivers, will make up two thirds of those not required to self-isolate for two weeks. Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, has said that a 14-day quarantine period will be mandatory for all passengers arriving at Irish ports and airports, including British citizens.
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Supreme Court to hear Heathrow appeal, against judgement on the Airports NPS by the Appeal Court, on 7th and 8th October
The Supreme Court has announced that it will hear an appeal from Heathrow Airport and Arora Group on Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th October 2020 on the plans to expand Heathrow Airport by adding a third runway. The appeal was granted by the Supreme Court on 7th May, but the dates of the appeal were announced today. Granting of the appeal by the Supreme Court followed an earlier landmark ruling by the Court of Appeal at the end of February which stated that the government has not taken into account the Paris climate change agreement when drawing up its plans to expand Heathrow. Reacting to the news of the hearing dates, Paul McGuinness, Chair of the No 3rd Runway Coalition, said: “These dates are sooner than some expected. Perhaps because the Supreme Court is as keen to clarify this important area of developing law, as our communities are anxious to see Heathrow expansion shelved, once and for all. “The sooner this misguided project is put of its misery, the better. So we welcome these dates.”
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IATA: over 2/3 of travellers will not fly if it means quarantine period – long-haul will be hit hard
A new survey by IATA indicates that the majority of air travellers will not take a trip if it involves a 14-day quarantine period. It is thought the UK will confirm it is introducing a 14 day quarantine period soon. The IATA survey of recent air travellers found that 86% were “somewhat or very concerned about being quarantined while travelling”, while 69% “would not consider travelling if it involved a 14-day quarantine period”. The airlines, of course, are not happy about this - and want measures that encourage flying - (even if things like taking temperatures is ineffective in preventing virus spread). The survey also found that 58% of air travellers “are somewhat or very likely to restrict their initial travel to domestic journeys”, and IATA warns that international revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) are not expected to return to 2019 levels until 2024 - so long haul travel will be hit hardest. Rebuilding passenger confidence will take a long time, if there is the risk of serious illness. People will not fly if they are not confident, unless there is an effective vaccine. And they will not fly if it involves too much hassle.
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Greenpeace activists occupy a Schiphol runway to protest coronavirus aid to polluting aviation sector
Greenpeace activists occupied a runway at Schiphol airport on 14th May morning, to protest against the billion €s in support going to the aviation sector during the coronavirus crisis. Greenpeace wants strict sustainability conditions to be attached to this aid. The Koninklijke Marechaussee, a policing force that works as part of the Dutch military and is responsible for airport security, said it would detain the 11 Greenpeace activists who were protesting, and remove them from the Aalsmeerbaan runway at Schiphol. The runway is currently being used to park KLM planes. They brought a small bridge with them to get across the ditch that separates the public road from the secured area at Schiphol, and bicycles to get to the runway as quickly as possible. Greenpeace said: "KLM emits more CO2 than the largest coal-fired power station in the Netherlands." The government should only give KLM funding if it has to cut carbon emissions. This has to be done by more fuel efficiency, fewer flights, and short haul flights replaced by train journeys. Greenpeace also wants conditions attached to aid for other major polluters.
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Boris says in Parliament “Aviation, like every other sector, must keep its carbon lower” post-Covid
Caroline Lucas asked: "Last week, climate experts reported that green economic recovery packages deliver far higher returns than conventional stimulus spending. They also warned that how we emerge from this coronavirus crisis must not be in a way that deepens the climate and nature emergencies. Does the Prime Minister agree? Will he commit to action that will help us to build back better, and start by confirming that any airline queuing up for a taxpayer handout must be required to meet robust climate goals?" Boris Johnson replied: "I think the best and shortest answer I can give to the hon. Lady is that we totally understand the situation with aviation. Clearly, inadvertently this year the planet will greatly reduce its carbon dioxide emissions, and she is absolutely right that we need to entrench those gains. I do not want to see us going back to an era of the same type of emissions as we have had in the past. Aviation, like every other sector, must keep its carbon lower. We are certainly working on technological solutions to ensure that we can do that."
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European Commission will keep intra-European aviation within the ETS, as well as being in the ICAO’s CORSIA scheme
ICAO's planned global scheme for offsetting emissions from international flights will supplement, not replace, the European Union carbon market, the EU’s transport commissioner has now said. With the United Nations (ICAO) planning a 2021 launch of CORSIA, clarity is needed that the European Commission will not remove aviation from the EU emissions trading system (ETS). Transport Commissioner, Adian Valean said: “CORSIA will not put the ETS at stake. It will not replace the ETS. It will complement the ETS.” The ETS only covers flights between European countries, not outside Europe. It is a more effective scheme, in incentivising lower carbon emissions, than CORSIA - which is very weak. But ICAO wants the EU to remove these flights from its carbon market so that CORSIA can be the only market-based measure tackling international aviation emissions. The Commission, the 27-nation EU’s executive is assessing how the two systems will co-exist. It is important that EU flights outside Europe are in the CORSIA scheme, and Europe participates - otherwise other countries may also decide not to take part.
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Leeds Bradford airport submits plans for new terminal building & more passengers (4m to 7m a year) despite Covid fall in demand.
The airport has submitted a planning application to Leeds City Council, to replace the current terminal building with a new one by 2023, to increase passenger numbers from 4 million a year to 7 million a year. Opponents to the plans say that will make the climate emergency "worse" and that the current pandemic means there's "no need" for it. Local people, in Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport (GALBA) say the expansion will increase CO2 emissions, at a time when countries around the world are being urged to drastically then. It will also bring more noise for local communities, increased air pollution, and more traffic congestion. Instead "We need to rebuild a healthy economy in Leeds. We don’t need an unsustainable development like this.” Leeds City Council declared a climate emergency in 2019, but conveniently does not include the CO2 emissions from the airport's flights in its carbon budget. But the flights alone would exceed Leeds’ entire carbon budget by 2035. The airport is trying hard to persuade the Council that its expansion is needed, in competition with Manchester, and the (alleged) economic benefits it would bring would be huge.
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EPA proposes first-ever CO2 standard for new planes, but it is unlikely to be stringent enough
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sent a proposed rule on a standard to cut greenhouse gas emissions from new airplanes to the White House for review. This is years overdue. The US has never regulated CO2 emissions from planes, in part because the aviation sector was omitted from major international climate agreements, including Kyoto and Paris. The EPA hasn’t released. Tiny efficiency gains are eclipsed by the growth in the number of flights and air passengers. Daniel Rutherford, shipping and aviation director at the ICCT said the CO2 standard for new planes is so plane makers can sell their new planes internationally in future. But the aviation sector tends to introduce so-called ‘technology-following standards,’ so instead of looking ahead and setting new targets for technology, it tends to say, ‘OK, let’s see what’s already developed and see that it’s deployed in all aircraft.' What might have been groundbreaking a decade ago, is now just what most planes can already achieve. Huge lack of ambition.
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Manchester Airports Group to get £260m that its 10 council owners borrow from government
In the absence so far of financial support from government, the ten Greater Manchester local authorities - which have a majority stake (64.5%) in the Manchester Airports Group (MAG) - are planning to borrow themselves in order to lend £250 million to it. MAG owns Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports. The councils have privately agreed to take out significant levels of low-interest borrowing from the government’s loan board. They may not start to see any repayments for a couple of years, but are hoping that by that point it will have returned to some semblance of normality. Manchester council is expected to provide the biggest share of the loan package, at around £143m, in line with its larger stake in the company. It is understood the other nine boroughs are expected to put in £13m each. Senior local authority figures said the move was aimed at protecting significant long-term town hall investment in the airport, along with safeguarding tens of thousands of jobs that rely on it as a major engine of the local economy. Manchester airport still has a couple of arriving flights per day. It is possible that as many as 50,000 jobs may be directly, or indirectly, linked to the airports. If the sector has to shrink in future, many of those jobs may be lost.