AEA gets its facts wrong in attack on IAA

 The Brussels based Association of European Airlines, of which Aer Lingus is a member, today launched attacks on the Irish government and the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) both of whom it claimed were determined to make Ireland a no fly zone. The association claimed that the government's €10 travel tax had contributed to the 15% drop in passenger numbers at Irish airports this summer. AEA also condemned cost recovery practices as being a major cause of the problems in the airline industry at present, claiming that the IAA was about to increase its charges to airline customers by 17% before next year. Secretary general of the AEA, Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus said that "Air navigation providers, along with some other elements in the air transport value chain, have the ability to recover lost revenues and lost profits by jacking up their prices, because they are monopolies, not governed by the discipline that a competitive market imposes." He called on the Irish government to scrap the travel tax to stimulate the market and at the same time impose efficiency targets on the IAA by freezing its user charges."

Ryanair supported the call by the AEA (of which it is not a member) to scrap the travel tax and condemned the Commission for Aviation Regulation for allowing the IAA to increase its charges by 17%. Ryanair's Stephen McNamara said that "Rubberstamping a 17% cost increase at a time when traffic is down 15% at DAA (Dublin Airport Authority) monopoly airports proves that the Irish Aviation Regulator is unfit for purpose and that he has simply become an ATM cash machine for the Government's DAA and the IAA monopolies"

The IAA for its part issued a statement refuting the AEA claims. When the IAA carried out its 2010 revenue forecast in June of this year it found that its end user charges would have to rise by 17.5% to compensate for the forecast drop in traffic currently being experienced. Realising that its customer base would not be capable of withstanding such a level of increase the organisation through a number of cost reduction and containment initiatives such as a pay freeze, capex reduction and operational efficiency improvements has reduced the proposed increase to 3.9%.This figure it says compares favourably with other non-state funded Air Navigation Service Providers elsewhere in Europe.

The IAA also says that the AEA conveniently overlooked the fact that the North Atlantic Communications and Safety Regulation charges will remain frozen in 2010 at the 2009 level.

In its statement the IAA has also pointed out signifcant end user savings which will come into effect when the ENSURE project commences next month. This element of the UK/Ireland FAB (Functional Airspace Block)  will remove air routes from Shannon Upper Airspace and allow direct routing from Oceanic entry / exit points to UK entry / exit points. The program is expected to deliver significant savings to airline customers next year :

• 2.2m km in route distance
  
• 14,800 tonnes of fuel
• 46,800 tonnes of CO2
• 195,500 minutes of flight time.