Europe: October 2007 Archives

Many leading figures in aviation figure that they’re unfairly targeted in the big environmental push that’s swept Europe and is boiling over in the States. They’ve fought back, but it is in some ways too late. “If you look east, we’ve lost the war, or key battles, in Europe. We don’t control the dialogue”, Boeing commercial aircraft chief Scott Carson said. He told an industry group in Washington that the industry has “universally failed to tell our story in a compelling way,” Carson said. The industry needs to “begin telling that story or be willing to suffer the consequences,” he warned. Carson said that 75% of Boeing’s research and development budget is aimed at decreasing the environmental impact of aircraft, and that it plans advanced experiments with environmentally friendly fuels.

Who could they be? It seems that countries from outside the European Community want to join the US-EC ‘open skies’ pact that takes effect in March 2008. Daniel Calleja, the European Commission’s director for air transport, told an industry breakfast in Washington that “already, third-country nations are knocking at the door and want to join this agreement”. The genial Spanish negotiator was not alone in noting this trend; former US Transport Secretary Norm Mineta says, “Other countries are ready to join” the pact. Mineta calls the pact “the first step toward a truly open aviation area between the EU and the US”. They spoke at a meeting of the Washington Airports Task Force, a business-government group that encourages service at the two Washington airports.

The second birthday is supposed to be a tough time for young ones, but for new young airline at least it’s a time of good news. Eos, which began all-premium service in October 2005 on Boeing 757s outfitted with room for just 48 passengers, each in a private bedroom sleeping cubicle, marked its second birthday with word of two new routes. The carrier, which flies between New York JFK and London, now competes with two other luxury players, Silverjet and MaxJet but will add competition with a third premium player, L'Avion, next year.

UK low-cost carrier easyJet has saved a few pennies by getting its own cabin crew to design their uniforms. The new designs do not look bad either.

The new easyJet is a far cry from its first uniforms 12 years ago when it was founded. The casual 1995 look was a simple combination of black jeans and orange polo shirt, with "I’m an easy crew member" embossed on the back.

First they did away with the paper ticket. Then they did away with the bulky boarding pass, and now they’re going to do away with even that flimsy little boarding pass that you print out at home from your PC. The world’s airlines are on the way to letting passengers get through the airport without having to wave that sweat-soaked, crumpled-up piece of paper at anyone at all; all you’ll have to do is show the security guys the screen on your cell or mobile phone, Blackberry or other ‘device’. Under an IATA agreement made final this week, the device would show a tiny digital bar code that would become the boarding pass and get a flyer past security and to the boarding gate itself.

The airport in Portland is not a hub but it is about to set off a hub fight. The Oregon city, about 150 miles south of Seattle, has long been hungry for more international service, especially European service, and a committee of local travel groups and business such as Nike, the sports shoe company based nearby, has been an active one. Most international flights out of Portland are north to Canada, to Vancouver’s big overseas gateway, or south to Mexico. Back in 2003, the committee persuaded Lufthansa to launch PDX-to-Frankfurt flights, the first-ever non-stop link between PDX and Europe. Now the city is celebrating its victory in persuading Northwest to launch non-stops to Amsterdam that start next March. Service will be on an Airbus A330-200s with 32 business class seats and 211 economy seats. The service sets up a competition between Lufthansa’s major German connecting operation and the KLM hub at Schipol.

My colleagues at Travolution have noticed this rather neat and perhaps "Sivilised" advert from all-premium carrier SilverJet is rather similar to a classic ad from competitor British Airways.

In fact as Travolution note, for similar read copied!

A true architect of the modern airline industry has passed. Tony Ryan, scion of the Ryan family, founder of one of the world’s leading low-fares airlines and a creator of the modern aircraft leasing industry, passed away this week at 71, according to a statement from Ryanair. The son of an Irish state railways employee, Ryan had worked at Aer Lingus when it was still a stodgy, state-owned monopoly. After 20 years at the airline, he started the Guinness Peat leasing concern in 1975, making the financial advantages of leasing a source of rapid airline growth, note some industry observers. Guinness Peat later became part of the global powerhouse GECAS. He went on to found Ryanair, which brought the Southwest Airlines low-cost, low-fares model to European skies and in so doing presented carriers such as Aer Lingus, British Air or Air France with their greatest impetus to change since the jet age. Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary called him “one of the greatest Irishmen of the twentieth century”, and Ryan’s passing was noted in obituaries in publications as diverse as those serving the thoroughbred industry in Kentucky, where Ryan owned a stable.