Europe: January 2008 Archives

Ryanair has issued a rare apology for its latest controversial advert, after incurring the wrath of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his lady friend Carla Bruni. The advert, which appeared in a French newspaper, featured a photograph of the couple with a super-imposed speech bubble over Ms Bruni's head depicting her as daydreaming that her family could use Ryanair to attend the much-publicised will they, won't they wedding between her and the Prez.

After legal action was launched by Sarkozy and Bruni, Ryanair apologised and offered to donate €5,000 to a charity of the President's choice. However, Ryanair's "sincere apologies" are tempered with its insistence that it has "no intention of giving into threats from Ms Bruni or to her ludicrous claims" and will "vigorously oppose any claim for €500,000 to this lady who had engaged in one of the most open, publicised and internationally reported relationships in the world".

I can't help thinking that no matter what the outcome Ryanair will come out on top. After all any publicity is good publicity from the airline's perspective, but when you're the President of France surely it's going to be hard to be taken seriously as a politician when embroiled in such a petty and futile legal dispute. You'd think he'd have more important things to do!

Another day, another cheap publicity stunt from Ryanair. This time Nottingham is benefiting. Residents of this English city can, tomorrow, turn up in green and stand the chance to win one of the 100 flights being given away to Cork, Shannon, Dublin, Knock, Derry or Belfast.
And Ryanair has a bonus flight up for grabs if you bring along a homemade shamrock. Tasteful. Surely dressing as a leprechaun would qualify for two flights?

The arrival of the first of 50 Boeing 737-800s at Norwegian gives me an excuse to feature a carrier that is generally pretty low profile but by all accounts is doing some interesting things from its base in Oslo.

In the first shot, Bjorn Kjos (in the long jacket) snips the ribbon to take delivery of his first 737-800 at Boeing Field in Seattle. Alongside him are Lindsay Andersson, manager delivery center at Boeing Field and Mark Norris from Boeing PR.

The carrier handled 6.4 million passengers in 2007, up from 5.1 million the previous year, and bought Swedish budget player FlyNordic last year too.

An extremely intriguing story was revealed by English paper The Sunday Telegraph this weekend, which reported that India's Jet Airways had made an approach, via a third party, to the UK's bmi about a possible takeover.

It's all very speculative at the moment, but if true, a clear demonstration of the ambition of Jet's ebullient founder and chairman Naresh Goyal.

Scottish tabloid newspaper The Daily Record has reported an alleged outburst on quite a shocking scale from Aden Murcutt, managing director of troubled UK regional carrier flyWhoosh, which was forced to suspend services in December after its Polish operator White Eagle Aviation discontinued operations.

The report claims that trainee teacher Liam Sturrock tracked Murcutt down at one of his other businesses and called to ask for a refund on behalf of his parents. Murcutt is said to have responded to Sturrock with a torrent of abuse.

When contacted afterwards by The Daily Record, Murcutt is reported to have come out with the following gems: "I'm not going to be lectured by someone whose potential earnings will amount to little more than three farthings to buy a Ford Fiesta"; "Liam Sturrock was getting out of his tree for a sum of money that wouldn't even buy you a decent dinner and a night out"; "I answer only to the Civil Aviation Authority and Trading Standards"; and "I don't regret the way I spoke even slightly. It's an old adage that those who can, do, and those who can't, teach."

On the last point, may I suggest that after leading failed transatlantic start-up FlyWho (formerly FlyBlu) and now at the helm of another failed airline, Murcutt should himself consider a career in teaching. On a more serious note, surely every responsible business person knows that you ultimately answer to the customer, without whom you would not have a business.

On its website, FlyWhoosh lays the blame for its failings firmly at the feet of White Eagle Aviation. Perhaps the airline and, in particular, its managing director should look a little closer to home.

Willie Cochrane that is, not Willie Walsh.

Pipe Major Cochrane was on hand with his bag pipes to welcome the assembled press corps to the annual British Airways New Year party at the posh central London brasserie Langhan's yesterday.

He piped in the haggis (a Scottish tradition) and then did a spirited rendition of the Ode to the Haggis, which features a finale of cutting of the said pudding and downing a tumbler of whiskey - great fun.

Richard Branson may have made marriage headlines in 2007, performing ceremonies on his Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America affiliates and even wining a place in Modern Bride magazine’s list of trendsetters, but this year may not hold the prospect of love for the never-shy and rarely blushing Branson. His North Atlantic premium venture may or may not get off the ground, and his major stake, Virgin Atlantic Airways, barely escaped a potentially crippling strike by its flight attendants. The 'industrial action' was called off only after Sir Dicky sent them a blunt if not positively snarky letter telling them that if they didn’t like the pay and conditions at Virgin Atlantic, they could just go work elsewhere ("For some of you, more pay than Virgin Atlantic can afford may be critical to your lifestyle, and if that is the case you should consider working elsewhere.")

The start of a new year is often a time for optimism, a fresh start and a list of well-intentioned resolutions (such as my annual resolve to do regular exercise, which normally starts well but peters out by about week three when the thought of going jogging again in sub-zero temperatures becomes too much to bear).

But in the world of aviation and the environment, there are a couple of reasons to be optimistic that 2008 could be the year in which the airline industry really starts to make progress on lessening its impact on climate change.

Towards the end of 2007, European Union ministers gave their backing to the plan to include aviation in Europe's emissions trading scheme. This may be controversial but you've got to admire the EU for sticking its neck out and actually doing something, rather than just talking and talking without achieving results. Let's hope it also finally gets its act together on the implementation of the long-awaited Single European Sky.

Most of the opposition and threats of possible legal action to EU ETS have come from the USA, but this could change with the looming US presidential elections set for later this year. With George "the jury is still out on global warming" Bush's eight-year presidency coming to an end, perhaps there will be a fresh new US approach to the threat of climate change? For more on emissions trading and what it means for the industry read here.