The Impasse

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The 5 billion passenger mark will have been passed in 2026. To reach this exceptional level, no fewer than 28,000 aircraft will be needed in service to serve just over 4,000 airports around the world. This volume of traffic is starting to cause serious problems. First of all, sufficient airspace is required, especially in very dense areas such as the United States and Europe. Secondly, it must be acknowledged that air transport is a source of CO2 emissions, even if it represents less than 3% of total emissions. Finally, we must take into account the attitude of populations living near major airports, who find it increasingly difficult to tolerate aircraft flying overhead, even if they are becoming quieter and quieter.

The outlook shows that the management of this activity will be complex over the next 20 years or so. Continued growth of around 4% to 5% per year is expected, which corresponds to carrying 250 million additional passengers each year and putting 1,400 new aircraft into service annually. The challenge is significant, as it is necessary to take into account not only aspects related to safety and security, but also the ever increasing demands of consumers who are less tolerant of delays, lost luggage, or lack of comfort, while at the same time demanding ever lower fares.

We are not far from a dead end. How can we ensure continued demand for air transport while respecting environmental constraints and consumer expectations? Governments will certainly continue to levy taxes, if only to satisfy environmental lobbies and fill their coffers, while imposing compensatory obligations on companies for operational hazards they must endure. How can this squaring of the circle be resolved? It will certainly be necessary to carry more passengers with fewer aircraft, at least through the use of larger, less congested airports.

A first response is provided by the entry into service of a new generation of aircraft derived from widely used models such as the Boeing 737 or the Airbus A320. These are long range versions with lower capacity than the aircraft used until now, which are only profitable when operated on very large routes, feeding major airports that are already difficult to manage given environmental pressures. This new generation, symbolised by the A321XLR with a capacity of 200 passengers and a range of 8,700 km, will be capable of operating profitably on medium demand routes that until now have been consolidated through major hubs, as well as on routes as significant as transatlantic or US coast to coast flights.

But this will not be enough to relieve congestion at major airports. One option is to create gigantic platforms such as Dubai World Central or Al Maktoum International, built to handle 250 million passengers, as well as the new airports in Beijing or Istanbul, which are slightly smaller but nevertheless larger than most older hubs, with capacities exceeding 120 million passengers. However, these large complexes will have to be built far from urban areas, if only to secure the necessary land, such as the 140 km2 required for Dubai World Central. By comparison, the surface area of Paris is 105 km2. It will therefore be necessary to create substantial new ground transport links, which will further impact the environment.

There is another solution, which would be to return very large aircraft such as the B747 or the A380 to service after their withdrawal following Covid. They alone are capable of carrying between 600 and 800 passengers, effectively replacing four aircraft with an average capacity of 200 seats. Of course, these aircraft had supposedly become too expensive to operate. However, in recent years the oil shortage predicted in the 2010s, when a barrel was priced at 125 dollars, has been replaced by relative abundance, with prices falling to around 67 dollars per barrel at recent quotations. As a result, most operators have returned their A380s to service. Not only Emirates, which has always believed in this type of aircraft and whose Sir Tim Clark has been calling for an improved version from Airbus, but also British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and even Lufthansa. Only Air France has not taken this step.

And then, to accommodate the additional 4 to 5 billion passengers expected between now and 2040, it will be necessary to design an aircraft capable of carrying between 800 and 1,000 passengers, not over very long distances but on flights of four to five hours, which are likely to multiply.

I hope that manufacturers already have such aircraft on their drawing boards and that the current major airports will be ready to accommodate them.

The Fragilities of Air Transport

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What better recognition of air travel than its success and steady growth since its revival at the end of the Second World War. It has reached 5 billion passengers, $1,000 billion in revenue, around 20,000 aircraft in service, and each new version is more efficient than the previous one, and the outlook is still optimistic despite the many obstacles along the way.

During his speech to the BAR (Board of Airline Representatives) of France, Willie Walsh, the Director General of IATA, pointed out the difficulties that this sector of activity has to face, difficulties that could be overcome with a little goodwill.

A very complex supply chain that is difficult to control.

Aircraft are becoming more and more complex and yet they must be more and more secure. And it is not easy. Indeed, to achieve excellence, you have to call on a multitude of partners, each one a specialist in his or her field. An aircraft manufacturer cannot afford to bring together all the skills in its workshops. He is an architect and a final assembler before delivery to operators. For example, the wings of the Airbus A220, whose program was taken over from the Canadian company Bombardier, were bought from the American company Spirit AeroSystems, which had them manufactured in Ireland. This does not mean that the device is unreliable, quite the contrary. Each of the subcontractors is an expert in its field. However, it may turn out that some defects pass through the controls, which are very numerous. This is what happened to a Boeing 737 operated by Alaska Airlines that lost a fuselage panel in flight. The defect in the assembly of the door was identified at Spirit AeroSystems, which supplied the fuselages to Boeing. However, no fewer than nine checks were carried out on this cell, both by the manufacturer and the operator. Thus, despite the best goodwill in the world and the assistance of the latest technology, a simple forgotten bolt can lead to serious consequences.

European air traffic control needs to be rebuilt.

This is Europe’s default. This small continent, if we consider only its surface, is also divided into about thirty states, each of which is master of its airspace and consequently of its control tools. However, it is enough for one of the control centers to fail for technical or social reasons to disrupt the entire European aeronautical operation. Willie Walsh estimates that the losses caused by flight delays due to air traffic control will be 16 billion euros in 2025. France and the repeated strikes of its air traffic controllers are being blamed. Of course, we could unify the management of the European skies, but each country is reluctant and each government is afraid of social conflicts. In other words, we know how to do it. The SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) program has been ready for years and we are doing nothing. However, the most serious estimates show that this would save 8 minutes of flight time on each trip. We expect the ecologists, who are so effective in their lobbying, to support this project with their governments.

Punitive taxation.

How else can we explain this avalanche of taxes that hit air transport. We can see populism showing up behind all these measures taken in general under the pretext of penalizing an activity that is a source of CO₂ production, by directing the large levies not to carry out research that could lead air transport toward zero carbon impact, but by drowning them in general budgets when it is not just to subsidize rail transport. And I am not talking about the delusions of which private flights are the target under the pretext that they are used by privileged people, when in reality the vast majority of them are used to develop economic activities.

An airport route to be rethought.

Willie Walsh did not mention this aspect in his speech, but let us recognize that it is a great source of frustration for passengers. Of course, safety is a major aspect of all public transport. But this concern should apply to all means of transport, including rail or road. This is not the case, and yet attacks have also hit rail transport without security checks being applied in stations, if only because we do not know how to do it. One thing is certain, however. The difficulty of getting to and through airports is one of the reasons for the transfer of a large number of air transport customers to trains, or even cars, for distances of less than 800 km.

Decarbonization requires the use of a new fuel, SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel), but this is difficult to produce and very expensive, probably because of its scarcity. This is another obstacle that air travel is facing, and I am not talking about cybersecurity, which will certainly become a major concern in the coming years.

Good luck!

Can airlines dictate their law to the states?

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The tug-of-war has begun between Ryanair and the European states. The latter, seeing the steady growth in air passenger flows, and thinking they were giving assurances to ecologists, have all taken the path of taxing airlines. In their eyes, this has a double effect: firstly, to slow down traffic volumes, in particular aircraft movements, which are sources of pollution targeted by some voters, and above all to bring money into the public coffers, which badly need it. Taxing passengers is well regarded electorally because they are still in the minority compared to other voters, so why deprive oneself of a source of income that does not seem about to dry up.

But things are not that simple. First of all, the new taxes that companies will have to pay will be fully passed on to consumers, and they are seriously starting to complain. And the transporters have a ready-made solution: since the states do not like them, they simply leave. This is exactly what low-cost airlines are doing. The latter have played an essential role in maintaining the economies of regions neglected by industrial development. Their economies have transformed from manufacturing to services and tourism. And the “low costs” have found themselves in a position of strength in these areas because they have the only model that allows them to bring in consumers to replace declining populations.

Basically, these new entrants play a real role in regional development. So they are beginning not only to threaten to withdraw, but also to take action. This is what is happening in the countries of southern Europe. This is not necessarily going to suit governments. Indeed, the volume of expected levies is likely to be much lower than expected, as the adage “Too much tax kills taxes” appears to be confirmed. In addition, this withdrawal risks leading to a considerable loss for the tourist regions that live off the contribution of these operators’ customers.

On the other hand, these same airlines, encouraged by continued growth and an efficient business model, have ordered a considerable number of new aircraft from the major manufacturers. The only five largest European “low-cost” operators, Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz Air, Vueling and Pegasus, have 1,354 aircraft and 983 on order. Opposite them, the three major groups, Lufthansa Group, Air France/KLM and IAG, certainly have 2,065 aircraft, but only 425 on order. However, all “low-cost” aircraft are short-to-medium-haul, while those of the major traditional operators are mainly used for long-haul flights. That is to say that the “low cost” carriers now hold power over European services, and this will probably be strengthened in the future.

Admittedly, geographically speaking, Europe is a small continent on which surface routes can become fierce competitors to air transport. High-speed rail lines have become very important, and the coaches of large private operators are crisscrossing the motorways and offering fares that even the most efficient “low-cost” operators cannot bear. Does this mean that European states will be able to do without their services if they decide to close ports of call, as they intend to do if governments do not reverse their taxation decisions? This is something that deserves reflection.

The balance of power between the public authorities and the airline operators is fairly even, and governments have no interest in seeing the very serious network of air services, patiently built up by the “low-cost” operators, shrink. The construction of a new motorway or a new high-speed railway is now facing fierce opposition from environmentalists, who will soon no longer have air transport to sink their teeth into. Admittedly, some air operators such as Ryanair have sometimes shown reprehensible behaviour, which is sanctioned by the courts in many countries. They will also have to improve both their social relations and their links with customers. They will have to comply with the compensation rules imposed by the European authorities. But for all that, states must not consider them enemies.

It is time for governments and operators to learn to talk to each other to provide the best service to the population.

Air Transport, Tension Between Carriers and Distributors

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Recently, IATA, the airlines’ organisation and owner of the BSP (Billing and Settlement Plan), has further hardened its position towards travel agents. The information reported by Déplacements Pros is important. It would seem that the tension between operators and distributors has been revived after the period of calm that followed the collapse of air transport during Covid.

It is worth recalling what the BSP is for and why it is essential in the organisation of air transport. Before the invention of this product in 1971 by Brian Barrow, then in charge of distribution at IATA, airlines had to deposit stocks of tickets in travel agencies, which classified them by carrier in standardized drawers. At the end of the month, depending on the agreements made between each company and each travel agent, the latter had to draw up a sales report and pay the amount to each carrier.

The invention of the BSP has revolutionized this practice, which would be impossible nowadays given the volume of banknotes issued. It consisted of using a single stock of tickets, managed by IATA, which receives payments from travel agents and distributes the sums among the operators. This is a huge administrative gain both for airlines, which no longer have to deposit their ticket stocks in travel agencies, and for the latter, who now make only one payment to IATA.

It took more than 20 years for this system to be extended to all countries, each of which uses its own administrative rules. It was necessary to create a BSP for each country or group of countries in the case of small markets. But little by little, this product has become a must for managing the relationship between travel agencies and carriers.

Apart from the United States, for which a similar body has been created, the ARC (Airlines Reporting Corporation), all the other countries, with the exception of those for which IATA considered it impossible to implement the BSP due to administrative and financial rules that are not compatible with international monetary exchanges, such as Algeria, Sudan or North Korea, now have the BSP.

However, the BSP belongs to IATA, i.e. the airlines, and the airlines are constantly repatriating the proceeds of sales held by travel agents as quickly as possible. For the latter, cash flow is an integral part of their economic system. The BSP’s payment methods, between 15 and 30 days after the end of the month of issue, allowed travel agents to have a welcome cash flow, even if it did not belong to them.

This advantage was all the more important as airlines gradually eliminated all commissions from their distributors. These commissions, between 7% and 9%, have been replaced by fees paid directly by customers. What we learn from the Voyages Pros article is that IATA will unify the rules for repatriating money throughout the world.

It goes without saying that this measure is the prelude to a real-time withdrawal of the money collected by travel agents, all electronically. This is the stumbling block. On the one hand, carriers want to collect their money as soon as possible, thinking that it is better in their accounts than with their distributors, and the latter will no longer have the flexibility to give even a few lines of credit to very large companies that pay at the end of the month.

If, as is very likely, IATA succeeds, how then will companies still be able to ask for bank guarantees from travel agents? It is not clear on what grounds they could be justified. Nor do we see why carriers should continue not to pay their distributors, whom they unquestionably need. It should be remembered that direct purchases by customers from airlines represent only 30% of the total, the rest being done via travel agents, including very large consolidators. The generalization of electronic operations has not changed anything.

A period of tension is beginning. The response of distributors will undoubtedly be complicated because they do not have a strike force of equivalent weight to that of the companies. But they will be justified in asking operators to join guarantee funds that will ensure the successful completion of the transport purchased by customers via their travel agents. So far, airlines have managed to postpone the implementation of such a guarantee, but pressure from distributors and customers on political authorities could well lead the latter to legislate on the matter. And we know that in this case they have a heavy hand.

Towards the Transformation of “Low Costs”

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Very interesting to follow Southwest Airlines’ earnings. It is the benchmark airline in the world of “low cost.” It was both the first to enter this field in 1971, with a huge expansion during the liberalization of the American skies in 1978, and it is also the largest in terms of turnover: $27.5 billion, even if the European Ryanair carries more passengers.

The fundamentals of the model are based on a few intangible principles: a single type of aircraft, faster turnarounds, densified aircraft capacity, no subcontracted distribution, very low call prices, a very stripped-down product with all services paid, all served by a young, enthusiastic, and sufficiently well-paid staff.

With this model, Southwest Airlines has been at the top of American domestic carriers with remarkable results. And then time did its work. Staff aged, became less efficient, and demanded and obtained benefits that were ultimately comparable to those of traditional carriers. The results paid the price. Not that the company lost money, but profits fell and, more seriously, the stock price began to decline with great regularity, which did not suit shareholders, especially investment funds. They demanded a change in management, and the latter adopted a very different strategy.

In fact, the new managers have evolved the pure “low cost” model toward a hybrid system. To begin with, distribution was extended to travel agents via GDSs; then the company entered into interline agreements, which had never been seen before. The product has improved and costs, as a result, have also increased. In total, the results were also badly affected, with a drop of 42%. And surprisingly, the stock price has soared more than 70% from its low, and the company is valued at 46 times expected earnings. Compared to Air France/KLM’s results, this would value the group at $16.3 billion instead of the current $3.63 billion, and let’s not even talk about Emirates Airlines, whose valuation on this basis would exceed $230 billion.

In other words, the stock market, which anticipates future results, has full confidence in the change in strategy of “low cost” carriers, whose product will gradually move closer to that of traditional airlines, which have gone the opposite way. Admittedly, after reaching the bottom just before Covid, the revenues of incumbent airlines are tending to rise. This was necessary because, even if their product was degraded, operational costs continued to increase, and customers no longer hesitated to leave for competitors who clearly displayed the simplest service.

It is therefore easy to imagine that the American example will be followed, albeit with some delay, by European and then Asian carriers. We are also starting to see the European leader Ryanair no longer hesitate to cancel services as soon as their profitability is no longer assured. EasyJet is taking the same path. This is how many small European airports will lose what kept them alive, as “low cost” operators have taken advantage of tax increases, decided somewhat lightly by government authorities, as a pretext to reduce their sails.

It is necessary to emphasize once again the lack of understanding in government policies which, in order to please a certain electoral clientele who will not be grateful to them, have consisted of taxing air transport in favor of railways, even going so far as to eliminate access to planes by administrative means, as we have seen in several European countries.

Meanwhile, orders for new aircraft, admittedly less polluting and more efficient, have multiplied. More than 16,000 aircraft are expected in the coming years, not counting new orders that continue to pour in.

Where are we going to put them if governments reduce access to major airports and if regional services can no longer be profitable because they are too heavily taxed? How will air transport, with its “low cost” components, be able to continue its beneficial role for the global economy and for bringing people closer together?

The next competition will no longer be in in-flight service, or even in fares, which we can expect will gradually be displayed more rationally than in the past, but will be played out in airports. The latter have become the main obstacle to air transport, which is poorly suited to the necessary fluidity of traffic, because if “low cost” carriers abandon small airports, there is no doubt they will strengthen their offer on the major platforms.

Why Do Carriers Want to Get Bigger and Bigger?

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I ask myself this question every time I see a company buying another. It may be the rule of life but, to tell the truth, I don’t always see the point of it. Recently, the Turkish company Pegasus Airlines bought the Czech national carrier Czech Airlines after having acquired the country’s “low cost” airline in the past: Smart Wings. Of course, the Turkish carrier is doing well and its government is doing everything to develop its air transport, in notable contrast with the European authorities.

This is not the only example. Not only are we seeing large companies ready to devour smaller ones, but we are also seeing that good-sized operators are looking to be bought out by larger ones. ITA has been sold to Lufthansa, SAS is in the process of being absorbed by the Air France/KLM group and TAP is making eyes at the three European majors. What are the players looking for in this desire for rapprochement even if they don’t really need it?

ITA, the Italian company born from the disappearance of Alitalia, which, for once, could not hope to survive given the way it was managed for the sole benefit of its employees and friends of the government, has demonstrated its capacity for healthy and rapid development. We do not see why the Italian state did not simply let its national carrier continue its growth, which was virtuous and profitable. There is no doubt that the Lufthansa group has made a good deal.

The Portuguese government has launched a search for buyers for its company TAP Air Portugal. After a bit of a difficult few years, the Portuguese carrier has made a spectacular turnaround and is now in good health. Its size is respectable and it sits on a southern transatlantic network that is just waiting to grow. Why then want to sell what is profitable and bears the colors of the country? Because make no mistake, the buyer, whoever he is and whatever his promises, will only act for his own benefit, even if it means limiting the development of his new subsidiary.

The trend towards rapprochement, or consolidation, which means nothing, has never shown its virtues, neither for the companies it buys nor for the buyers, except in the case of a defensive strategy as is the case for Air France/KLM. In the United States, we have witnessed the demonstration of this phenomenon. The merger of most regional airlines, some of them of good size, into three major groups, United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, has not proved to be a success. It should be remembered that the three groups that finally won the competition all went through Chapter 11, i.e. the bankruptcy filing.

We must also remember the disastrous strategy of Etihad Airlines, whose bulimia almost proved fatal to the company. By wanting to grow too much, we end up creating disparate and ultimately ungovernable ensembles. Of course, I can always be opposed to the undeniable success of the IAG group, but for this to happen, the major carrier, British Airways, had to agree to leave the general management to a Spaniard, and it is difficult to see a German operator doing the same with an Italian, for example. And let’s add that the IAG group has a real international connotation where each component can be found, whereas this is not the case for the Lufthansa group.

And we can also ask another question: wouldn’t the companies of the same group achieve just as good or even better results if they were independent? One thing is certain, however, that countries that sell their national carrier lose in one way or another a formidable tool for the promotion of their country. This is what some states such as Qatar, the Emirates or Turkey have understood for example. Their national carrier and even for Turkey their “low costs”, largely supported by their government, have demonstrated their capacity for development. And the more their carrier develops, the more the country’s image carries estimable values.

Of course, some states are too small and too weak economically to support a company capable of carrying their image on an international level. This is what is happening in West Africa, or in certain Asian and South American areas. But there is always the possibility of creating and developing domestic and regional air transport for the best benefit of their populations.
An airline is valuable not only for its economic contribution, but also because it is a powerful cultural vehicle.

These Abuses That Penalise Air Transport

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All air transport customers are well aware that certain practices seem curious, even useless.
Interactions between the actors are parsimonious, to say the least, each of them wanting to preserve some small advantages over others and legislators sometimes meddle in what does not concern them. All these little abuses make air travel strewn with small irritations that we could do without. Each component of air transport suffers the inconveniences caused by the other players and the same ones are a source of difficulties towards their respective environments.

Airports
Crossing a major airport is perhaps the most difficult moment for a passenger. Access is often complicated, signage is sometimes incomprehensible or even completely absent and the spaces seem to be more dedicated to shops, which are largely drained by the airports, than to facilities reserved for passengers. Let’s add to this the famous PIFs (Screening Inspection Posts) set in an incomprehensible way, and often different from one terminal to another in the same airport. Should you keep your seatbelt, put down your watch, open your toiletry bag, take off your shoes? In short, all these small frustrations are a source of stress that passengers would gladly do without.

Airlines
Nor are they free from abuse. Take pricing for example. Who can explain the basis on which fares are multiplied, up to more than 100 for a long-haul flight in the same class of service on the same day? This is a first source of frustration felt as an injustice when a customer realizes that his seatmate has been more favored than him. And that’s not all, the boarding procedures are sometimes similar to the gathering of sheep before they are sheared. Customers are made to wait in the bridges, sometimes for nearly half an hour while waiting for the aircraft to be ready. Why this procedure when passengers could just as well have waited in the airport. Moreover, without knowing if the difficulty comes from the airlines or the airports, there are few terminals where the boarding queues are clearly delimited and where passengers do not mix.

Governments
Curiously, the administrative authorities have a great tendency to interfere in the functioning of air transport. Flight delays are punished outright and strongly and companies sometimes have to pay compensation much higher than the fares paid by customers. In fact, some of them can make a profit by not only traveling for free, but by making money. The practice of “overbooking” is punished as a deterrent. We even see the European administration taking a close interest in the way luggage is handled. It must be said, however, that many rules had to be enacted because the companies had not agreed to solve the well-known problems between them. IATA should have played the role of referee, which it has never done, except in terms of safety with the IOSA (IATA Operational and Safety Audit) program. And let’s not forget the repeated taxes that each state sees fit to impose on air transport because, after all, customers can afford to use this type of travel and can therefore pay well without revolting.

Customers
Let us not forget them. They are also a source of multiple abuses. The behavior of some of them can make the trip unpleasant for others. Of course, these erratic behaviours can sometimes be explained by the stress to which passengers are subjected, particularly those who are less familiar with air travel. But finally, how can we explain certain jostling during check-in or boarding, how can we justify that some customers systematically put their cabin luggage in the first racks of the plane when they have decided to pay only for seats at the back of the cabin, how can we accept that some, in order not to pay for excess baggage, arrive on the plane with multiple packages and occupy a space much greater than what is allocated to them? And then there are those who claim undue compensation for a yes or no, because you never know…

It can never be said enough, air transport is a complex activity. It puts into operation a multitude of players and each of them can seize the machine. So it would be wise for each player to look for ways to simplify and streamline a mode of transport that is still magical.

Communication in Air Transport, Still Progress to Be Made

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It is always interesting to attend international conferences, especially if, like the recent World Connect, they bring together participants from 92 countries, i.e. from all over the world. This avoids always revolving around the same subjects.

The first observation is that the European continent stands out from the others by its attraction to environmental issues. For several years now, this subject has been strongly permeating air transport communication. It is underlying all the press releases and no serious intervention can avoid mentioning it. This is not the case for other continents, which are happy to free themselves from this constraint. The explanation is probably due to geography. Europe is a small continent, largely equipped with efficient land transport. The railway has become a real competitor to the plane and we recognize that this mode has been widely supported by governments against the air force. We even see some countries draining carriers with taxes that will be intended to improve the economy of its main land competitor, all in the name of ecology which has become the major reference and the supreme argument for the choice of mode of transport.

This aspect of communication is little used outside Europe. It is striking to see the extent to which air transport has become a real necessity elsewhere while it is denigrated on this continent. Its main use is freedom, as the President of Georgia has put it. Without air transport, countries are landlocked and at the mercy of more or less well-intentioned neighbours. So ecology really takes a back seat to this absolute necessity. In all other countries outside Europe, air transport is a factor of safety and economic prosperity, even if it is still used by only a small part of their population.
Of course, the environmental aspect cannot be set aside in communication, but it is still necessary to see who you are addressing. Governments can at any time be drawn into the demagoguery that consists of using air transport to preserve the planet, which is very practical to avoid confronting much more polluting sectors. Food waste is said to represent 6% of pollution, and clothing 7%, but confronting practices that are widespread among the population is not very electoral. So, instead of having a defensive communication, air transport would be well advised to insist on its technical progress and its practices that constantly aim to emit less CO², if only because the less air pollution pollutes, the more profitable it is. It should be noted that despite global growth of around 5% for half a century, while global growth is almost half as low, it manages to remain below 3% of total CO² emissions.

In fact, it would be wise for the aviation group, made up of manufacturers, airports and carriers, to speak with one voice by emphasizing the considerable progress made and those on which it is working successfully. I am thinking of traffic regulation and a much better use of airspace, which will be effective in the next few years. On the other hand, it would be better not to lie by announcing carbon neutrality by 2050 when all professionals know that it is impossible, which is not a reason not to work on it.

And then one day we will have to stop communicating about rates that do not cover the costs. Even if they are very little used in practice and if they are built so that customers are led to buy additional services, they do a real damage in the communication of air transport by giving the impression that it has no or little value since you can buy a London-Seville for 29 € for example. This race to see who can announce the lowest price is stupid and it is not by filling planes beyond what is reasonable that we will ensure the sustainability of air transport. It will have to make a colossal technological leap to face the next century. It will cost fantastic amounts of money in the hundreds or even thousands of billions of dollars. And who will pay for these investments? Simply the customers for whom the rates will certainly increase.

So we might as well address the general public, explain the issues and seriously start to make them aware of the financial constraints that will have to be faced in exchange for an ever-improving aerial product.

The Struggle of the Giants

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How else can we describe the struggle between aircraft manufacturers? I’m not just talking about Airbus and Boeing, but also about engine manufacturers, equipment manufacturers and new entrants, Chinese in particular, not to mention Embraer and even ATR. The figures published by the firm ID Aero, whose analyses are authoritative, are a bit dizzying.

The stakes are high. The amounts are so large that it is difficult to imagine them. Come on, let’s get into the big numbers. It is estimated that currently 26,750 aircraft are in commercial service worldwide. Manufacturers, Boeing in particular, estimate that there will be 50,000 air transport fleets by 2044, which is in less than 20 years and this corresponds to a doubling of the number of aircraft. But that’s not all, the average size of devices is steadily increasing. It has gone from 50 seats in the 1950s to 100 seats 20 years later and to 200 seats now. And the aircraft are flying farther and farther. Let’s also keep in mind that the average price of a commercial aircraft is around 100 million dollars, all of which is very approximate because between the list price and the amount actually paid by buyers there is a huge difference, which is not only on the airframes, but also on the engines.


So in this context, the two giants are obviously Airbus and Boeing. The latter has taken a knee following purely disastrous decisions which, in recent years, have consisted of privileging the stock market price by abandoning the vocation of the company. The price to pay was colossal with 2 fatal accidents causing the death of nearly 300 passengers, not to mention a large number of other incidents that could have increased this number. It should also be noted that Boeing has just been ordered to pay $28 million to the heirs of a victim of the Ethiopian Airlines crash. We must hope for the manufacturer that this does not snowball. The new management of the American giant led by Kelly Ortberg, an engineer and not a financier, is back on the right track.


At the end of October, Airbus still had 8,698 aircraft on order and Boeing 6,534, and the amount will increase further for the two protagonists following the Dubai Air Show. At 100 million dollars per unit, the sales figures are dizzying, it’s more than 1,500 billion dollars, in other words 1 and a half times the total turnover of air transport 2025. The deal is all the more interesting between the two manufacturers as they have offers in direct competition: the B737 MAX for one and the A320 for the other in the medium-haul category and the A350 opposite the B777X for very large aircraft. The characteristics are pretty much identical, except that Airbus has a big advantage with the A350 already on the market for a long time while the B777X is not yet certified and will not be far from 15 years behind its competitor when it enters service.


And the fight doesn’t stop there. Engine manufacturers hold a large part of the forces involved. Three of them are in the running: Rolls-Royce, which specialises in very large engines, is followed by GE, which is developing an even larger machine to equip the B 777X. The fight is also severe for the smaller engines. The prices are also huge: a very large engine can cost more than $40 million. So often engine manufacturers make offers for rent. For the smallest engines that equip medium-haul aircraft, the rental rate is around €200,000 per month. France’s Safran, allied with General Electric, has become a major supplier in this category with the American Pratt & Whitney.


And then you also have to count on the major equipment manufacturers such as the French Thales or the American Rockwell Collins. For them too, the field of competition is global, each contract is very remunerative and their turnover is of the order of a large group of airlines.


For the smallest holders, the horizon has brightened. Bombardier was bought by Airbus and Embraer after going through a difficult time during Covid has developed a range of aircraft with less than 100 seats, very efficient, so that the Brazilian manufacturer has abandoned its turboprop project leaving ATR alone in this market niche.


The Chinese, with the manufacturer COMAC, are seriously starting to show their noses, even outside China, by placing their first aircraft outside their borders with Lao Airlines. Largely supported by their government, it would be surprising not to see them arrive in force on the African continent.


The market is gigantic, the operators are few, and the fight promises to be fierce.

Air Transport, the Real Competition Is Through Airports

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The development of air transport is measured by its growth in the number of passengers, it will reach 5 billion in 2026 and in turnover, it will be close to 1,000 billion dollars in 2025 and will exceed it in. Let’s keep in mind the continuous increase in volume and revenue of the sector of activity even if the economic results of airlines are not always there. But, since the end of Covid, the situation has improved. In fact, growth is driven by the arrival of more efficient aircraft, which allows a drop in prices sharpened by a race for the most efficient display in the very large distributors on the Internet.

However, this observation does not take into account the major role of airports. A carrier is obviously dependent on the quality of its main platform. In a third of a century, the organization of networks has changed considerably. American Airlines launched the “hub” concept in the early 1980s and given the success of this modus operandi, all the other major operators followed the model. However, it was necessary to have the appropriate infrastructure. A “hub” requires a particular architecture and large platforms have not come up to date, I am thinking in particular of JFK in New York, whose terminals were very difficult to transform and whose rank in the ranking of airports has continued to decline.

On the other hand, it has enabled new airports, which had the necessary space and sufficient capital to create efficient infrastructures from scratch, to support their based airlines. This is what happened in the Gulf. Dubai first, then Abu Dhabi and Doha have provided their based airlines with particularly efficient terminals and these have proven to be essential for the development of their carriers, whether they are Emirates, Qatar Airways or Etihad Airways. European and American companies have also complained, including in court, about the considerable advantages enjoyed by Gulf companies. The real support came not from any financial contribution, but from the provision by their governments of an incomparable tool of exploitation.

Europeans have had a much harder time keeping up with this competition. Space is limited, administrative constraints and appeals against extensions have multiplied, and let’s face it, governments have not provided the necessary impetus. All in all, Europe is losing the eminent position that this continent had to the benefit of Asia, which is equipping itself at a forced march, and the Gulf, which maintains a significant lead in airport equipment.

Because it must be seen that, at least as far as short and medium-haul flights are concerned, customers spend more time in airports than on board aircraft. And the airport journey is not like a walk in the park. This starts with access to terminals with sometimes faulty signage and inefficient rail land links. It was not until 2025 that an airport like Orly was served by a direct metro to Paris, even though it handles more than 30 million passengers. Access to Lisbon airport is saturated and the platform has to manage to accommodate 36 million customers with a single runway and a completely outdated terminal.

In short, once in the terminal, the difficulties and opportunities for stress accumulate. Under the pretext, no doubt real, of safety, the constraints imposed on passengers have been multiplied. The PIFs (Screening Inspection Stations) are still as restrictive and inconsistent in their treatment from one terminal to another in the same airport. The departure lounges have been designed, at least in the oldest airports, for average modules of 120 passengers, whereas the average carrying capacity must now be around 180 to 200. Boarding procedures, which depend on the operators, are deteriorating when they should be improving.

And then to make money, certainly useful for their investors, airports have systematically reserved larger spaces for shops, whose fees now feed at least 50% of the budget of a modern airport, to the detriment of the space that could be allocated to passengers. I pass over a number of other obstacles, each passenger knows them perfectly. The airport then becomes an essential factor in customer choice. How many of them, at least in Europe, choose the fast train for reasons of ease of access to their seats? How are the constraints imposed on air customers justified in relation to the surface track?

The best airport in the world is in Singapore or Doha depending on the year, at least in Asia. European and American platforms are far behind in the rankings. It’s a shame.