The Unloved of Air Transport

,

On Monday, March 10, German air transport was almost completely paralyzed following a massive strike by ground workers at airports organized by the powerful Ver.di union. For example, Berlin airport was completely closed, Frankfurt was unable to provide connections, and Munich and Hamburg were also very disrupted. A total of 3,400 flights had to be cancelled and 500,000 passengers were unable to travel. The purpose of this social conflict is to obtain an increase in the salaries of all employees in this sector. There are 28,000 of them in this country, divided into a wide variety of professions, each of which can ultimately block an activity whose complexity can never be overstated.

Indeed, in air transport, a strong hierarchy has been established over time between the different activities. At the very top of the pyramid are the drivers. They are the best paid, the most considered, and the most pampered by the companies. They are also powerfully unionized and are capable of holding long-term social conflicts that are widely supported by their trade unions. They have always won their arm wrestling with the management of the companies. To tell the truth, they are a bit, because of their capacity to cause harm, the nightmare of management.

Just behind are the commercial sailors. They too are well represented by their unions.On the other hand, it is easier to train cabin crew than pilots. As a result, some carriers—particularly low-cost airlines—tend to overexploit cabin crew, knowing they are more easily replaceable than pilots.

But aircrew alone cannot operate air transport. It takes a whole complex infrastructure on the ground to fly planes safely. There is all the technical and operational part that is essential to ensure the marketing, maintenance and even security functions. We still remember the blockades of airports during the firefighter strikes. But these employees are still very well paid. And then a significant part of the airport functions is often entrusted to subcontractors chosen on economic criteria, in other words because they are the cheapest. The consequence is that they cannot pay their employees at a level close to the salaries applied to those of the major aeronautical groups. However, they too are indispensable and even if their capacity to cause harm is infinitely inferior to that of highly protected employees, I am also thinking of air traffic controllers, they are still able to show their presence. This is what they did in Germany.

Let us cite a few examples, without being sure to cover the wide variety of professions. Let’s take the registrars. Many of them belong to subcontractors. Their status is not recognized and they do not benefit from the transport facilities that their counterparts employed by the companies can enjoy. They work staggered hours, often interrupted by very long unpaid breaks and they suffer, like their colleagues employed by the airlines, the bad moods of passengers, some of whom, fortunately in small numbers, are downright obnoxious. In the chain of exploitation are baggage handlers. No one sees them, but passengers are very happy to find their suitcases on the baggage belts when they arrive. They work outside in all weathers and at all hours.

Passengers must then go through the PIFs (Screening Inspection Stations), which are also served almost exclusively by subcontracting companies. They too suffer from the bad moods of customers who are exasperated by an approach that does not always seem useful to them and sometimes too nitpicky, especially since the procedures are not homogeneous between airports and sometimes even between terminals of the same airport.

And then there are the appliance cleaning employees. They only have about thirty minutes to completely rearrange a cabin. We never see them either, but they do a very honourable job at very different hours. It is hard to imagine the state in which passengers can sometimes leave their seats. We could add the bus drivers, who are a very important component of operational punctuality and who must know how to manoeuvre their machines in the middle of air traffic, or the refuellers, without whom the aircraft would have no fuel.

I certainly forget some, but I think of them every time I take a flight and I always admire when the doors of the aircraft are closed on time and the chocks are removed in time for the aircraft to meet its schedule.

The Ambiguous Relationship Between Air Transport and Governments

,

This is a difficult subject to analyze as the interactions between governments and air transport are complex. This starts with the observation that airspace belongs to the states but that its civilian exploitation is carried out by independent operators, whether public or private. However, the latter are ultimately dependent on the sovereign power, if only to obtain exploitation rights.

The first ambiguity comes from air traffic control. This is essential, everyone will agree, and it is most often operated by state administrations whose management capacity is sometimes questionable. This is how the social management of air traffic controllers has a considerable impact on the regularity of airlines. The latter are powerless to ensure that social conflicts are foreseen in advance and that state managers are able to avoid them.

Access to airports is also largely dependent on governments, which can regulate the number of movements at leisure for a wide variety of pretexts. This can go as far as the protection of the national airline. The example of limiting the number of movements at Orly airport to 250,000 under the pretext of the environment was actually taken in 1995 to protect Air France from the probable arrival of British Airways on the airport. On the other hand, the latest limitations on European airports such as Amsterdam, Schiphol or London Heathrow respond well to environmental constraints, not to say ecological pressure.

Traffic rights are a diplomatic weapon of the first order. Since each country is sovereign, it is normal for it to grant operators the right to operate according to its national interests. This is the subject of bargaining whose results are sometimes uncertain. It is surprising, for example, to see French airlines regularly losing market share on their territory to foreign carriers. But sometimes Open Skies agreements, which are fiercely debated between groups of states, can prove to be very profitable. The case of Morocco is very interesting in this respect. After difficult times spent surviving in the face of the wave of European operators, Royal Air Maroc has finally created a Europe-Africa hub at Casablanca airport, of which it is the first user and the first beneficiary.

And then the states use their airlines as an almost obligatory instrument of influence in their necessary international trade. Having your national carrier is a mark of existence and a major economic factor. In this respect, the example of Dubai is very interesting. Once a second-tier emirate in the 1970s and 1980s, it has since become a global magnet through the development of its airport system and its iconic airline, Emirates. Since then, Dubai has passed this first milestone to become a leading economic and financial base. A country like Rwanda seems to have perfectly registered the lesson and is steadily developing its company Rwandair. The same could be said of Ethiopian Airlines, which has become a first-class standard-bearer for his country.

At the end of the Second World War, the United States largely used its two major international carriers, Pan Am and TWA, to dominate the Western world. This observation did not prevent them from abandoning them when the difficulties and perhaps their inadequacy fell on these incumbent carriers.

At its core, air travel may have become a commodity for many countries, but it is nonetheless at the service of governments. The latter also find in the customers of this type of transport a windfall to finance land transport which has difficulty balancing its accounts while air transport is obliged to do so. So instead of being supported economically by governments, it becomes a source of revenue that is blithely drained without being left with the necessary resources to finance its decarbonization, which is nevertheless being demanded loudly by political leaders.

The relationship between governments and air transport is so intertwined, so complex and so ambiguous that it is difficult to see how to unravel them. And this is undoubtedly where the main strength of this sector of activity lies.

Air Transport, A Victim of Geo Politics

,

The global geopolitical situation does not encourage optimism, at least at the beginning of 2025. Conflicts, even localized ones, have an unfortunate tendency to multiply. In Europe, there is still this war between Russia and Ukraine, and even though strong pressure is being exerted on the Ukrainian President, we still do not see the end of the tunnel. Africa is shaken by internal tensions in certain states, such as Sudan and Ethiopia, but also by territorial disputes between Rwanda and Congo, as well as Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara. France’s decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over this territory has led to strong diplomatic tensions with Algeria. The Asian situation is also impacted by China’s claims over Taiwan and the ongoing latent conflict between the two Koreas, not to mention population transfers between Myanmar and Thailand. The Middle East still struggles to find a lasting solution between Israel and its neighbors.

America has not been spared either, especially with the recent arrival in power of the new President of the United States, who seems eager to add fuel to the fire wherever he can, including by claiming possession of Greenland and Panama. In short, none of this encourages optimism.

And what happens to air transport in all this? If we look at it as a whole, it is strongly impacted—an unsurprising observation given that this mode of transport, designed to connect people of various nationalities, is naturally sensitive to any changes in international relations. We must consider the entire industry, from aircraft manufacturing to the final transport of passengers, including the negotiation of traffic rights, which have become a major geopolitical tool, as well as embargo decrees used as weapons of war. Not to mention the granting of visas and overflight bans.

For example, European operators are at a significant disadvantage compared to their Chinese counterparts in trade between the Old Continent and Asia. No longer able to cross the vast Siberian airspace controlled by Russia—since Russia prohibits them from flying over its territory in response to Western sanctions—they are forced to extend their journeys by two hours in each direction. Meanwhile, Chinese airlines can freely use the much shorter Siberian route.

On a completely different note, Brexit has deprived British carriers of access to the European Open Skies agreement, which had been highly beneficial to them. While they have found ways to circumvent this challenge by creating new companies under European law, this has not improved trade between the UK and the rest of Europe. Similarly, some believe they can influence political relations between France and Algeria by leveraging traffic rights—limiting or even eliminating them until the current tensions are resolved. This issue is all the more sensitive given the large Algerian diaspora in France, many of whom maintain strong family ties with their country of origin.

The embargo imposed on Russia has also had a major impact on aircraft maintenance within the country. The vast majority of Russian-operated aircraft are of Western origin, and their maintenance relies on the supply of spare parts. However, Russia can only obtain these parts through indirect channels and in limited quantities. Without efficient air transport, it is difficult to see how Russia could avoid economic regression, even if its mineral and energy resources allow it to sustain a sufficient budget.

Fundamentally, we are witnessing a shift in global geopolitics toward isolationism, reminiscent of the period following the First World War. This is particularly unfortunate given that the tremendous momentum of international cooperation—largely driven by the rapid expansion of air travel—has helped transform the world in recent decades, despite certain challenges along the way.

Still, the desire to travel remains as strong as ever. There are no signs of a slowdown in the growth of the aviation industry, which is an encouraging sign for the world. As long as people wish to meet others from different cultures, it will contribute to easing tensions. There are also some glimmers of optimism here and there—for example, in Syria or in the improving relations between Kurdistan and Turkey. Lebanon is gradually regaining its autonomy.

Air transport remains an essential tool for peace in an increasingly unstable world. Unlike social networks, which often isolate individuals rather than bringing them together, aviation fosters real human connections—for the better.

Stop Going Digital!

,

There are countless initiatives aimed at reducing the cost of painless air transport for professionals in the sector. And yet they are the first to be impacted, as well as the customers, of course. The first, employees considered easily replaceable, I am talking about ground staff, are an easy target for cost hunters. Whenever they can be replaced by a computer tool, there is no hesitation. For the moment, the flight crews are not affected because the rule of one steward or hostess for 50 seats is still respected and there is little chance that this will change and removing part of the crew in the cockpit of planes is not for tomorrow when we know how to fly the aircraft from the ground and that, in theory, we could do without it.

This is how the all-digital approach is taking hold, with certain positive effects, but also the creation of new difficulties. I always wonder why this activity, which is so delicate, so complex, and basically so wonderful, is looking for a constant reduction in costs in order to increase the number of passengers to compensate for the lack of revenue linked to ever lower fares. This is all the more strange because the more it develops, the more air transport is attacked for its contribution to global pollution, while there is still no radical technological leap to achieve carbon neutrality. The latest innovation to date is the equipping of the two-storey cabins with seats or double-decker seats, as you wish. In this way, the filling coefficients could be further densified.

The first effect of this excessive digitalization is the disappearance of staff in the terminals, replaced either by computer tools linked to smartphones, or by terminals that are difficult to talk to and, for the last subjects, the provision of telephones where there were counters and agents to whom passengers could speak. Of course, I don’t forget that these new tools can be good. The release of boarding passes without going through a check-in counter is certainly a unanimously appreciated progress. Lost baggage tracing systems are becoming more and more efficient. More detailed analyses of operations and operating programs allow for very substantial fuel savings. The arrival of Artificial Intelligence will be very useful for the entire air transport industry, from the manufacture of aircraft to the rules for their maintenance. In short, we must not deny progress.

But on the other hand, I have the very strong impression that in all this evolution we have forgottenan important part of air transport, the customers over 65 years old, retirees who have, at least in most Western countries, significant financial means and a lot of free time that they use to visit the world. This segment of customers is in fact subject to the new digital devices that govern air transport without mastering them, sometimes they do not have the necessary iPhone, or even a computer and the Internet remains foreign to them. This is a considerable source of frustration, especially when you are in an airport environment where there is no one to talk to. Not all of them are accompanied by a younger relative who is perfectly capable of mastering these new tools.

Far be it from me to think that we should go back. First of all, it is not possible and it would certainly not be healthy in all respects. But I plead for the return to the entire air transport environment of agents whose gradual disappearance saddens me. Replacing an electronic terminal or a telephone that is often answered only by a machine with a person with whom you can talk would be real progress, would both bring appreciated comfort and remove stress that would be detrimental to the appreciation of this magnificent means of transport.

I will be told that it costs money. It is likely, but is the mad race to the lowest costs to justify permanently falling rates that no longer allow travel agents to be properly paid and to pay travel agents as they should be normal?

In our somewhat brutal world, let’s try to keep a little humanity and if air transport can set an example, it will be all the more accepted, including by those who see it as an enemy.

Bad Start to the Year for Air Travel

,

Although the increase in the number of passengers continues, reaching more than 5 billion by the end of the year, according to IATA experts, many difficulties have affected the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. It started with a series of air disasters never recorded in the last 5 years. And the causes are very varied, even uncommon to date while waiting for the conclusions of the investigators. I note that there is no point in making assumptions before the final report and that it can take a long time to be published.

In fact, it started at the very end of 2024. On 25 December, the Azerbaijan Airlines flight operated by Embraer 190 from Baku to Grozny was in all likelihood hit by a missile and crashed in Kazakhstan after the pilots tried everything to save it. 38 dead.

Four days later, the Jeju Air company operating the Bangkok – Musan flight in South Korea, in a Boeing 737-800 hit by birds, crashed at the end of the runway without having lowered its landing gear, killing 171 people and by a stroke of luck, 2 survivor crew members.

On January 28, an Airbus A321 of the South Korean airline Air Busan caught fire on the runway of Busan with 176 passengers on board. Fortunately, no casualties were reported, as all the passengers were evacuated in time.

On January 29, an American Airlines CRJ 700 was hit in the final phase of landing by a UH-60 helicopter of the United States Air Force and crashed, along with the helicopter, in the Potomac River adjacent to the Washington DC Ronald Reagan airport. 64 dead in the plane and the crew of the helicopter.

This is a series that would have been good to do without. It is also interesting to note that each accident has a different cause, even if the final conclusions are not known. It ranges from an unfortunate injection of birds into the engines, as happened to the US Airways Airbus 320 in 2009, which was able to end up in the Hudson without causing any casualties thanks to the talent and enormous coldness of its crew, to a military attack that was probably unintentional, but which can happen when the guns start to talk. In the middle there is a problem related to air traffic control, even though it is in a country and an area that is very closely monitored, and a huge problem that fortunately occurred on the ground.

All manufacturers are affected: Embraer for the Azerbaijan Airlines flight, Boeing with the Jeju Air disaster, Airbus with the fire at Air Busan and Bombardier whose CRJ 700 crashed in Washington. At this stage of the investigations, we cannot incriminate anyone, but it proves that air transport is a risky activity. To achieve his major objective, which is absolute safety, he deploys prodigious energy, to the point of reconstituting cabins from debris, as was done for TWA flight 800, or like the research companion of the Air France Rio-Paris flight where enormous resources were used. In fact, the safety of air travel has improved considerably because the same accident has never been repeated. This is why the findings of the investigators’ offices are so important.

But all this has a cost and the idea that flying a plane safely is very commonplace should not be allowed to pass on the effect of promotions, which moreover allow new layers of customers to have access to this great means of transport. It is also surprising that for low political reasons, some governments are determined to collect taxes that will not improve this activity, including for its decarbonization, for which the colossal research costs will have to be paid.

Air transport is a fantastic activity, which leads people to know each other and therefore to respect each other better, and which is one of the essential factors in the creation of wealth on earth for, ultimately, the benefit of all. But it remains fragile. All the more reason to respect it.

The Four Companies That Created Air Transport – Emirates – The New Standard

,

In the mid-1980s, no one could have bet a dollar on the future of Emirates, whose creation on 15 March 1985 followed Gulf Air’s gradual withdrawal from Dubai services. Operations commenced on 25 October 1985 using two Boeing 737s leased from Pakistan International Airlines with flights between Dubai and Karachi. At the time, Dubai bore no resemblance to what the city has become today, largely due to the contribution of its airline, which had no domestic market. And the political situation in the area has gone through strong shocks with two wars in Iraq and a number of latent conflicts between the Gulf states. And yet, almost 40 years later, it has become the world reference for air transport. How can this be explained?

Admittedly, from the beginning, the Dubai government provided the necessary funds for the creation and start-up of the carrier by injecting $80 million into the operation, but this is the only financial contribution it has received from the beginning. We must look elsewhere for the keys to success. I see three of them for the most part.

First of all, there is a great deal of stability in the management. Since 1985, Emirates has had only one Chairman: Sheikh Ahmed bin Saheed Al-Maktoum and two CEOs, Maurice Flanagan and, since 2003, Sir Tim Clark. And this team agreed perfectly to decide on a strategy that has never varied: to connect the countries of the East of the World to the countries of the West by having passengers transit through an extremely high-quality facility, which more than compensated for the lack of a local market. This is what has forced the company to always achieve excellence in its product, whether in operations or on-board service, but also in all the peripheral trades that make it possible to create this new standard of quality, I mean training, ground handling, engineering, all down to the smallest details,  such as the choice of typefaces, colors, or reception in trade fairs in Dubai.

It also took a lot of audacity to become the first and soon the only major customer for the largest civil aircraft, the A380, which allowed Emirates to define and put into operation a product of unparalleled quality. This is how the Dubai-based carrier has become completely dominant for First and Business class customers for all passengers transiting through the Gulf. This is also the reason why the Dubai “hub” has faced strong competition from Western European airports, whose quality of service has become so incomparable with that of the major Gulf hubs. It should also be noted that this model has been copied with varying degrees of success by its competitors in the same area: Qatar Airways with a certain success and Etihad Airways which has suffered a resounding failure.

In any case, all airlines, with the notable exception of the American ones, whose strategy is primarily dependent on the domestic market, have had to position themselves in relation to Emirates. The first concern was to have modern fleets that were more comfortable and more economical to operate, and then to be able to use airport facilities of a level and organization unknown until then. It is also clear that a large part of Emirates’ success is due to the complicity between the company, its airport and its handling company, all of which are owned by the Government, which avoids conflicts of interest. I note that all the new major airport facilities in Europe, I am thinking of Istanbul and in Asia, China, Indonesia or India, are designed on the same principle.

So it is not unusual to recognize that Emirates has initiated and developed a new standard for international long-haul air transport. This has also been profitable because since its creation, the company has only had two years of loss in 2021 and 2022, as has the entire air transport industry. In 2023, it posted a net profit of $3.2 billion on a turnover of $32.6 billion, and as far as we know, the figures for 2024 (the company closes its accounts in March) will still be much higher.

The lesson is clear, quality pays off and customers are willing to pay the asking prices and even choose a transit through Dubai even if it means extending their trip a little to benefit from a service on board that it would be too long to recount here.

$100 Billion for a new Gulf air transport player

,

100 billion dollars is the staggering sum that the government of Saudi Arabia has put on the table to develop its air transport. To give you an idea, this corresponds to nearly 4 times the turnover of Air France/KLM and twice that of the Lufthansa Group. The announcement dates from June 2024 and was reiterated at the last World Economic Forum in Davos in the Saudi Arabian pavilion by the GACA (General Authority of Civil Aviation).

What is this manna for? According to GACA’s head of strategy, Mohammed Alkhugaisi, it consists of tripling the number of passengers, developing the number of destinations served to reach 250, and handling 4.5 million tons of cargo. To do this, 50 billion dollars will be devoted to airport infrastructure, by increasing, among other things, the number of runways at Riyadh’s King Salman airport to 6. 40 billion will be used to acquire new aircraft, at 100 million dollars the average price of an aircraft, which still corresponds to 400 units. The last 10 billion will be used to create an infrastructure for logistics and maintenance. All this by 2030 if we are to believe the plan unveiled in June 2024 and confirmed in Davos.

This will seriously shake up Gulf air transport. It is currently shared between Emirates Airlines and Qatar Airways, with other significant carriers such as Etihad Airways, which is recovering from its past strategic mistakes, Gulf Air, which is starting to show its nose again, Kuwait Airways, and Oman Air, not to mention the Saudi carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines and the “low-cost” Air Arabia. The arrival of a new carrier largely supported by one of the richest states on the planet is enough to cause some problems for already established operators, especially since they also have undisguised growth ambitions. The deadlines are fast. Within 5 years, a new landscape will be operational.

It is easy to imagine that Emirates Airlines and Qatar Airways will have no desire to lose their current leadership. This is exercised not only in the Gulf but throughout the world. In terms of passengers/kilometers carried, Emirates Airlines is by far the leading international carrier; it must be said that the Dubai company has no domestic market. Qatar Airways is fighting to make its mark, the company is aiming for the first, but it is not won. So the arrival of a powerful Riyadh Air will further exacerbate the competition, especially if the latter accepts alcohol on board, which is an essential criterion to welcome an international clientele. After all, it is possible that under the influence of its new leader, Mohammed bin Salman, this country will copy its neighbors’ policies on alcohol consumption.

If we count correctly, in 2030 the Gulf will have 5 first-tier carriers: Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, Saudi Arabian Airways, and Riyadh Air, all largely supported by their respective states, which will provide them with all the airport facilities they need and without them being held back by a repressive ecology, as will be the case for Western airlines. The strike force of these operators will be considerable. Counting the current aircraft plus orders, we arrive at a total of 577 Airbus and 641 Boeings, i.e., more than 1,200 aircraft with an average capacity of 250 passengers. This is enough to destabilize international air transport.

Because two scenarios can be envisaged. The first is to imagine fierce competition between airlines that will have to fill their aircraft well. They can only pick up customers outside the Persian Gulf because the majority of “domestic” passengers in this region will use the services of powerful “low-cost” airlines such as Air Arabia or FlyDubai, to name but two. So it is very possible that the major operators will lower their tariffs to supply their fleets. It is difficult to see how traditional Western airlines can follow such a strategy. They will be condemned to lose market share. The other hypothesis is that, in the end, Gulf carriers agree among themselves to keep a consistent fare level and that they focus their attention and investments on improving the quality of service and the ease of transit in their largely modernized airports.

In both cases, Western companies have a real concern to worry about.

Towards an impasse

,

As every year, the ranking of the best airlines in the world carried out by the London-based Skytrax organization is closely scrutinized. It must be said that this rating is not disputed by anyone and that it has been refined over time, since it began in 1999, a quarter of a century ago. This is more than enough to ensure its credibility. A few lessons remain to be learned.

First of all, the supremacy of the Gulf airlines, to which we can add Turkish Airlines, whose base in Istanbul is in the same geographical area. Well, this zone, which includes only about twenty regular companies out of the 1200 registered in the world, achieves the performance of placing 3 in the top ten places and 5 in the Top 20. We can also notice the great stability in this ranking since we find the same in 2023. Let us pay tribute to Qatar Airways, Emirates and Turkish Airlines, the latter of which has made tremendous progress in the last 10 years

American airlines, yet the giants of air transport, are conspicuous by their absence. No carrier appears in the top 20 and only 3 emerge in the list of 50, with the first Delta Air Lines in the modest 21st place. It was not until the 100 nominees were nominated that 14 carriers registered in the United States and Canada were found. This proves that just because a company is big doesn’t mean it’s beautiful and attractive. Admittedly, the American domestic market is undoubtedly less demanding than that of other continents, but it is still surprising that the mega carriers of the United States still manage to impose themselves in international competition while their quality of service leaves so much to be desired.

The Asian continent takes the lion’s share of this ranking. It represents half of the top 10 companies and almost as many of the top 50: 24 out of 50. On closer inspection, the carriers of this huge continent have imposed a level of quality much higher than that of other parts of the world, but they are also the ones who will drive the growth of future air transport if we are to believe the huge order book they hold with the two major world manufacturers. For the moment, states do not seem to be very concerned by the search for carbon neutrality, they are rather in the position of using this mode of transport to strengthen their economic growth.

European airlines are gradually regaining ground. It must be said that they had fallen very low under the governance of the famous “cost killers” and “Yield Management”. Gradually we see them return to the places they should never have left. Let’s welcome the arrival of Air France for the second year in a row and Swiss International Airlines in the top 10 airlines. The Europeans managed to place 6 carriers in the Top 20 with the progress of British Airways and Lufthansa. This proves that when Europeans want to make a quality product, they quickly reach the top of the ranking. They had to go down very low before returning to the level they had in the 1970s. We can only encourage them to continue on the same path.

Two continents are still lagging behind. Latin America only appears in the second part of the Top 50 with the 43rd position of LATAM and only 5 carriers are in the top 100 worldwide. There is still much to be done in this area for which air transport is so vital. The same can be said of Africa, which only places Ethiopian Airlines in the top 50 carriers in 36th place and only 7 companies in the top 100, including Royal Air Maroc in 55th place.

We can criticize this type of ranking at will, which necessarily retains a certain subjectivity even if it is built on a large number of criteria. Nevertheless, it is of great interest not only to high-rated companies or those that are moving up the list, but also to customers for whom it remains a criterion of choice, even if it is not the only one. And then it encourages carriers to continue their efforts to improve and, if only for that, the Skytrax ranking is very useful to air transport.

Air transport is 80 years old

,

This is false, you will tell me, and you will be right. The first commercial flight took place in Florida in… 1914 and before the Second World War, major companies such as Pan Am, Air France, Imperial Airways, and others were already crisscrossing the skies and had traced important international networks. Pan Am, for example, crossed the Pacific with giant seaplanes, and European operators went as far as Australia and many Asian and African countries. So why date air transport to 1944?

On December 7, 1944, in Chicago, the representatives of 52 countries signed the real renaissance of air transport by laying down the rules that would make it prosperous. This required the creation of an entity responsible for the development of regulations and their enforcement. To tell the truth, the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) only took its current title on April 4, 1947, after the ratification of the majority of the founding countries, i.e., 26, since decisions are taken by a simple majority.

To be honest, I’m still surprised by the vision of the founders. Let us remember that in December 1944, the world was really on fire. The war had reached a savagery never known in the past, and little by little, the alliance against the totalitarian countries—Germany, Japan, and their affiliates—was gaining the upper hand. At that point, there was no longer any doubt as to the winners. However, the members of this constituent assembly have laid down as a principle of future air transport that it will be managed with the same rules in each signatory country and that they will apply even to defeated countries. It was not easy, and it is the greatness of the participants in the creation of ICAO, to have understood the importance of air transport for the recovery of the planet and its future prosperity.

To date, 193 countries are members of ICAO, the same number as the participants in the UN. They are represented in this body by an ambassador. That is to say that air transport has a global governance that works rather well despite the low number of permanent civil servants, around 1,000. Many other international organizations would do well to adopt a similar system of governance.

This works well because the ICAO has mandated each of the member states to apply the rules laid down by the organization. But the Civil Aviation Directorates of each state are themselves audited by delegates from the head office, and if the inspection shows significant dysfunctions, the country in question is simply removed from the ICAO until its inspection shows that it has returned to good practices. This means that “blacklisted” countries can no longer issue navigation certificates to their airlines and that the latter can no longer operate international flights. This is probably the best way to avoid the effects of corruption that would have the effect of reducing the security of the airlines of these states. Several countries have been in such a position in the past, such as Nigeria and the Philippines. This has forced the governments concerned to review the entire organization of their own civil aviation. They did so and once again joined global air travel.

Let us keep in mind that this unique system has allowed a fantastic development of world trade while forcing air transport to become safer and more environmentally friendly. In 1983, the ICAO created a Committee for the Protection of the Environment. As a result of the standards enacted, aircraft noise has decreased by 75% since 1970 and fuel consumption by 80%. Admittedly, it seems difficult, if not impossible, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025, which is the objective of global air transport, but the constant pressure put on all players will certainly have a very beneficial effect on the ecological impact of this sector of activity.

The ICAO only issues standards for all aspects of air transport, from radio frequencies and the standardization of diplomas to major safety rules, and they apply to all players: from manufacturers to airports and, of course, carriers. It may not seem like much, but it is thanks to these standards that air transport has reached an incomparable level of development while improving its safety to the point where we are approaching excellence.

Happy birthday to ICAO and happy birthday to modern air transport. May it continue for a long time in the same way.

Air transport, stop punitive ecology!

,

It’s a done deal: the total decarbonisation of air transport by 2050 will not be possible. Indeed, the 14,000 or so aircraft currently on order will be delivered between 2025 and 2035 and they have a lifespan of at least 30 years. However, they are built with a technology that still generates CO² and the production of SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) will be largely insufficient to ensure carbon-free air transport.

Is this a reason to do nothing? Certainly not. The airline industry has been tackling the problem head-on for at least a good twenty years. Today’s aircraft are much less fuel-hungry and less energy-intensive. Despite the cries of outrage from some apostles of ecology, air transport has not waited for them to work on this issue, if only because it is profitable. The less fossil fuel the appliances consume, the more profitable the sector is.

But the ecological revolution will not happen with a wave of a magic wand. Several hundred billion dollars will have to be devoted to research, and it will have to cover the entire spectrum of this activity. And first of all, the manufacture of engines, because this is the major factor of pollution. Designing new machines that consume very little fuel is a long-term task. Imagining new systems to provide sufficient power for the take-off of 400-tonne aircraft is not currently conceivable, at least in the current state of research. And it will also be necessary to gain in decarbonization in the assembly of aircraft, but also – and this is undoubtedly the first progress to be made in the reorganization of airspace in order to shorten distances and consequently travel times. Much remains to be done in this area and we know, at least in Europe, how to proceed with the implementation of SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research), in other words, the management of European airspace in a single entity and not fragmented into 43 control centres as is the case now. Everything is ready, all that remains is to convince the states and the air traffic controllers’ unions and this is perhaps the most difficult.

In short, we will have to put money, a lot of money into research. The subject is exciting. Creating carbon-free aviation is great, especially since air transport is essential to the survival of the planet and the prosperity of peoples. So why does he have to suffer the vindictiveness of political leaders? The latter, at least in some European countries, including France in the first place, but this is also the case in the Netherlands, Germany and even in the Nordic countries, are determined to put the brakes on airlines and, when this is not possible, to tax the air sector in favour of land transport. I am thinking mainly of rail transport. Do we seriously believe that subsidizing the train by taking money from the plane is the right solution to bring air transport to be decarbonized? How can we reasonably divert a so-called Chirac tax, the purpose of which was to provide the means to vaccinate the populations that are in dire need of it, to the benefit of a general budget that no one seems to be able to control anymore?

What kind of jealousy or demagogy drives the deputies to tax the users of the plane on the pretext that they must be able to pay? Of course, the enormous financial needs necessary for research will have to be paid for by someone, and it will certainly not be the states that will always have other priorities. So, of course, these hundreds of billions of dollars will inevitably have to be provided by air transport itself, and first and foremost by consumers. But everyone will have to get involved, whether it’s passengers, manufacturers, engine manufacturers and even airports. And instead of working in a dispersed manner, it would be wise for the collection of money to be centralized with a global organization, why not the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) which could set the main lines of research and distribute the necessary funds in a balanced way with a single goal: the decarbonization of global air transport.

We should listen more often to Bertrand Piccard, the founder and director of Solar Impulse. He talks about the future without blaming the present. He talks about real technological leaps that are not only the improvement of current processes but real innovations, which means that we don’t know about them nowadays. For him, ecology is not a constraint but a real progress that cannot be achieved by destroying the present. I can well imagine him at the head of the huge investment fund that I ardently hope will be created.