Says Recent Recommendations Heavily Favor Commercial
Airliners
In remarks Thursday at the European Airport Coordinators
Association’s (EUACA) Seminar held in Amsterdam, the European
Business Aviation Association (EBAA) applauded the European
Commission’s initiative to revise the Regulation on airport
slots, but cautioned against over-simplicity in the choice of
indicators for the purpose of the revision.
Mr. Alec Werner, General Counsel and Director of Corporate
Affairs at NetJets Europe, one of the most prominent members of the
Association, said in his speech: “In 2010, the European
aviation industry boasted the second largest fleet of business
aircraft in the world, comprising over 4,000 aircraft and ensuring
the operation of almost 700,000 movements within and outside the
European continent. Despite the economic difficulties, business
aviation represents 7.3% of Eurocontrol’s IFR traffic,
indicating corporate Europe’s need for timely,
point-to-point, safe and sustainable air travel for business
purposes. For this to continue, however, access to infrastructure
is an absolute must.”
This access would be at risk if the Commission were to follow
all of the recommendations of the recently published Steer Davies
& Gleave (SDG) Impact Assessment report, which suggests that
the number of passengers carried by aircraft should be the sole
performance indicator in the allotment of new slots.
“This report is blind to the full impact of the entire
aviation industry on local and regional economies. All of its
arguments are based on the premise that maximum passenger
throughput is the be-all and end-all, and as a result, it
consistently seeks ways that passenger throughput can be maximized,
regardless of the economic impact on sectors other than airports
and airlines,” says Brian Humphries (pictured), EBAA
President. “Yet, as various major EC and European
Parliamentary reports have highlighted, all sectors of aviation
play a key role in the economic well-being and growth of European
and national economies.”
Business aviation has no significant need to operate at main
hubs, not least because these hubs are tailored to the specific
needs of the airlines. Instead the sector has historically
attempted to use secondary or regional airports as a means of
relieving pressure on the major hubs. Over the last decade though,
scheduled air transport’s expansion on secondary and regional
airports has steadily encroached on the non-scheduled operators,
resulting in further restricted access, as well as a significant
negative impact on the financial viability of business
aviation’s ground-based investments.
EBAA proposes therefore that the best solution would be to
guarantee a number of slots (based on historical usage) per day to
business aviation operators at regional airports, allowing those
operators to use the slots jointly, similarly to the arrangements
in airline alliances.
“We caution against a lost opportunity. A revision, which
we support, should be the occasion for the regulator to put the
cards back on the table, not to strengthen up those aspects
precisely in need of a revision,” said Fabio Gamba
(pictured), EBAA Chief Executive Officer. “It must be
remembered that business aviation is not in competition with the
airlines, but rather meets a specific need. It takes its customer
from the airport nearest their starting point to the airport
nearest to their destination. As a well-established and important
part of the European aviation infrastructure, we trust that serious
consideration will be given to the retention of grandfather rights
for business aviation at secondary airports in which the sector has
made huge investments and created many jobs, and from which it
dutifully serves the European economy.”