Blacklist will not make airlines safer, air chief tells Commission

By Anna McLauchlin

Date: 29/09/05

Brussels should be concentrating its efforts on the creation of a European single sky instead of crippling the industry with costly legislation, according to Giovanni Bisignani, director-general and chief executive of the International Air Transport Association.

He warned that recent proposals to create an EU-wide blacklist of unsafe airlines would not improve aircraft safety.

The EU's 1999 initiative to harmonise European airspace is falling short of its ambitions, Bisignani said, highlighting that the industry was still subject to national fragmentation and monopoly services such as Eurocontrol.

"It's ridiculous that in Europe we have been able to create a single currency, but not a single sky," he said in an interview. "We need the freedom to merge and to fly where we want but our hands are tied because we cannot operate as normal businesses do. Brussels must stop micro-managing and play its role in building a proper framework for this industry."

Speaking a week after two more US airlines filed for bankruptcy protection, bringing the total to four, Bisignani said that the European Commission should also step up discussions with the US on creating an open-sky agreement.

"The dimension of the markets are quite similar and there is no need to be so afraid of change," he said. Liberalisation, he added, was the long-term solution for the struggling industry.

IATA forecasts that its global membership will face losses of €7.4 billion this year, with the US posting an expected loss of €8bn and European airlines forecasted to break even.

At the same time, Bisignani argued, the industry has been trying to cope with a wave of European proposals to regulate its business. "We are being hit by too many things in a short space of time," he said.

In a bid to improve the situation for consumers - more than five million pieces of luggage were lost or damaged in 2004 by European airlines and 250,000 passengers denied boarding in 2002 - the Commission introduced new compensation rights for passengers in February.

IATA and the European Low Fares Airline Association launched an immediate legal challenge, but suffered a blow earlier this month when an advocate-general of the European Court of Justice backed the Commission, in what is effectively a draft judgement.

Bisignani, who says that the new rules will cost the industry at least an annual €600 million, is still hopeful. "You cannot ask airlines to compensate for something that is beyond their control," he claimed, highlighting a recent payout by Lufthansa for passengers blocked at Frankfurt airport because of a visit by US President George W. Bush. Plans to include aviation in the Commission's emissions trading scheme are also misguided, he said.

The Commission has pledged to take action on aviation emissions, which, according to a report from the UK Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee, could account for up to 66% of total emissions by 2050. Carbon dioxide emissions from the EU aviation industry increased by 73% between 1990 and 2003, while the EU's total emissions fell by 5.5% in the same period (CE Delft).

But the industry plans to clean up its own act through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Bisignani argued, which has a self-imposed deadline of 2007 for proposals to reduce the environmental impact of aviation.

Based on what he calls a "win-win situation for the industry, the environment and consumers", action is likely to focus on cutting operational efficiencies, which according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could reduce emissions by up to 18%.

A Commission spokesman said: "Bisignani cannot expect us as public policymakers to ignore the problem of CO2 emissions. Emissions-trading is a system that gives incentives to shape the market, it has nothing to do with micro-managing."

He also said that the EU executive supported a fully liberalised market in aviation and "continues to work" on a single sky.

"Commissioner Jacques Barrot will bring forward a new air traffic management system called Sesame, and has obtained a road map from the Council which will lead to aviation agreements with third countries," he added.

IATA is also concerned about a recent Commission proposal to back a European airline blacklist, support for which has grown following four plane crashes over the summer. The association has already set up a safety register called the IOSA programme, which allows any airline to submit to an independent safety audit, which Bisignani says is higher than any national requirement. By the end of 2005, 140 airlines will have registered on the programme.

An IATA delegation is also visiting Africa next week to discuss a partnership which will allow the continent's poorer airlines to join the scheme. Seven of the 15 airlines listed on France and Belgium's blacklists are African.

The programme, Bisignani says, would be a more useful tool than a blacklist, which he says will not make airlines safer.

"I understand that in an emergency situation ministers have to send a political message," he said. "But we want to propose guidelines for safety, not just point the finger at 'bad' airlines."

Giovanni Bisignani, Director-General and Chief Executive of the International Air Transport Association, warned that recent proposals to create an EU-wide blacklist of unsafe airlines would not improve aircraft safety. He said that the European Commission should be concentrating its efforts on the creation of a European single sky instead of burdening the industry with costly legislation. Article summarises the European Commission's recent initiatives in the field of air transport.

International Air Transport Association: Homepage http://www.iata.org/index.htm

European Commission: DG Energy and Transport: Transport: Air Transport http://ec.europa.eu/comm/transport/air/index_en.htm

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