Those of us who have served the airline industry know full well that what may appear as a monolithic industry (all airlines fly aircraft after all, do they not?), is in fact a multitude of differing business models, interests, attitudes, readiness to invest in new things, inertia, vision and what have you. Even within the group of legacy carriers or the group of low cost folks, the diversity is immense.
In the past, the airline industry booked its most significant successes in influencing the political scene as well as air traffic management when it was able to speak with one voice. That voice on the world-wide stage used to be IATA. The most spectacular flops were booked when dissent in the family silenced the common voice. Just think of the Mode S Enhanced Surveillance debacle if you want to have proof.
With SESAR being the most significant European air traffic management development project ever, it is not easy not to feel worried and possibly even smell a fish when one realizes that the airspace users were brought on board not as full members but individually as experts who will be called upon to address specific aspects of the project. Stranger still, IATA is also on board as a separate entity. So, who will be the industry voice? Who will set the common policy? It is even rumored that IATA and the airlines are not allowed to speak to each other under the terms of the non-disclosure agreements they all had to sign. Great…
With all due respect to the SESAR Joint Undertaking, their experience in dealing with the airline community at large is exactly zero. In any
case, it is not a skill you acquire overnight and the lifetime of the SJU and the whole SESAR project is hardly dimensioned for the leadership to learn something that on occasion gives even IATA headaches.
In the past, the most untrustworthy phrase was this: we have talked to the airlines and they said this (or that…). Invariably, behind this phrase was someone who went to the airline nearest to their home base and asked them a question which required an industry position. The airline, invariably, gave their particular position on the issue and this then went on record as the “airline” position. It was not by accident that IATA always insisted that the “industry” position was to be the one they put forward. And goodness knows it was sometimes hard enough to come up with that and defend it in the wild.
SESAR seems to have gone back to the stage where, apparently, the considered industry position is no longer relevant.
Whatever is behind the current setup, airlines would do well to remember the cost in the past of not pushing their interest in a united front.
They should ask the question: who is in charge here? On the airspace user side, to be sure.
PBN is spot on about the narrowness of the ‘industry view’; those of us who were charged with liaising with IATA and other industry bodies know only too well how difficult it was to engage senior management in international affairs, always seen as less important than that day’s operational foul-up. But that is no excuse for the SJU to ignore industry who will unltimately be responsible for footing the (enormous) bill for their little scheme. It has been said before in this forum, the lack of industry participation now, compared to its deep involvement in the defintion phase means that there will no counter view to the heavily front loaded project, which makes it utterly unaffordable. The SJU owes it to itslf to get industry’s views and actually listen to them, take note, and act accordingly.
From my experience working first in British Airways and later with IATA in Brussels there were at least five main problems (amongst many).
First, was to get one’s own airline to take infrastructure issues seriously enough. They were quick to blame various organisations such as ANSPs, airports and Eurocontrol when things went wrong but not willing to invest sufficient time and money on long term strategic projects. The main problem, as Alex has said, is that the airlines need to solve today’s and tomorrow’s problems, not those that need long timescales. Your can’t blame them too much because their very survival needs them to focus on the short term and so get early returns from their investments. Unfortunately there is a mismatch between the short term needs of airlines and the long term needs of infrastructure planning.
Second, was to get all those airlines under IATA’s umbrella to agree a common view. That took time and considerable effort. And, as PBN has said, even when agreement was reached and IATA spoke on their behalf, individual airlines would reach agreements with their own national ANSPs or airports that were at variance with the agreed common view. In fact, national ANSPs would often encourage their ‘national’ airlines to disagree with the so called common view!
Third, the different airline associations, while trying to reach a common policy between themselves, often had widely differing agendas. Sometimes, this was legitimate and inevitable, you can’t expect big airlines, regional airlines and General Aviation always to agree; they represent different memberships with widely differing needs. But sometimes even the big airline associations such as IATA and AEA seemed wilfully to oppose each other, with a consequential loss of credibility.
Fourth, the ANSPs had exactly the same problems when trying to reach agreements within Eurocontrol. PBN mentions the Mode S Enhanced Surveillance debacle. This was a classic case where there was no common policy between the European ANSPs on what they were going to do with it, thereby negating any investment made by the airlines if they fitted the necessary equipment. And even when ANSPs did agree a European policy or programme within Eurocontrol they often did not implement it on time or to a common standard.
Fifth, there were the differences between Eurocontrol and the European Commission. Sometimes they seemed to be working in opposition! A huge opportunity was missed immediately after the EC joined Eurocontrol which is only now being rectified under the Single Sky Legislation.
But enough of past problems! With the SJU there is now the opportunity to put a lot of this right BUT only if it takes full account of its customers, not just ANSPs and manufacturers. The airspace users are under-represented in the SJU structure. It seems that the airlines have not taken this seriously enough. And just as bad, there is little evidence that the SJU itself is engaging adequately with all the airspace users. If they don’t, it will be the travelling public that will suffer needlessly by paying much more than is necessary.
The PRC has shown that the provision of Air Navigation Services is around twice as cost-effective in the USA because of the adverse effects of lack of unity in Europe. If the SJU does not heed the financial needs of the airspace users by ensuring that the new ATM system is affordable it will be the poor old customer who will have to pay too much again.