Saturday 20 October 2012

Around the traps this week..........

You can always rely on QATAR AIRWAYS' blunt speaking CEO Akbar al Bakr to say it like he sees it .He's done it again this week with his very clear and straightforward speech to the Airline Club of Great Britain.

He made three points in particular. Each of them hits the nail, and some individuals, squarely on the head. He is worth listening to.

- Britain is losing the airports race. The reality of Boris or any other island megahub airport is , with Britain's arcane planning and approvals process and general inability to just do anything in a hurry, decades away.London needs capacity building NOW.

- The legacy carriers , particularly a couple in Europe, who keep harping on about Gulf governments supporting their new airlines with capital or in other ways are hypocritical. How did they reach their formerly dominant positions and don't some of them get "assistance"  one way or another even now? Why are they less concerned with Asian than Gulf carriers. (Could it be that some of the Asian pioneers are beginning now to look and behave more like legacy airlines? Are they failing to renew their trail blazing credentials?)

- It's time the Gulf's critics stopped whining and got on with meeting customers needs, developing their products and throwing off the shackes of their unions. 

Surprisingly despite its veracity and significance his little list did not attract the attention of the media's "analysts" the next day. Where were they all by and sat next to his new best friend and One-World Sponsor Willie Walsh. It could have been to Walsh's advantage to be there and helpful to his possible future boss (see Airnthere previously). It might delay the day when he gets bored with him.

Not far away in the UK, GATWICK AIRPORT has broken cover with a proposal for a full capability second runway for 2019 or beyond. London's nunber 2 airport is absurdly hobbled in the meantime by an agreement by the then  UK Transport Minister, Michael Hesseltine not to build another runway there for 40 years when approval was given for the building of the North Terminal north of the then solitary terminal and the single runway. The North Terminal coincidentally happens to sit atop the best site for a second runway so this will now have to be built to the south instead. There's nothing like making life difficult for oneself, -or the future.

Meanwhile in AFRICA things are happening or maybe not. FastJet continues to announce progress, base changes, people and aircraft.Accra and Nairobi  having at least temporarily fallen by the wayside ,Dar-es Salaam is now the chosen first base (Bases increasingly get called call hubs. They are not. There is a big difference. Bases are about point to point traffic. Hubs are much more about transfer business). First flights are meant to start in November, which itself is just 11 days away. Not a schedule published or a seat sold yet though. First routes are Dar to Mwanza and Kilimanjaro,-or maybe Nairobi instead. Fog prevails and there is some concern that this is a venture full of ambition and intentions but so far lacking traction.  Could a linkup with Kenya Airways' long proposed low cost arm JamboJet be the way it actually gets airbourne ? Apart from sweeping aside any Kenyan obstacles, this would also give a very European-looking FastJet literally some African faces, not to mention understanding.

Further south in Africa at the seemingly rather unhappy SAA, three top executives including CEO Ms Siza Mzimala have left the company. The reasons are not clear but the airline's dramatic move from profit into loss won't have encouraged a longer stay. Whether there were frustrations and disagreements with government over the way forward, future funding and a host of other possible gripes is not clear. Governments tend to become hyper-directive and interventionist when their money is gurgling down the drain and that's hard for any CEO and team to cope with.

In EUROPE Germania is to take over most of Lufthansa's non Frankfurt and Munich based domestic flying. The cabin crew union in particular didn't give the airline much option. They ran a series of disruptive strikes against the company reducing costs by employing temporary contract crews, won an agreement that these would be terminated and unaffordably absorbed into Lufthansa on Lufthansa rates and terms and conditions so what did they expect? Again , just as in the BA cabin crew dispute last year, the unions have thrown away part of their and their existing members' future by defending the past to the (their) death. 

For anyone wondering where the airline action really is 24/7, we commend two or three APPS for their I-phones, I-Pads etc. The first is FlightRadar24 which for the princely sum of £2.99 shows almost all flights airbourne anywhere in the world. There are some mid Ocean, African and Himalayan gaps in particular but you can see the overall flows well enough. Zoom out and you have the world in minature. The different flow patterns at different times of day,- eg Asia-Europe, trans Atlantic,intra European , Australasian etc. are fascinating and informative. Zoom right in and you can have the runways of aiports and watch any flight approach and touch down.

Next is FlightTrack which enables any particular flight to be followed , while also giving historical punctuality figures.

Finally try FlightBoard which gives the live arrivals and departures boards of most of the world's airports. Again, informative and fascinating.

 Look at all these and for example what is going on at and around the Gulf airports at 0200. A little later view European airports at the same time of day. Notice anything? Any/many flights for example? Night jet bans, environmental lobbies, geography, working hours directives. All of these and more are somewhere in the UK/European pots, with beleagured and benighted London Heathrows eemingly more hobbled than  just about any other major airport on the planet. Different patterns and activity levels also pertain in Asia and the USA for different reasons .Who and where in the world is and who is not really up for business? More food for thought to add to Mr Al Baker's words of discomfort last week. Thought for the UK's government too.



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