Extension of South East Asian fifth freedom exchange announced

On 24 April 2007 the Office of the President of the Philippines announced that the number of points available for fifth freedom air transport operations in the Brunei Darussalam/Indonesia/Malaysia/the Philippines-East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) has been extended.

China-New Zealand air services agreement amendments brought into effect

On 23 April 2007 the New Zealand Minister of Transport, Hon. Annette King, announced from Beijing that amendments to the 1993 air services treaty between China and New Zealand had been brought into effect.

These amendments were negotiated in 2004. The main features were announced by the then Minister of Transport, Hon. Pete Hodgson, on 18 May 2004.

Brazilian interest in a regional approach to international air services arrangements?

On 17 April 2007 the head of the ANAC, Milton Zuanazzi, was reported (in Portuguese) to have been expressing an interest in the possibility of moving from a bilateral to a regional approach within South America for the economic regulation of international air services (O Globo article in Portuguese).

Civil aviation policy changes recommended in Israel

A 20 April 2007 article in Haaretz reports on recommendations from the Israeli Ministry of Transport to liberalise aspects of Israel's international air transport policy. This includes seeking to negotiate an "open skies" agreement with the European Union.

Australia concludes new Air Services Agreements with Spain and Croatia

In a 12 April 2007 media statement the Australian Transport Minister, Mark Vaile, announced that Australia has concluded new Air Services Agreements with Spain and Croatia.

New Zealand signed an Air Services Agreement with Spain in 2002. I led the New Zealand delegation at the negotiations.

Illustrated History of National Airways Corporation

I have just finished enjoying reading and looking at the excellent set of pictures in "NAC - The Illustrated History of New Zealand National Airways Corporation 1947-1978" by Richard Waugh with Peter Layne & Graeme McConnell.

The authors, who are members of New Zealand Airline Research, have had the good sense not to try to repeat material in Dr Peter Aimer's book "Wings of the Nation - A History of the National Airways Corporation, 1947-78" about New Zealand's State-owned domestic carrier that was merged with Air New Zealand in 1978. Rather the two books are very much complimentary.

I remember flying in NAC Vickers Viscount aircraft between Dunedin and Christchurch as a child. I still think that the type is particularly beautiful but it was very noisy.

Rev Richard Waugh, in particular, has been involved in writing a number of books printed by Craigs about early airlines in New Zealand, reenactment flights and commemorating many of the airline tragedies that marked that history.

IATA releases Oxera report comparing restrictions facing airlines with other industries

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has just released an 86-page November 2006 report prepared by Oxera Consulting entitled What are the economic impacts of relaxing on product and capital markets restrictions? - lessons from other industries together with an accompanying IATA Economics Briefing on Airline Liberalisation. The other industries looked at are banking, telecommunications, media and energy.

US aspirations for an "open skies" agreement with China

On 13 April 2007 Reuters, Associated Press and Xinhua carried reports on the visit by Secretary for Transportation, Mary Peters, to Beijing during which she outlined a possible timetable for liberalising US-China air services arrangements. This would see a framework deal concluded by May.

Arab Maghreb Union studying Moroccan "open skies" proposal

Middle East Online carries a 30 March 2007 report that the five countries of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) - Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia - have set up a committee to study a proposal from Morocco for an "open skies" agreement.

Morocco recently concluded a similar agreement with the European Union.

No result from Japan-United States air services negotiations

Aviation Week in a 9 April 2007 story reports that three days of air services negotiations in Washington DC between Japan and the United States did not reach agreement.

Japan has long been concerned that US airlines hold a disproportionate share of slots at Narita International Airport (NRT) near Tokyo.

IATA releases latest airline industry forecasts

IATA Economics has recently released the 29 page presentation of its April 2007 set of forecasts for the global airline industry. Of particular interest is the shock risk graph on Slide 10. There is also a 4 page briefing version.

Other freely available global and regional forecasts are published annually by the two major airliner manufacturers, Airbus with its Global Market Forecast and Boeing with its Current Market Outlook. Inevitably they place emphasis on their aircraft sales expectations and of late the forecasts have also been used to further the debate about whether the future lies in operations to and from major hubs with aircraft like the A380 (and B747-8) or point-to-point flying with aircraft like the B787 (and A350).

Here in New Zealand, where almost all visitors arrive by air, official tourism forecasts are produced annually for the Ministry of Tourism by Covec. For better or worse I am a contributor to this annual exercise.

A fishy public transport story from England

The Daily Mail on 9 April 2007 has a report, complete with photos, about a white cat that regularly and unaccompanied uses public transport (the No 331 bus) to visit the local fish and chip shop!

We humans all too often fail to give our feline and canine companions sufficient credit for their intelligence.

Setback for CERN as Fermilab maths mistake causes explosion

In an 8 April 2007 article the Sunday Times reports on a small explosion on 27 March at CERN in Geneva that has possibly set back by months the multi-billion euro Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project to build an experiment to search for evidence of the Higgs Boson. The cause of the explosion was reportedly a miscalculation by staff at CERN's US rival, Fermilab. Official statements have been made by CERN and Fermilab.

I have been out to the visitor centre, Microcosm, at CERN. It is well worth a look. Ever since studying physics at high school I have retained a fascination for the subject reading popular accounts but thought that my maths skills were not up to taking the subject any further. Maybe they were!

In addition, understanding basic physics is very important for anyone involved in flying.

Spectacular photos of unusual clouds

A 7 April 2007 post on the Thrilling Wonder blog has some spectacular photos of cloud formations, including lenticular clouds and the rare mammatus.

Government support for South African Airways

A 4 April 2007 article in Business Day, quoting Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin, reports that there are limits to the South African Government's support for its loss-making airline, South African Airways.

On 29 March 2007 Star Alliance member South African Airways announced that it is entering into a code-share arrangement with non-Star Malaysia Airlines.

Canada-Japan air services arrangements expanded

On 5 February 2007 Canadian Ministers Lawrence Cannon and David Emerson announced that air services negotiations between Canada and Japan concluded on 25 January 2007 had expanded the air services arrangements between the two countries.

UK report on baggage mishandling by airlines

On 4 April 2007 the UK Air Transport Users Council published a 9-page report on every air passenger's nightmare, the mishandling of baggage. The report gives statistics for some of the major airlines serving the UK. Notable airlines that did not submit data included Virgin Atlantic and bmi.

I have personally had a few bags go missing but the airlines concerned have always managed to get them back to me at my hotel within a day.

Japan to open international airline access to regional airports?

In a 31 March 2007 article the Financial Times reports that the Japanese Government is looking at freeing up international airline access to its regional airports in what is being called the Asia Gateway Plan. The article quotes Takumi Nemoto, a special adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and also reports on the possibility of an air services agreement between Japan and ASEAN.

Australia and the United Kingdom already follow similar policy approaches with respect to access by foreign international airlines to their regional airports. On 17 October 2005 the United Kingdom went as far as inviting fifth freedom services through its regional airports.

Australian air rights aspirations in Europe

Following the recent exchanges of new air rights by Australia with Qatar and separately the United Arab Emirates, Australian Minister of Transport Mark Vaile is quoted in an interview with the Australian reported on 30 March 2007 about Australia's aspirations to expand its air services arrangements with Europe, including increased access to Paris.

Problems with Enforcement of EU Air Passenger Rights

On 4 April 2007 the European Commission (EC) released a 12-page communication (report) on the results and application of the EU air passenger rights regulation, noting in particular problems with low-cost carriers, and announced that it is giving member states another six months to make this legislation work.

A BBC report on this announcement notes the lack of a definition of "delay" in the EU regulation. No definition of "delay" is included in the 1929 Warsaw Convention on international air carrier liability (Article 19 refers) either and when this and subsequent amendments were consolidated in the 1999 Montreal Convention (again Article 19 refers) again no definition of "delay" was included. The same situation exists in Part 9B of the New Zealand Civil Aviation Act 1990 with respect to domestic delay. Back in 2004 the China Daily carried an interesting article on this subject noting the whether or not delay has occurred is generally considered on a case-by-case basis.

A number of countries collect and publish airline delay statistics. In the United States (where the Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics issues a monthly Air Travel Consumer Report) "on time" is defined as within 15 minutes of scheduled time. The Australian Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics uses the same 15 minute definition of "on time" in its reporting. UK punctuality statistics are published by the UK Civil Aviation Authority and this information is also available in a more user-friendly form on the Flightontime.info web site.

On 10 January 2007, following airline industry complaints, the European Ombudsman had criticised certain public information produced by the EC on air passenger rights as being inaccurate and misleading.

The global air transport network

Having read Mark Buchanan's book "Nexus - Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks", I found the academic paper The worldwide air transportation network: Anomalous centrality, community structure, and cities' global roles by R. Guimerà, S. Mossa, A. Turtschi & L. A. N. Amaral, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2005 to be interesting. This research used data from OAG - 500,000 flights between 27,000 pairs of cities scheduled during the first week of November 2000. A non-technical description of the results is also available together with a couple of ranked lists of all the cities in the database.

Note, in particular, the significance - "centrality" - of airports in Anchorage in Alaska and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. Both areas of the world are very much dependent on air transport.

For someone who often takes journeys that involve flying four sectors (the research shows that a traveller can get from any city to any other with an average of 4.4 sectors) it was fascinating to read of the most disconnected places in the world - Mount Pleasant (MPN) in the Falkland Islands and Wasu (WSU) in Papua New Guinea - flying between them required a 15-sector journey!

London Heathrow airport slots and the A380

One consequence of the EU-US "open skies" agreement will be that, with the end of the UK-US Bermuda II agreement, more UK and US airlines will be able to serve routes between London Heathrow (LHR) airport and the United States (other EU airlines will also gain access). A major constraint on this will be the lack of takeoff and landing slots at LHR.

Airport Coordination Ltd, who control slots at LHR, has issued a three-page brief dated 26 March 2007 on the situation. Logically LHR slots may be about to get a whole lot more expensive.

A further dimension to the issue of slot constraints is that the A380 aircraft some major carriers will be seeking to operate into LHR may require greater wake turbulence separation from other aircraft during landing and takeoff thereby reducing hourly runway capacity. In June 2006 ICAO was issuing guidance on this subject. British Airways (BA) Chief Executive Willie Walsh touched on some of the implications of this in a lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society on 13 November 2006 (Flight International carried a report on this in a short article).

Australia and New Zealand implement mutual recognition of airline safety certification

On 30 March 2007 the Australian and New Zealand Ministers of Transport, Mark Vaile and Annette King, jointly announced that mutual recognition of airline safety certification between Australia and New Zealand had been implemented. This move has been a decade in the making and required legislation changes in Australia and New Zealand. It is particularly significant because under the Single Aviation Market qualifying airlines can operate both eight and ninth freedom cabotage services.

Further details are available on the New Zealand Ministry of Transport web site. An Arrangement (3.34Mb .pdf) between the two governments was signed on 13 February 2007 and an Operational Arrangement between CASA and the New Zealand CAA was signed on 16 March 2007.

A previous statement by Annette King welcoming the passage of the Australian legislation was made on 12 September 2006.

APEC Transport Ministers meet in Adelaide

Unlike their European counterparts, APEC transport ministers do not meet very often. Their 28-30 March 2007 meeting last week in Adelaide, Australia, was only the fifth time that they have got together.

At the end of the meeting a Joint Ministerial Statement was issued.

One of the issues discussed was how to take practical steps to reduce aviation emissions. This featured in a media statement issued by meeting chairman, Mark Vaile, and can in part be seen as a response to European Commission proposal released late last year as to how to address this issue.

One interesting speech delivered at the conference on 30 March 2007 was that by Singapore's Transport Minister, Raymond Lim, covering progress being made within APEC on air services liberalisation.

Argentina-US air services arrangements to expand

A statement issued by the US State Department announces new air services arrangements initialled by Argentina and the United States at negotiations held on 20-22 March 2007 in Washington DC. It is not "open skies" for passenger services but available capacity would be substantially increased and new route opportunities created.

Shipping emissions

A 3 March 2007 article in the Guardian by John Vidal headed "CO2 output from shipping twice as much as airlines" points to new research by BP Marine and the German Institute for Physics and Atmosphere about emissions from shipping being higher than previously thought. These studies have attracted the attention of the European Federation for Transport and Environment, a Brussels-based NGO.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) based in London plays a similar role in setting environmental standards to that played by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with respect to aviation and emissions. The European Commission's DG Environment also takes close interest in ship emissions.

Again like aviation, the environmental impact of shipping is being ameliorated as new technology is introduced but it would seem that the growth in cargo volumes is more than offsetting this progress.

EU position on EC proposal to include international aviation in its emissions trading scheme not yet established

A 22 March 2006 statement from European Union Transport Council President and German Transport Minister, Wolfgang Tiefensee, indicates that the position to be taken by EU member states to what he expects will be "heated" debate at the ICAO Council and September 2007 Assembly has yet to be established.

Media statements on and coverage of the conditional approval of the EU-US "open skies" ATA

Following the unanimous conditional approval on 22 March 2007 by European Union transport ministers of the draft EU-US "open skies" Air Transport Agreement (ATA), statements have been released by:

• European Transport Commissioner, Jacques Barrot
• German EU Transport Council President, Wolfgang Tiefensee
• UK Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Douglas Alexander
• US House of Representatives' Congressmen Oberstar, Costello and LoBiondo

Media coverage has included that in the Belfast Telegraph, BusinessWeek, the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune and the Times.

EU-US Air Transport Agreement given conditional approval by European Transport Ministers

Reports are coming through (see stories from the BBC, Bloomberg and Reuters) that the draft European Union-United States Air Transport Agreement has received the necessary unanimous approval from European Transport Ministers meeting in Brussels. The approval is, however, conditional.

As signaled, implementation would be delayed by five months until March 2008 when British Airways moves into Terminal 5 at London Heathrow. In addition elements of the new agreement could be suspended by individual EU member states if the United States does not agree to an exchange of eight and ninth freedom traffic rights within two years. The US Congressional reaction to the latter will be interesting.

The US Secretary for Transportation, Mary Peters, has already issued a short statement welcoming the deal.

In a bilateral air services agreement signed on 26 July 2005 the United Kingdom exchanged eight and ninth freedom traffic rights with New Zealand. Air New Zealand was fortunate to be able to double the number of London Heathrow slots it holds when it did.

The UAE negotiates new air services arrangements with India

A new Memorandum of Understanding was signed by India and the United Arab Emirates on 15 March 2007.

Australia agrees large phased air capacity increase with the UAE

The Australian Transport Minister, Mark Vaile, on 22 March 2007 announced that Australia and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to new air services arrangements that involve the phased introduction of a large increase in capacity limits on the carriers of both countries. Reports of the new deal are carried in the Australian and the Age.

Major beneficiaries of this announcement will be Etihad Airways and Emirates Airline who between them will be able to operate an additional 56 flights per week to major Australia cities by 2011.

One cannot but help wonder what influence this announcement will have on institutions deciding on how to react to the current bid for Qantas shares.

US DoT gives tentative approval to Virgin America

On 20 March 2007 the United States Department of Transportation announced its tentative conditional approval of Virgin America. Not surprisingly Virgin America has welcomed the announcement.

One suspects that the timing of this announcement just ahead of a decision by European Union Transport Ministers on the proposed EU-US "open skies" agreement is not entirely coincidental.

European Transport Ministers to decide on "open skies" deal with the United States

Tonight, New Zealand time, European Transport Ministers are due to make a decision on the proposed European Union-United States "open skies" Air Transport Agreement. With a power of veto the position taken by the UK Transport Minister will be key. The German Minister chairing the meeting is reported by Reuters to be optimistic that a deal can be reached.

UK media reports in the Daily Mail and on Reuters suggest that the United Kingdom will not oppose the deal but has been seeking a one-year extension of the restrictions on access to London Heathrow. Why? This would be to allow British Airways to consolidate all its Heathrow operations in the new Terminal Five, due to open in March 2008, before facing new competition.

Niue signs the PIASA

The Fiji Daily Post reported on 19 March 2007 that Niue has signed the Pacific Islands Air Services Agreement (PIASA). The PIASA needs six countries to ratify it before it comes into force. So far it has been ratified by the Cook Islands, Nauru, Samoa and Tonga. Along with Niue, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu have signed but have yet to ratify the treaty.

I attended the negotiation of this agreement in Fiji and Tonga.

Solomons Airlines cannot operate between Santos and Brisbane

The Solomons Star reported on 19 March 2007 that Solomons Airlines is unable to operate between Santos in Vanuatu and Brisbane in Australia. The rights to operate such a service on a scheduled basis with fifth freedom rights would need to be negotiated by the Solomon Islands with Vanuatu and separately with Australia.

Compensation for delay of passengers in New Zealand

Today a media statement UPDATED issued on 19 March 2007 by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Judith Tizard, about domestic air passenger rights to compensation when delayed has been headline news in the Herald and the Press, and was carried on the TVNZ web site. The TV3 web site reports on the Minister's interest in a possible code of conduct for airlines.

This followed a news story in the Press last week reporting on two passengers being denied boarding on Air New Zealand flights allegedly because of overbooking. Overbooking itself is not illegal. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs initially urged passengers to read the fine print on their tickets. Unfortunately it turned out that most New Zealand domestic airlines had failed to update their fine print which referred to the Carriage by Air Act 1967 (or in some cases the Carriage Act 1967 [sic]). This Act was replaced in mid 2004 with a new Part9B (this starts at s.91U) of the Civil Aviation Act 1990 which carried over provisions relating to possible compensation for delay (New Zealand legislation is available online). The speeches in Parliament from the Third Reading (18 March 2004) of the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill are available in Hansard.

Here are the updated Air New Zealand Conditions of Carriage. At the time of writing the Qantas Conditions of Contract had yet to be corrected [they subsequently have been].

Another presentation by Hans Rosling

Another excellent presentation (this one is longer) by Hans Rosling using the Trendalyzer software (see my previous posting) - this time at the Le Web 3 conference in Paris late last year.

South Africa's Airlift Strategy 2006

South Africa's Airlift Strategy 2006 prepared by the Department of Transport and approved by the South African Cabinet on 26 July 2006 is available on the web (now available here UPDATED). It gives an interesting insight into South African thinking with respect to air services arrangements.

Trendalyzer - graphing data in four dimensions, including time

A 16 March 2007 post on the Official Google Blog announced the acquisition by Google from the Swedish Gapminder Foundation of Trendalyzer data visualisation software and its development team. The example linked to by the post uses cross-country comparison data over time to present animated graphs and maps (Adobe Flash is required). Try it - it's brilliant!

There is also available on the web a presentation by Gapminder founder Hans Rosling using this software at TED last year. It is well worth taking the time to watch.

Virgin America makes "final reply" to US DoT

Virgin America has filed with the US Department of Transportation (DoT) a final reply dated 14 March 2007 concerning its application (Docket No. OST-2005-23307).

On 20 February 2007 Aviation Daily reported on what the major critics were saying in their most recent filings.