MARK PILLING
Airports are calling for governments to speed up the decision-making processes for the construction of new airports and runways.
Speaking at Paris, Jonathan Howe, the director general of Airports Council International (ACI), the body that represents the world's airports, said: "Governments have got to find the means for expediting all of the bureaucratic regulations to develop new airport infrastructure." Howe will be a familiar face to many in the aerospace industry, being a former president of the National Business Aircraft Association.
"Everybody's got a piece of the action," he explains, point to a raft of duplicating state, federal and regional authorities and agencies which are all involved.
Railroading
There is no question of railroading the strong environmental lobby that emerges when new airport projects are proposed. "Everyone realises that they have to do sensible things on the environmental mitigation side," he says, noting that airports have developed effective programmes in this area.
"Airports have proved they are good fund-raisers - whether through privatisation or by attracting investment grade capital - because they are very credit worthy. The problem is not money, the problem is all the bureaucratic hoops we have to jump through," he says.
Over the past few years ACI has considerably raised its profile, seeking to put itself on the same influence level as the strong airline lobby. One area it has targeted is air traffic control. For example, the "feudal system" of ATC in Europe is "horribly inefficient", says Howe, adding: "ATC providers have got to get their acts together."
Source: Flight Daily News
