DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Industry associations demand halt to regulations after Middle East traffic plunges and SARS decimates Far East routes
Faced with a fall in airline passenger traffic due to the Iraq war and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Asia, the Association of European Airlines (AEA) and other European organisations are calling on regulators and infrastructure and service providers to rein in costly demands on carriers.
During the first full week of the Iraq war (24-30 March) traffic to and from the Middle East fell "a staggering 55%" over the same week in 2002, says the AEA, while in the week ending 6 April traffic on the same routes was still down by 46%. Intra-European traffic was down 5.3% in the first week of the war and is now 15% below last year's level. Respective figures for North Atlantic traffic showed a 2.5% drop that has now increased to a 7.7% decline. Traffic to and from the Far East - where SARS first emerged - fell nearly 12% in the first week of the war and remains 10% down, the AEA says.
AEA secretary general Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus says: "For the first 10 weeks of the year our market was growing at a modest rate of only 3.5% and from a very low baseline. In just four weeks that growth has been completely wiped out."
Mike Ambrose, director-general of the European Regions Airlines Association (ERA), has again called for "an immediate moratorium on all regulatory initiatives that would add costs and threaten employment" (Flight International, 18-24 March). Naming the European Parliament's draft law on payments to air passengers for delays and cancellations, Ambrose estimates the airlines' compensation bill would cost carriers between €10 million ($10.8 million) and €100 million a year. He has also called on European states to shoulder security costs as the USA has done.
Meanwhile, "measures to alleviate the economic difficulties faced by the airline industry" topped the agenda at Eurocontrol's 10 April council meeting. Its committee responsible for route charging will consider exceptional financial measures aimed at reducing, as a matter of urgency, national and agency ATM-related costs as well as the level of route charges paid by the airlines". The proposals are to be submitted in July.
Source: Flight International
