Green issues pose biggest industrial challenge
David Learmount/LONDON
Glimpses of how environmental issues will be handled in the future are visible in the Euro-US row about hushkits. Ostensibly, environmental concerns embrace purely the control of noise, emissions, and safety for those who live near airports. However, this debate is shaping up as more to do with trade and taxes.
Public antipathy towards aircraft noise and pollution is merely embryonic today, but the concern for a cleaner, quieter environment, once matured, will hit the aviation industry hard.
Europe, more crowded than the USA and with a greater number of environmentally motivated voters, is more sensitive to aircraft noise and pollution - hence its attempt to stop the import onto the European Union register of hushkitted aircraft, which, despite meeting the letter of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Stage III noise standards, are louder and more polluting than those with newer engines. The US aerospace industry, the sole source of hushkits, is incensed, and the US Government is right behind it.
Talks between the two sides continue, but neither can afford to be seen to back down. A just-published European Commission (EC) study, Air transport and the environment, makes clear the level of European determination. It says: "If no international regulations [on noise and emissions] are held, it [the EC] could be forced to set such standards at European level."
The USA is certainly setting standards to its level. The Federal Aviation Administration requires all transport-category aircraft operating in the USA to be Stage III compliant by 31 December, 1999, two years before the ICAO deadline.
Europe sees Stage III as already out of date and wants to push on with negotiations to define ICAO Stage IV. The USA, while paying lip service to its desirability, remains equivocal over Stage IV goals. Europe's start-ups, the USA argues, should have the right to buy aircraft hushkitted to Stage III standards if they want to, until Stage IV makes them illegal.
The hushkits war is an indicator of the kind of industrial/political reaction provoked by the tightening of the environmental noose. But the manner and pace at which the noose will tighten will soon show itself in other ways.
A statement of the measures under consideration in Europe to combat aviation-caused pollution will be made late next year, but legislation is unlikely then, because, unless carefully drafted, the rules will face legal challenge. Potential measures mooted so far by the EC are navigation charges related to environmental impact, or an aviation fuel tax. But the problems in applying the charges - especially the fuel tax - are manifold, because they would have to apply to foreign fleets flying internationally, not just to European airlines.
The environment most directly sensitive to aviation is the urban area around airports, and not just because of noise and emissions. The term "safety pollution" may not have been invented yet - but watch out.
A European Union (EU)-funded European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) report, called Safety in and around airports, calls for EU action to agree "a common standard for risk management". It states that: "In the last 10 years, over 80% of jet aircraft crashes globally occurred during take-off and landing phases. These accounted for 58% of deaths on board and all third-party deaths. Recent trends in technology, traffic growth [predicted 168% increase in 20 years] and the environment are converging to increase exposure to risk."
Mark Watts, member of the European Parliament and co-chairman of the ETSC's Main Committee, says that airports need closer regulation, reasoning: "The third-party risk to people living around airports is comparable to the risk around chemical plants, which are strictly regulated."
Meanwhile, Europe's airlines can offer less dramatic cuts in noise and pollution than many of their counterparts elsewhere. Having a relatively young aircraft fleet is, ironically, one of the European airline industry's main woes. If its airlines were to operate as many Boeing 727s and McDonnell Douglas DC-9s as the US carriers still do, they could be seen by the politicians and the public to be improving rapidly over the next few years as they re-equip. As it is, the improvements they can offer are relatively slight.
The industry - airports, manufacturers and airlines - will contain the imminent environmentalist offensive only if it comes up with answers before the questions are asked. For example, apart from environmentally driven airframe and engine improvements, airline investment in European high-speed rail links would be seen as "eco-friendly". There are precedents: Lufthansa and Air France have invested in domestic rail links, and British Airways in Eurostar (the tunnel rail link between the UK and mainland Europe).
However unreasonable the airlines may argue environmental measures are for an industry which is trying hard to improve, the tighter measures are on their way.
The hushkit industry, instead of fighting a marginal battle, could be proactive. Where is the Stage IV hushkit for the Stage III engine? It would play a part in quietening some environmental lobbyists and, the sooner Stage IV is defined, the sooner the business will be available.
Source: Flight International
