The inaugural Network route planning event in Dallas highlighted the need for airlines and airports to co-operate
The timing somehow seemed significant. Delegates assembled on 5 March in Dallas to launch the inaugural Network route-planning event from Airline Business with a conference to examine the strategic implications of liberalisation. Meanwhile, in New York, lawyers were preparing to auction off the assets of TWA, which never seemed to adapt to a landscape changed by US deregulation.
The core aim behind Network is to provide a North American forum in which airline network analysts and airport market service developers could meet to jointly explore the realities effected by shifts in world aviation markets and discuss opportunities for collaboration created by them. That not only included the initial conference panel sessions, but a series of one-to-one meetings where airports could present business cases to airline analysts. That borrows the formula already laid down by Routes, the world's leading route-planning forum, co-organised by Airline Business and Airport Strategy &Marketing.
The global Routes forum next takes place in Dublin in September, but Network was launched as the first of a series of regional Routes Alliance events, in this case responding to demand for an event focussed on developing services to, from and within North America. The experiment appears to have been a success, with the event attracting 150 delegates in its first ever year including five of the US majors and a good mix of flag-carriers from Europe, South America and the Middle East. There was also some highly positive feedback for next time.
Strategic co-operation
On the evidence of the two days in Dallas, airlines and airports may indeed find themselves increasingly making common cause on a range of strategic fronts, not least the battle to free up the transatlantic. That is a battle close to the heart of Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), host airport for the event. As home to American Airlines, it has, more than most, had to live with the frustrations of the US-UK bilateral and its continuing restrictions at London Heathrow. Not only has the Bermuda II treaty effectively prevented American from fully consummating its alliance with British Airways, but also left both carriers unable to fly direct flights from London's premier airport to DFW.
Joseph Lopano, who heads air service development for DFW, says the Dallas-London market could support six daily flights - up from the current three on offer - if access were granted to Heathrow. Such a change, he estimates, would bring an additional $1 billion over five years to the Dallas-Forth Worth community.
Lopano points out that there is plenty of evidence to show that growth can be rapid once markets are set free. Traffic between DFW and the UK is already registering an impressive annual growth figure of 6%, and DFW thinks opening up Heathrow to service from Dallas would see that number double. After all, Lopano states, that is already the level of growth being achieved by DFW traffic to other European hubs, such as Amsterdam Schiphol.
If the traffic is there - and even secondary US airports are in the hunt for direct long-haul service - then the issue becomes how to get past the regulation. Air France vice-president for alliances Patrick Bianquis endorsed the Transatlantic Common Aviation Area (TCAA) concept which has been taken up by the European Commission. Bianquis acknowledges that the USA, and even some European governments, may still need to be convinced of the argument's merits, but now is the ideal time to set the discussion in motion.
For his part, Stephen Gelband, a senior aviation lawyer whose Washington Airports Task Force has lobbied extensively on behalf of Washington Dulles Airport, believes that the impetus will have to come from airports. While airline alliances may have given fresh reason for carriers to trumpet the cause of liberalisation, it is the airports and their communities whose fortunes are most directly tied to liberalisation. He points to starts made by groups such as USA-BIAS (US Airports for Better International Air Service), with its "clear skies" message, but agrees that the lobby effort needs to grow
Meanwhile, even closer to home are the implications of the US consolidation taking place around the proposed United Airlines merger with US Airways and American's linked deal to buy TWA. That is still work in progress, but Jon Ash, president of Global Aviation Associates, predicted that - after the purchase of terminally ill TWA - the odds are stacked against major movement, not least because of the government, labour and investor issues that the carriers will have to face down.
That led on to one final reminder from Phil Roberts, founder of the consultancy Roberts Roach Associates, who warned that most expansion plans would be academic exercises unless all the industry's stakeholders face up to and collaborate in alleviating the global congestion crisis. He closed his discussion by noting that, while congestion may seem to hurt some players more than others, the travelling public is becoming "frustrated and angry" with the air travel industry as a whole, meaning the entire industry must work together if consumer and legislative backlash is to be avoided.
Perhaps here too there is room for airlines and airports to collaborate. That is a topic to take up at the next Network event in 2002. Network 2001 Dates: 5-6 March Host: Dallas/Fort Worth international Airport Attendance: 150 Contact: Jackie O'Donnell email: jackieod@mindspring.com Tel: +1 703 836 7445 Fax: +1 703 836 7446 Network is the new forum launched this year by Airline Business as a regional event allied to Routes, the global route-planning event co-organised with Airport Strategy &Marketing. At the core of both events are the one-to-one business meetings. Airline network analysts, who attend for free, each host 20-30min route development discussions with the airport delegates. The Network programme also included a strategy conference and gala dinner, hosted by DFW at the famous South Fork Ranch. For further details please see the contacts above or access both events via:www.airlinebusiness.com
Source: Airline Business
