BARIG Full Board: Core topic air traffic summit
BARIG Secretary General Michael Hoppe, who had represented the interests of over 100 BARIG member airlines at the respective meeting in Hamburg, extensively discussed the reached agreements. Politics, air traffic control services, airports and airlines developed a mutual final declaration with 24 measures.
These are intended to help make the air traffic location Germany more reliable and qualitatively stable again. “A multitude of factors play major roles in the air traffic system. While several projects can be completed in the short and medium-term, other projects bear challenges that require longterm solutions,” Michael Hoppe explains. Accordingly, airlines plan stronger monitoring of time-critical flights and of routes that are prone to delays. Where necessary, suitable countermeasures shall be taken, also in cooperation with air traffic control services and airport operators. Furthermore, airlines aim at providing faster information to passengers in the case of delays, given that an appropriate transfer of data is established between the passenger and the airline. Among other things, the airports have undertaken to offer additional space for security controls if necessary and to increase the amount of airport personnel and personnel of ground service providers at peak hours. In light of the tense staff situation, air traffic control organizations will make use of their maximum training capacity and further relieve air traffic controllers of any special tasks. To allow for short-term disburdening of the upper air space, lower cruising altitudes shall be used for a transition period. In this regard, however, increased political efforts must finally be made on European level to enable the implementation of the urgently needed Single European Sky concept. Similarly, staff deployment at border controls must be optimized. Moreover, the intended review of procedures and management in air traffic control, which is a fixed component of the federal government’s coalition agreement, must be driven forward noticeably to create enhanced efficiency.
Michael Hoppe further warns, ”The air traffic location Germany must regain its attractiveness, especially against the background of the competition from large foreign air traffic hubs. This requires future-oriented development and appropriate needs-based framework conditions set by the system partners, including airports and federal state authorities. There is no way around the targeted market-conform and cost-efficient modernization and expansion of airport infrastructure. However, investments of this kind must always occur transparently and in cooperation with the user airlines, with reasonable proportion and only to the extent necessary. In this way, burdensome cost explosions for the financial backers, namely the airlines, can be avoided.” This means that the political decision to postpone the construction of the third runway at the airport in Munich by at least another five years faces the same incomprehension on the part of BARIG and its member airlines as oversized expansion plans do. Some plans partially exceed the expert prognoses regarding sustainable demand, growth and required infrastructure. BARIG thus advocates for the targeted development of infrastructure in a market-conform and needs-based manner.
BARIG Business Partners introduce themselves
Participants of the BARIG Full Board could further follow interesting and innovative input from several BARIG Business Partners: Airline Crew Service Centre (“Happy Crew = More Revenue”), Elements (“Health, fitness and lifestyle for airliners“) and Antago (“Challenges of digitalization and IT-Security“). Travelport’s presentation on “Multi Source Content” was rescheduled on short notice to the next Full Board at the beginning of 2019.
