Aviation

The recent proposal to enlarge the European Common Aviation Area – the European Single Market for aviation – from 25 to 35 members, with the inclusion of a number of states and provinces in Southeast Europe, as well as the formal incorporation of existing participants Norway and Iceland, was applauded by the travel trade.

The European Union recently unveiled an ambitious plan for a 20 billion euro air traffic management system to help Europe cope with an expected doubling in the number of flights over the next 15 years.

Last month Aegean Airlines signed an agreement for the purchase of eight new Airbus A320 passenger jets and an option for another 12. The new jets will replace present aircraft and allow the airline to extend its present domestic and international network, says the airline.

The Air Transport Users Council, Britain’s consumer organization for air travelers, recently released research findings regarding pricing on airline websites: Prices that in many cases bear no relationship to the actual cost of airline travel.

Disabled airline passengers and those with reduced mobility had their rights formally regulated last month after a EU proposal. According to the ruling, the responsibility for the care of disabled passengers will now be vested not with the airlines but with the airports who are expected to pass the cost, reckoned by the European Commission to be 0.60 euro per passenger overall, back to the airlines as part of the handling charge. Today, airlines charge as much as 5.22 euros.

Qatar Airways, one of the fastest growing airlines in the world, does in Greece what it is doing and will do in all major European cities; it’s expanding at a rapid rate. In just months since it opened offices in Athens, the airline has staffed modern offices with more than 20 employees and has managed to pick up a sizable share of travel business.

A new company is to be launched early next year to replace Olympic Airlines, according to a recent government announcement. This follows the state’s latest failed attempt to find a buyer for the country’s ailing flag carrier. In mid November, government officially declared that the latest international tender for the sale of Olympic – the fifth attempt – was inconclusive.

In a landmark occasion for European air transport, the contract for the definition phase for the Single European Sky Implementation Program was ratified on November 17 by 29 partners in the Air Traffic Alliance, the vice president of the European Commission and the director general of Eurocontrol.

Antonis Simigdalas, president of the association for European Regional Airlines, has asked Stavros Dimas, Commissioner for the Environment, and Markos Kyprianou, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, to look at ERA’s “A Vision for European Air Transport” as a better starting point for wider policy decisions than the Commission’s present base publication created in 2001, which needs re-examination.

Just a month after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Delta has announced a huge international expansion plan. With the aim to be the “world’s largest airline across the Atlantic” the beleaguered carrier will launch additional flights from its Atlanta and New York bases to 11 new markets in Europe and the Middle East by summer next year.