Business Aviation (BA) may account for less than 10 per cent of traffic in Europe's crowded skies, nevertheless, it has a big impact on regional economies. BA and General Aviation (GA) flights connect 80,000 city pairs, compared with less than half this number by scheduled services, and enable businesspeople to fl y in and out
within a day to conduct their affairs. The challenge for this sector, however, is to maintain flexibility and gain access to the main business centres.
"Access to major airports is where our major problem is," says Eric Mandemaker, Chief Executive 0ffi cer of the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA). "This is where Business Aviation loses out to commercial aviation."
The core BA movements are along the London—Rome axis, and airports like Milan Malpensa and Linate are getting busier. "We do find alternatives," says Mande-maker. "We have business airports such as Le Bourget, which is very close to Paris
CDG, and Farnborough, which is very close to London." But EBAA members experience access problems at airports like Dusseldorf, and Amsterdam Schiphol. "We don't want to be squeezed out just because we are Business Aviation."
The biggest threat comes from low-cost carriers. Although BA may have been present at an airport for years, a low-cost carrier can sometimes set up operations and take the prime slots with no similar heritage. The larger aircraft with more pas¬sengers may be attractive to the airport, but BA is also a lucrative proposition for the region as a whole. EBAA 0perations and Infrastructure Director, Pedro Vicente Azua, says: "European regulations date back
to the 1990s, when priority was given to scheduled services. We are at the very end of the list, even though the regulators say that co-ordinators have to ensure General and Business Aviation has access."
Airports that need to co-ordinate flights, which include many of the busiest business destinations such as Geneva and Brussels, give priority to programmed
Although BA may
have been present
at an airport
for years, a low
cost carrier can
sometimes take the
prime slots with no
similar heritage
scheduled flights in their slot co-ordina¬tion agreements. European regulation also mentions unscheduled flights, typical of BA, but slots cannot be maintained when the destination is different every day. "When it comes to law and regula¬tion, it has to be put on a more equitable basis," says Azua. "This is where we are working with EUR0C0NTR0L, the Europe¬an Commission (EC) and national authori¬ties to see that this rule is changed. This is our objective." A European Parliament hearing on GA and BA, towards the end of 2008, highlighted the problem when Patrick Gandil, Director General of the French Civil Aviation Authority, asked that the regulation be changed.
EBAA is a founding member of the Airport 0bservatory, a new EC initiative, launched in November 2008, to address airport capacity. Business users are repre¬sented, along with the rest of the aviation community, to help resolve bottlenecks in Europe's current airport network.
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