Europe’s largest airlines lobby EU to produce a more effective aviation strategy

Carrying 420 million passengers in 2014, representing half of all passenger journeys in Europe, five of the region’s major airlines, Air France-KLM, easyJet, IAG, Lufthansa Group and Ryanair have met with the European Union’s Transport Commissioner, Violeta Bulc, to discuss future EU aviation strategy. The move is notable for a number of reasons, including the fact that European airlines more usually lobby at European level via their respective associations – the Association of European Airlines (AEA) acts for the network airlines, the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) represents low-cost carriers, the International Air Carrier Association (IACA) represents leisure carriers, and the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) represents regional carriers.
The meeting took place with a view to achieving four principal objectives. Combined, these will aim at strengthening the competitiveness of European airlines via the simplification of regulation, reduction of airport costs with the effective regulation of monopolies, improvement of Europe’s air traffic management by way of banning ATC strikes and progressing with the Single European Sky, and finally to reduce the industry’s tax burden. Those present included Air France-KLM chairman and CEO Alexandre de Juniac, easyJet CEO Carolyn McCall, Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary – all also jointly representing Willie Walsh, head of IAG. His absence was likely as a result of the meeting clashing with a critical Aer Lingus shareholders’ vote regarding IAG’s acquisition of Aer Lingus.
In a joint-statement the CEOs indicated that “We had a constructive meeting today. We welcomed Commissioner Bulc’s commitment to ensure efficiency is at the heart of the new EU Aviation strategy. As the new transport commissioner prepares this strategy, we encouraged her to drive more fair competition, encourage more efficiency and help reduce costs in other parts of our industry [such as monopoly airports and air traffic control providers], and reduce the tax burden on passengers.”