Brussels, 01/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 31 March, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it deemed illegal the EU's proposals relating to an emissions trading system (ETS) which took effect on 1 January 2012 to reduce pollution caused by civil aviation. IATA also called on the United States to speed up implementation of its system for the technological modernisation of air traffic (NextGen), AFP reports.
Cited by the same press agency, IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani said in New York that the advent of the NextGen system (equivalent to the European SESAR system developed in the context of the European Single Sky programme) would be a “major factor” for attenuating the impact that air transport has on climate. Speaking at the Wings Club in New York, an association of top players in civil and military aviation, he said this would be a million times more effective than the illegal proposals made by Europe on an emissions trading mechanism. Bisignani went on to comment that the United States is against the mechanism but that it must express its opposition to the European mechanism more firmly and speed up implementation of the NextGen system. He bemoaned the fact that a programme as important as NextGen for improving competitiveness could be weighed down by considerations of a political nature. He then went on to call for rapid ratification of the law on financing to allow that programme to be implemented. According to AFP, the NextGen system is to take effect gradually between 2012 and 2025, while deployment of SESAR, which is to be compatible with the US system, is planned from 2013 on for a 30-year duration. Both systems provide for far-reaching reform of air traffic management thanks to improvements made to existing traffic control techniques and the deployment of a new technology allowing management based on satellite navigation and electronic rather than vocal communication systems.
Furthermore, Giovanni Bisignani reaffirmed that the growing cost of measures to prevent acts of terrorism - which amounts to $7.4 billion (€5.2 billion) annually - should be borne by the states and not by airlines. He criticised the proposal put forward by the US Transport Department on behalf of passengers' rights, whereby carriers can be fined for delays. He also called for the ownership of airline companies to be liberalised. According to AFP, the director of the largest association of airlines in the world deplored the fact that the United States' opposition has prevented progress from being made on this within the framework of the Open Sky agreement with Europe. Restrictions to ownership inherent in the bilateral system have turned airlines into national airlines whose growth is hampered, he said. (A.By./transl.jl)