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Volcanic ash: the UK Independence Party weighs in
Apr 20th 2010, 13:28 by Charlemagne
TALKING of dodgy political arguments about the volcanic ash crisis, this press release just pinged into my in-tray from Mike Nattrass, a member of the European Parliament and transport spokesman for the United Kingdom Independence Party. Mr Nattrass declares that "recession-hit airlines could face bankruptcy" as EU regulations force them to foot the bill for flights grounded by an EU agency. You can see why he would be cross.
Here is a quote from Mr Nattrass:
“It was Eurocontrol, an EU agency, which ordered the grounding of flights, and yet it is the airlines who must pay a bill which could exceed £100m on top of the lost revenue caused by the cancellations.
“The ‘denied boarding’ regulations were meant to deter airlines from overbooking flights, not to force them to pay for the over-reaction of Eurocontrol. The absurd wording means we now face the unpalatable choice of either seeing summer holiday plans being hit by a wave of airline bankruptcies, or using taxpayers money to pay these huge compensations claims.”
In "Notes to Editors", Mr Nattrass further explains:
"European airspace was closed by Eurocontrol as a result of a single computer simulation from the UK Met Office's 'Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre'"
He also explains how he reached his estimate of £100 million in costs to airlines for looking after stranded passengers, under an EU directive on passengers' rights.
Cost projections based on 150,000 stranded passengers at £100/night over 8 nights = £15m/night
It is a stirring charge sheet: an EU agency has ordered the closure of Europe's skies after a single computer simulation and so airlines may have to pay to put up 150,000 stranded passengers for more than a week thanks to EU regulations, at astonishing cost.
Alas, there are a couple of minor glitches in there. Specifically, Eurocontrol is not an EU agency, it was not Eurocontrol that ordered the closure of Europe's skies, the closure did not follow a single computer simulation and EU regulations will not oblige airlines to pay the costs of passengers stranded by the ash cloud. Or, to put it more briefly, out of four factual assertions in the UKIP press release, four are incorrect.
To explain. Eurocontrol is not an EU agency, but an intergovernmental agency, with 38 member countries.
Eurocontrol did not order the grounding of flights. Eurocontrol employs air traffic controllers who guide planes around the skies over Europe, and has played a central co-ordinating role in this crisis. But the legal decision to close and open airspace and ground flights is a matter for national authorities.
Though it is true that national and EU officials across Europe have complained that decisions have been taken to close airspace on the basis of computer modelling from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in Britain, which has been attempting to track the path of the ash coming from Iceland, it is not true that everyone has been working off a "single computer simulation." The ash cloud model is run every few hours, and data from weather balloons and test flights is added all the time.
Also, the EU directive that offers compensation to passengers denied boarding does include money to pay for hotels and meals, but contains a whopping exception. To whit: airline obligations "should be limited or excluded in cases where an event has been caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken".
Those circumstances include "political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes that affect the operation of an operating air carrier".
At a press conference on April 19th, the EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas said that the compensation part of the directive would not apply this time, though he called on airlines to reimburse fares and re-route customers.
I decided to give Mr Nattrass a ring. Alas, he was not answering his mobile phone, so I called Mark Croucher, a party spokesman also named on the press release. Mr Croucher blustered on about Eurocontrol having control of lots of airspace over Europe, and Irish controllers running the skies over bits of Britain. Yes, I said, but there you are talking about air traffic control of flights. That is not the same thing as having the power to shut down airspace.
After a bit more bluster, Mr Croucher said: "I will sit down and dig through the hundreds of documents I've been looking through for the past few days," and then, "Ok, I'll go and stand in the corner."
Finally, I asked him about his estimate of the cost to airlines from EU compensation for passengers denied boarding. How do you know the airlines will be on the hook for full compensation this time, I said. How did you come to your pan-European figure? "The thrust of this is that I was looking at the estimates of the UK passengers who were stranded, and extrapolated from there," he told me. "I've got no idea of the estimates of the number of passengers from other European countries." It is hard to estimate these things, he mused. In the past, airlines have had to pick up the bill for such bills.
You could ask why anyone should care about a mess of a press release, crammed with mistakes that UKIP could have been picked up in five minutes on Google. You would be right, unless of course this tale of EU horror is picked up by any of the British newspapers tomorrow. If anyone sees it out there, do let me know.
An update: they are all at it. A colleague sent me the following press statement from Nigel Farage, the former UKIP leader standing for the general election in Buckingham:
"Because of EU hyper-regulation, not even the skies are free anymore. I hope that the many people stranded away from home, and the airlines which have lost many millions in this EU debacle will now put the blame for needlessly grounded flights where it belongs. UKIP will reclaim national competence of British air space by pulling Britain out of the EU. In aviation terms, it is the only way forward."
That's the spirit. Marred only by the detail that countries not in the EU like Norway and Switzerland have also closed their airspace in recent days.
To view the original article: CLICK HERE
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