The industry outcry provoked by this rather bold move is still ringing in our collective ears. But unlike the years before, the industry actually rallies behind a coordinated lobbying effort including letters to the responsible commissioner from, amongst others, both IATA and TIACA.

The EU listens but doesn´t budge.

Enter: the US.

Prompted by a parallel national lobbying effort, Hillary Clinton tries to talk the EU out of it.

Still: no budging. “Ok then,” US lawmakers tell their airlines: “…do not even think of complying, or else…”

And with the next response from Brussels (“Go ahead, try not complying if you have got money to burn!”), the entire drama becomes a powerplay with hurt egos, faces to be saved and endless moaning going back and forth.

So what should we (I am wearing my TIACA / GACAG hat today, as you may notice), the industry, do next after our failed attempts to derail the EU initiative?  

Well, however tempting it may be to join the chorus of moans and escalation of threats, we would rather do something more constructive: move on from the current crisis and focus on a future solution, which is, and has always been, a global scheme sponsored by ICAO, agreed by all member states and orchestrated with the industry. That is why we will be talking to the EU; to ICAO; to legislators worldwide. And maybe, just maybe, the industry can be the catalyst to bring fractious government bodies into harmony.  

What does it all come down to?

Everybody knows, there must, and there will be a better solution than the current EU ETS scheme. Everybody knows, we could do worse than restarting the dialogue right away.

So if you´ll all please sit down again, thank you very much,

Oliver

When in 1968 the British science fiction author John Brunner wrote his remarkable novel “Stand on Zanzibar”, he envisioned that our planet in 2010, by then hosting more than 7 billion inhabitants would be hugely overpopulated and ravaged by the resulting conflicts.

To illustrate that stunning number, he claimed that the 7 billion people of his novel, standing upright, shoulder to shoulder, would barely fit onto the island of Zanzibar with an area of 2643 square kilometres, roughly thrice the size of New York City.
As sometimes happens with science fiction, Brunner was almost right on target, and humanity actually passed the 7 billion mark less than a year later than he predicted, on October 31st 2011.

All this crossed my mind as I was visiting Zanzibar, that beautiful isle off the coast of Tanzania last month. And I thought: Thank goodness we are not squeezed onto this charming island, because apart from the boredom of spending your life standing still (even on Zanzibar), all of us in the logistics industry would be without a job (with everybody being basically in the same place).

But in point of fact we are scattered over some 148 million square kilometres of earth´s landmass, granting each of us considerably more space than would be available on Zanzibar – and furnishing us with all sorts of fascinating jobs in the logistics industry as a result.

Yet I cannot help but ask myself why this most basic fact of life: “We are not living together on Zanzibar” – seems so hard to explain to Frankfurt judges or the people of Canton Zurich who only recently were called upon to decide the fate of Zurich Airport.
How come, a simple truth like “Developing infrastructure and fostering the logistics industry is the only way to further spread prosperity and opportunity to the ever greater number of our planet’s inhabitants” is so often challenged or even denied?

Don´t ask me.

But, truth be told, I spent only a moment or two brooding over these nagging questions.
You see, Zanzibar is just too delightful and enchanted a place for worries of any kind.

Thank you for tuning in,

Oliver