The week in brief 200510

A report from the Oxford Institute of Economics includes the harrowing fact that the first week alone of disruption of air transport resulting from that Icelandic ash cloud cost the EU around 4.7 billion euros in lost business etc.

BUT the impact was of course much wider than Europe, with, for example, Korean component suppliers losing $112 million in that week; with the cloud grounding US produce, fish and parts exports to Europe; with the BMW plant in the US cutting production; Kenya losing $7 million in a couple of days with fresh-cut flowers exports lost etc.

It’s a timely reminder of the value of aviation to the global economy.

But there’s also been a lot of talk within the industry about overreaction and the need for more precision around ash particle density and its effect on air operations. Some have pointed to the fact that US airlines have been dodging volcanic plumes in Alaska (and elsewhere) for many years with little disruption if any. (But maybe there’s more room to do the dodging in Alaska compared to the air traffic density in Europe.)

The CEO of one of the globe’s major aircraft engine manufacturers described the current particle density parameters as pretty much like a typical day in Cairo. And someone at Emirates mentioned the regularity with which it operates airlines in dust storms over the desert regions. Sounds like the situation’s not resolved yet.

Airbus is not exactly happy with the reliability performance of the A380. CEO Tom Enders has been quoted earlier as saying the aircraft is achieving 97.5 per cent reliability, but his team is now working towards 98 per cent and will obviously want to take it higher than that.

Airbus expects to deliver another 20 A380s this year – while top salesman John Leahy has put a figure of 20 on the table for new orders in 2010, something that appeared to take his boss Enders by surprise at a recent press briefing, given that the number on the table for this year until then was a mere 10.