Chris Keegan
Brussels (inevitably) in a tail-spin
Can’t wait to see how this pans out in the UK national press: the European Commission is about to unleash its ire by legally challenging member states for not implementing a significant change to air traffic control.
Currently, European airspace is managed by 27 (that’s twenty-seven for the hard of numbers) national air traffic control centres. As and when air traffic builds up, it is common practice for controllers to divert flights into a neighbouring country’s skies, to relieve pressure on themselves. The consequence is that all European flights add an extra 42km to their journeys… or, it terms of costs, some 5 billion euros per year. Billion. Not to mention the extra emissions, of course.
About ten years ago the commission asked member states to sign up to a scheme, whereby air traffic control would be handled by just nine regional centres, thus cutting costs and flying time. That’s TEN YEARS, for the hard of timing.
Almost all member states signed up. Guess how many actually did anything (that is, anything AT ALL) about it?
A big, fat, nationalistic, nimby, I’m-alright-Jack ZERO. That’s bugger all for the hard of thinking.
See, national governments (especially the UK) charge huuuuge fees for the use of ‘their’ air traffic control, and every little helps in these hard times. Plus, of course, it would mean job losses – so that’s a vote loser right there.
Not to mention of course that the staff at NATS are about to go on strike because ‘Brussels’ is meddling in their right to run an uncoordinated, inefficient and out-dated (privately run) system.
Now then everybody, who do you think will be the ogre in this sorry mess? That’s right: ‘Brussels’… where the money/power-crazed Euro-Elites are trying to take away our sovereignty. The utter utter bastards.
Ain’t it funny that not even our most even-handed media figured out the link between the silly story about Brussels’ meddling with our olive oil bottles as a result of national lobbying… and the current scandals about… lobbying.
Makes me want to weep.
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