Airports Council International (ACI) Europe’s Director General, Olivier Jankovec, has shared his perspective on the Letta Report, presented last month by former Italian Head of Government Enrico Letta, describing it as a “missed opportunity for aviation.”
The high-level report on the future of the EU Single Market aims at providing strategic direction for the future of the EU, ahead of the new five-year political cycle due to begin with the forthcoming elections of the European Parliament and the designation of a new European Commission.
While Jankovec backs the report’s ambition and many of its recommendations to deepen the EU’s Single Market, his commentary on it (titled ‘The Letta Report & Aviation: A Missed Opportunity’) deplores the fact that it only speaks about “streamlining air transport” and leaves the key challenges the industry faces largely unaddressed.
One of Jankovec’s key concerns is that despite aviation providing unrivalled connectivity within Europe and beyond and making an essential contribution to economic and social cohesion, the report addressed aviation’s decarbonisation challenge exclusively through the prism of reforming Air Traffic Management and connecting all of Europe’s capitals by High Speed Train.
“There is nothing [in the report] on the key issue of producing and delivering affordable sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) across airport networks; Nothing on how to support the development and deployment of zero-emission aircraft; Nothing on the need to ensure aviation and airports are factored in energy transition policies; and nothing on how to finance aviation’s green transition. The silence of the Letta report on all these issues is difficult to understand as addressing them will be essential to maintain the socio-economic benefits of aviation and in particular cohesion. If anything, they reveal that what the Single Market truly needs is transforming the EU air transport, not merely streamlining it.”
Jankovec’s response also points to the need for the Single Market to address aviation’s resilience and capacity challenges and offers a realistic and data-driven perspective on the opportunities to shift mobility demand from air to rail. His comments underscore the need for both a more comprehensive and a more balanced approach to aviation within the Single Market: one that prioritises sustainability, resilience, competitiveness and cohesion – looking at connectivity from a transport mode-neutral perspective.
