Airline recovery: Europe without a pilot in the plane

It was expected that the recovery of the air activity would be long and it is. It was expected that there would be hiccups, and there are. It was expected that these hiccups would be managed intelligently, learning from the cacophony that accompanied the closure/reopening of the airspace, and unfortunately this is not the case.

Since the virus has started to spread locally again in some geographies, the borders have started to close in such a cacophony and in a way that is so difficult to understand for the air traveler that he prefers not to travel at all.

The sky is only reopened on paper

If the reopening of the sky is a reality on paper, the governments have not done anything to make it an operational reality.

Depending on where you are coming from, you may be allowed to enter without further investigation, be required to undergo a test, be quarantined or simply be denied entry. All this in a totally unilateral way, but even worse, in a totally inefficient way.

French citizens coming from Paris or from a risk zone will have to undergo quarantine upon arrival in Germany or provide a negative test. On the other hand, if the Parisian makes a detour via Nantes to take a flight to Germany, the risk will have disappeared upon arrival in Brittany.

Spaniards must provide a test if they are traveling to Italy, as must anyone who has recently been to Spain. But what happens if it goes through France?

If he takes a ticket, let’s say, Madrid-Paris-Rome he is traceable and will have to provide the said test. But what if he plays self-connection and takes two different tickets to go to Paris and then to Rome? Technically speaking it is most certainly traceable. Practically speaking, he arrived in Rome free of any suspicion.

Europe sits on Schengen

The Schengen agreements have been invoked to say that the closing of the skies of the area of the same name could only be an exceptional measure and in no case unilateral. No one was surprised that the much criticized Sweden was accessible to everyone from the beginning and that the Swedes who were the most suspicious of the continent were not turned away at our borders. Not surprised from a legal point of view, of course, because from a health point of view it was questionable.

Hungary closed its borders completely a few days ago. Denmark has done the same for nationals of certain countries including France by imposing a quarantine. We are witnessing a series of unilateral violations of the Schengen Treaty which makes the European sky as illegible as it is chaotic.

As long as the member countries of the Union do not have a joint list of “safe” and “at risk” countries, do not apply it in the same way without any unilateral decision, the traffic will simply not start again.

Closing the borders is not the solution, consistency is

And we are only talking about Europe because the same mismanagement reigns at the world level, but let’s first sweep in front of our door where there is an area of free movement administered with rules that were until now common and applied by all.

Unilateral border closures are not the solution, and even less so when they are not understood, not clear and sometimes circumvented. What works is a common and uniformly applied regulation.

Look no further for what will put the European sky back on course for better days. It is not for the moment the confidence of the passenger nor the opening towards the international long distance. It is simply consistency and political courage within the member states.

But while nitpicking on the improbable, Europe certainly does not have time to enforce its most fundamental rules.

Photo : European Union by Melinda Nagy via Shutterstock