Never have we had so many passengers in our skies and never so many opponents to aviation, aircraft and airfields. Let us focus on airfields.

The business aviation profession continues to face an airfield access problem. In France, nobody has forgotten the early eighties battle conducted and won by François Chavatte to keep Le Bourget open to our aviation.

In 2001, we can report that for one airfield, EBAA France spent 16 man/days, 16 return tickets to participate in the local consultation meetings, which, by the way, attracted no fewer than 20 people each time, very devoted to their environment, sometimes under-informed, and always difficult.

What is surprising is that the result of that consultation is a step ahead towards constraints: in terms of flight numbers, after having in the past limited the aircraft weight, and imposed a curfew.

During the same year, at least five airfields in our country were under pressure either to be relocated, or simply closed, or subject to interdiction for one or the other aviation segment.

That time period was the one during which our parliament had more than 50 members from all existing political parties working in a study, the conclusions of which are oriented to more and more constraints.

Our profession was also extremely worried by a law project from the present Minister of Environment, which fortunately was not on the agenda in time to be discussed this year.

Our profession is devastated by the lack of knowledge of most of the airfield opponents. Take

the example of the manufacturers, and their R&D expenses for the last thirty years on noise and emission! There have been magnificent improvements in our present fleet in those fields. Think back to the internal noise of a Caravelle or a DC 9!

The other day, in Le Bourget, a visiting vip spending nearly three quarters of an hour on the tarmac, was asked how many aircraft he heard during his visit. He answered “two”, but we knew that there were close to ten.

At a period of time where “regionalism” is a key issue, is it a modern idea to close airfields in our provinces? Which investor will be able to come to a region without any access by air?

Some people have already anticipated this idea and are working in that direction, organising sites around a possible airfield which is part of the basket of attractions. They believe that economic development is closely related to liaison, and specifically air liaison.

They probably remember the city which lost 30 per cent of its population after closing its airport.

Finally, one has to remind all airfield protagonists what would have been that football catastrophe without the vicinity of the airport through which many injured people were evacuated, and are today survivors.

How bad would the immense forest fire be without available runways not far away giving the fire extinguishers capacity to refuel their aircraft, and to feed their body with the appropriate mixture?

An airfield helps transplants transport, without mentioning assisting people in tragic health situations, when every minute counts.

Last but not least, if airfields are closed at night, how does one deal with the supporters on the team coming back home after the match?

Definitely, we need to inform and to inform again, in order to correct our aviation image and specifically the

airfield ‘lovelessness.’

Olivier de l'Estoile, EBAA France president