Aviation: It's not a privilege!

Aviation safety, security, consumer protection, climate protection, infectious disease protection – there’s many justifications, yet always the same outcome: more regulation, more bureaucracy, more taxes and other forced payments, which means less freedom, less competition, less choice. German lawyer Nina Naske calls for a different approach.

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There is no doubt that globally, aviation is busy and growing. All over the world, people start businesses, work to deliver new technologies, or provide established products or services. Raw materials, semi-finished products and other items along the global supply chains, as well as computers, mobile phones or other merchandise to be delivered to the end consumer – a multitude of things finds their way across the globe in cargo airplanes or in the belly of passenger airplanes.

Without aviation, not much is going on

And people are traveling, too, crossing the skies in airplanes for a multitude of reasons. Flights to go on holiday, a visit with friends and relatives, and, of course, the many business trips, all of which are vital for contemporary society and (although maybe feasible even without an airplane) would not happen as often and covering as many miles – if not for aviation. The neighbor enjoyed her four trekking tours through Nepal and other countries and came back with an open mind and trust in the goodness of human beings. The lawyer from Texas, USA, takes a flight and can be with her clients in France, Spain or Germany the next day. The number of individual stories are infinite, and each story is an exemplary description of contemporary society – and none is possible without aviation.

And yet, at least in Germany and increasingly in the European Union, aviation, despite being such a prominent technique of today's advanced culture, is currently under attack. Aviation safety, security, consumer protection, climate protection, infectious disease protection – there’s many justifications, yet the professed “solution” is always the same concoction of even more regulation and rules and even more patronizing involvement of government entities. Little wonder then that the outcome is always the same, too: a further loss of freedom which results in more market power for fewer competitors and means less choice for the customer, and, eventually, less customers and a shrinking market.

Any suggestion of more of the same medicine must therefore be met with reluctant wariness. Much better to remember a different guiding principle: Individual liberty (freedom) is the foundation that wealth, peace and joy in life are based upon.

Some rules for aviation are necessary

Very obviously, however, no one will call for the abolition of all rules for aviation. The rules of the air (traffic rules), for example, are evidently necessary in order to organize the movement of aircraft on the ground and in the air and to make sure that aircraft avoid each other where they move. Regulation (EU) No. 923/2012 stipulates the rules of the air for the airspace of the member states of the European Union, and similar rules are in place in all countries across the globe based on the “standard procedures and recommended practices” of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

However, there’s reason to worry already with a view to the basic regulation for aviation safety currently in force in the European Union. Regulation (EU) No. 2018/1139 speaks of “privileges” not once, but 64 times across its pages – privileges granted to businesses or people by way of permits and licenses for the design, production or maintenance of aircraft, for air carriers, flight schools etc. To put it mildly, that’s an unfortunate choice of language. Rulers used to grant privileges to an elite few until the idea of liberty that evolved in the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century took hold. In today’s free and democratic societies, there is no room for privileges. Equal justice under the law is a core tenet, and if statutory requirements are met, a permit or license must generally be granted to whoever is asking for it. Further, most legal rules and regulations, because they are incursions into fundamental freedoms, are justified only if suitable, necessary and appropriate (proportionate).

A minimum of rules or a labyrinth?

It is, however, not only the language, but the substance of the rules governing aviation that are a cause for concern. It is sensible, for example, to stipulate that pilots must be proficient pilots, mentally and physically fit and sufficiently free of fatigue when piloting an aircraft. Yet this principle does not justify requirements for fitness which mean that a pilot is grounded for months after having a minor skin cancer surgery on his arm. Requiring pilots to be sufficiently free of fatigue does not justify flight time limitations which mean that it will become a problem if two pilots have a 9 hour rest period and then fly an aircraft with no passengers on board from A to B over a route of 350 kilometers, when after their flight duty period of maybe three hours or so they have the rest of the day off and free from any duty.

If the performance ability of human beings is derided and denied in such a manner, there is reason to fear that the next step may well be to outlaw human pilots in favor of self-flying aircraft. If autonomous flight is thus enforced by government, catastrophic events are certain to happen because the resilience that is the natural consequence of freedom and competition will be lacking.

The rules governing the specific aspects of aviation security are no better. Some rules appear to be at odds with one another. Pilots from third countries (countries that are not member states of the EU) are allowed to move in security restricted areas of airports in the EU on the basis of their crew badges handed to them by third country air carriers (and what other way of going about this could there be?). On the contrary, pilots from Germany must pass a thorough background check as mandated by the German Aviation Security Act (Luftsicherheitsgesetz) – which they would fail not only if they committed any act which, on its face, makes them a threat, but also in case of unfortunate events such as a criminal record when all that happened was a car crash where they injured someone. It is plain to see that no act of terror is going to be prevented because a German pilot is excluded from aviation (and from working as a pilot) because he negligently caused a car crash and received a criminal sentence as a consequence.

More disturbing to many are the pictures of “climate activists” who in recent days freely walked onto the tarmac at major airports in Germany. Tomato juice is scanned before delivery to the aircraft, an 11-year-old passing through security at the airport must dump his pocket knife, and the student bringing her 1.5 liter water bottle must give it up, too – yet people unlawfully entering the airport with their mind set on getting in the way of air traffic are not stopped (although they are unarmed and, most often, do not sport significant muscle mass or bodily agility)?

Aviation safety, security, climate protection: Nothing but bureaucracy and government entities

Airport operators or airport security personnel should not be blamed. Aviation security at the airport and during air operations is heavily regulated by mandatory rules that do not allow much leeway and compliance with these rules is overseen down to minute detail by government authorities. Much overhead is the consequence, with considerable numbers of personnel, sums of money and other capacities required to fulfill the regulatory requirements. But it is the government that has (sole) authority to act where it matters most: The police are tasked to deal with any danger that may arise from people illegally entering the airport. For the airport operator or other aviation businesses, there is no recourse except for the right to self-defense (including the defense of others directly threatened), and government authorities and courts of law are known to be very strict when it comes to the use of force by private actors in situations of self-defense.

Aviation safety, security and many other areas of regulation share the same approach: Although ostensibly, the goals are different, there are rules and regulations detailed to minutiae and bolstered by strict government oversight over businesses. For businesses in aviation, inevitably, this means higher costs that translate to higher prices for customers – meanwhile, no better service is (or could be) offered to the customer.

Is aviation going to become a privilege for the few?

Those who glue their body parts to the tarmac or other objects to protest “for the climate” are of particular concern for aviation for another reason, too. It is illegal and can be a crime to walk out on the tarmac or the apron of an airport without permission, and Germany even plans to enact stricter criminal sentences for such acts. However, the “climate activists” know fully well that as of today, they can still count on many politicians all over the EU to support their professed goals of “climate protection” and the prohibition of fossil fuels. Politics in the EU is still rife with ideas to prohibit the production or use of carbohydrates (oil and natural gas), regardless of the fact that this is patently absurd given what other countries do, and many politicians are still in favor of severely restricting individual freedom and autonomy with measures such as a government-mandated “market” for CO2-certificates.

For many observers, however, it is all too obvious that such measures eventually will bring about a world in which fewer and fewer people will be able to afford transportation by aircraft. Holidays, business trips, fast movement of products – if prices rise and availability is reduced, global connectivity is set to become a luxury.

Aviation, which today is still commonly available, could morph into a medieval-like privilege: Regulatory rules could make it so that transportation by aircraft is available only to a select few. Individual freedom, wealth and world peace may stand to suffer.

Let engineers and business owners do their thing!

The reaction from the other side of the political spectrum is of course predictable: They will argue that if there were no (or significantly less) regulatory rules and no government oversight over businesses, then [insert any bad scenario] would happen (more often/much faster).

But neither enforcement by the government of regulatory rules nor oversight by government authorities of compliance with such rules were the drivers of the Industrial Revolution and the growth in wealth it has caused ever since the 18th century. What really made it happen were the individual ability to invent, and the labor and work ethic and individual productiveness of many individual human beings who, as soon as they experienced individual freedom and were allowed to reap the fruits of their labor and of their innovations, strove for a better future for themselves and for their children. To put it differently: Every time in history when there truly was individual freedom to operate a business, innovation and economic growth followed suit almost immediately, with more and more people being able to lead a life of financial independence and growing their individual wealth.

If we want this for our society and for our future, we need aviation for everyone. Aviation is the fastest way to move people and things across the globe, and we cannot maintain or expand our economies without this means of transportation being available to most people and most businesses.

Right now, therefore, what aviation needs most is more freedom, less government intervention. Engineers and business owners and all the rest of the people working in aviation need to be left alone to do their thing! They know the ins and outs of aviation, and if freedom and competition really become the organizing principles, then businesses will be willing and able and absolutely are going to offer the best service possible to the customer.