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Gulf Times
Thursday, February 26, 2015

COMMENT
Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah
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GULF TIMES
The World Cup
doesnt belong
to Europe alone
Europes leading soccer leagues, ush from spiralling
TV deals and inated to bursting by their own
importance, found this week that, for all its recent
problems, FIFA at least recognises the literal meaning of
the World Cup.
Tuesdays recommendation by a task force of soccers
world governing body to hold the 2022 Qatar World
Cup outside of the European summer for the rst time
brought about the predictable European wailing about
disruption and tradition.
It also led to an immediate demand by Karl-Heinz
Rummenigge, chairman of the European Clubs
Association, for compensation for his members being
forced to release their players during the season for the
rst time.
This plea came two weeks after the English Premier
League secured a TV rights deal worth $7.75bn over three
years from 2016 with no indication that the next deal will
be anything other than similarly lucrative.
Rummenigges request was given short-shrift by
FIFAs secretary general Jerome Valcke yesterday, who,
somewhat exasperated by the carping, said: There will
be no compensation. Why should we apologise?
Its happening once, were not destroying football.
Valcke reminded
journalists in Doha
following a meeting
of a FIFA task force
that leagues around
the world would have
seven years to come
up with a plan to make
space for a shortened
28-day tournament in
November/December.
Many of those leagues already incorporate winter
breaks in their schedule.
As for compensation, Valcke pointed out that clubs
already benetedto the tune of 70mn poundsfrom
the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
As a nal reminder that the clue is in the name, Valcke
said: Most confederations say they want the World Cup
to end on 23 December.
That is the nub of the matter. While the leagues of
England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France provide the
bulk of the players at any World Cup, the tournament is a
global event.
It is the global eventand it does not belong to Europe.
For the rst 68 years of their existence, World Cup
tournaments went back and forth between Europe
and the Americas until Japan/South Korea broke the
monopoly in 2002.
Africa nally got a taste of the action at South Africa
2010 while Qatar 2022 will be the rst Middle East host.
For one precious month every four years, billions of TV
viewers in every country tune in as one to watch. They do
in June and they will in November.
As for the disruption, is it really beyond the wit of
organisers of the richest leagues in the world, with seven
years to work with, to come up with a plan to adjust their
current seasonal dates to accommodate one winter World
Cup?
Yes, Englands unique tradition of a Christmas and
New Year xture feast might have to be ditched for a
season but Premier League managers been complaining
about the programme for years.
Should the date of a tournament watched by fans in
more than 200 countries be dictated by the preference
of one league for a seasonal feast, even if it is the most
valuable and popular?
There can be only one answer, and that is a big No.

Many of the
European
leagues already
incorporate
winter breaks in
their schedule

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Pumping up capacity
for busy summer season
The worlds largest travel
show gets underway in
Germany next Tuesday,
attracting companies across
the travel spectrum

By Updesh Kapur
Doha

ver the next few weeks,

media around the world
will be bombarded with
press releases featuring a
common thread that PR agencies will
want to ensure maximum coverage for
their clients.
Its a busy time for the writers
preparing to disseminate news
targeting journalists, freelancers and
social media inuencers across the
globe.
It will all kick off next Tuesday.
The worlds largest travel show gets
underway in Germany attracting
companies across the travel spectrum.
Hotel chains, airlines, national tourist
boards, tour operators, cruise lines,
car rental rms, travel technology
providers, web-based travel
businesses, the list is endless. ITB
Berlin is an annual marketplace in the
German capital that brings together
the global travel community looking to
strengthen relationships and develop
new ones.
Press conferences will announce
product launches, new campaigns
will be revealed and research studies
unveiled along with seminars
discussing industry trends on the

fringes over a busy few days. With the

worlds travel media ying in, its their
loyalty that PRs will be hoping to win
over to secure those all-important
column inches.
It will inevitably be a bun ght for
coverage in the special onsite daily
travel broadsheets promoting the
ve-day event. And of course there
will be travel titles and travel sections
of national newspapers around the
world being fed with news from Berlin.
Many global travel companies will
want to use ITB Berlin to give their
2015 publicity campaigns a boost.
For airlines, in particular, ITB Berlin
is seen as a platform to showcase
their latest products and y in top
management to host press conferences
knowing their target media audience
is spending almost a week covering
the vast show. From the Gulf, Qatar
Airways, Etihad, Emirates and Oman
Air, along with their respective
national tourist boards, will all be
present with their latest wares.
But it is just after ITB that these
airlines and many more around the
world will be focusing on and using
PR to maximise their message. Its the
time of the year when airlines want
to capitalise on forward bookings
by promoting their seasonal ying
programmes the common thread
referred to earlier.
Twice a year, on the last Sunday
of March and October, airlines
typically implement their new ying
programmes. This year, March 29 and
October 27 signal the start of new
schedules, coinciding with daylight
savings, depending on which part of
the world you live in.
In the Northern Hemisphere from
next month, this means a new Summer
schedule ying programme while in the
Southern Hemisphere, its the beginning
of the Winter programme.
So what will we see from March 29?
Typically, capacity increases,
frequency hikes, deployment of bigger
aircraft on many routes, introducing
new planes into the eet, reviving
services and launching brand new
routes, etc. Airlines are preparing
for a busy six-month period that
will cover the peak summer months
in the Northern Hemisphere, taking
advantage of near- to full ights and

maximum fares to help their balance

sheets.
Any talk of scrapping services is not
on the agenda. Its all hands on deck
to utilise all available aircraft. Its
never been so good, you may say. With
oil prices plunging over 50% during
2014, this has meant huge savings for
airlines, now able to pump capacity
back in when they feared loss-making
operations due to the hefty price of oil.
With much lower fuel prices now, lets
operate more ights as travel becomes
relatively cheaper. Nice thought, but
this is not the rationale behind the
mega scheduling changes expected
from March 29.
Expansion provides consumers
with more choice and an edge over
competitors unable to do so due to
lack of aircraft or lack of precious
landing and take-off slots at congested
airports.

Any talk of scrapping

services is not on the
agenda
The Northern Summer ying
months are traditionally the best ever
for airlines worldwide. There is a hive
of activity with the deployment of
aircraft and coordination of schedules
between airlines that have codeshare
marketing partnerships or global
alliance tie-ups, simply to minimise
connecting times and maximise
connections. Though the summer
has already been on sale for some time,
it is the extra capacity being ploughed
in, on a number of destination pairings
and introduction of new routes that
will make the headlines.
In the UK, air capacity data shows
a signicant rise in international
capacity from late March to the end
of October coinciding with Northern
Hemisphere summer schedules.
Over the past four years, the UKs
summer capacity has risen by at least
75% against the same years winter
offering, increasing by as much 90%
in 2011.
Richard Maslen, Content and
Community Manager of Routesonline,
the digital platform of the Routes
global network planning events, says:

We should see new routes and higher

capacity aircraft being scheduled soon
to take advantage of summer holidays.
This is a crucial period for the
industry as historically, airlines make
the lions share of prots during the
summer for some as much as 80%.
Seasonality is one of biggest issues
for airline network planners and can
be found in almost all markets in the
aviation business, but the degree of
seasonality differs considerably.
During the weaker winter months,
airlines will schedule heavy aircraft
maintenance checks and onboard
product renovations as such work
during the busy summer holiday season
would not be logistically feasible.
Some airlines have gone to the
extent of parking aircraft in the winter
to avoid operating loss-making and
non-feasible ights, while others
have leased out planes to airlines in
other parts of the world where there is
demand.
Adds Maslen: In a perfect
world, we would see level demand
throughout the year. However, in the
real world, this is the exception rather
than the rule. Airlines are forced to
manage capacity to meet demand.
This could be through the use of
different sized aircraft at different
times of the year, upgrading to meet
peak demand periods and through
seasonal offerings.
These include, for example, winter
ski destinations such as in Europe
packed to capacity or popular winter
sun markets such as the Caribbean,
also typically full to capacity.
But it is during the summer where
there is the largest upward variation in
capacity from the worlds airlines.
Its a very complex process of
scheduling that airline network
planners are tasked with. But the
bottom line is to ll planes and offer
the most competitive service to lure
customers and increase revenue,
regardless of seasonality. Busy times
ahead for airline PRs pumping out
similar messages around the world.
zUpdesh Kapur is a PR &
communications professional,
columnist, aviation, hospitality and
travel analyst. He can be followed on
twitter @updeshkapur

Airlines will use events like ITB Berlin, the worlds largest travel show, to announce new summer flying schedules.

Arming Ukraine will put the West in danger

By Nader Mousavizadeh
Reuters

dangerous, possibly
irreversible, dynamic of
conict is taking hold of
Russian-Western relations.
In every arena of the Ukraine crisis,
escalation is the order of the day. On
the ground, where fresh ghting rages
in the Donbass region. In the skies
over Europe, where British ghter
jets are intercepting Russian nuclear
bombers. In Washington, where
Congress and ambitious policymakers
with an eye on the 2016 presidential
elections are forcing the White
Houses hand on lethal assistance
to Kiev. In Moscow, where the few
remaining voices of compromise are
considered weaklings or traitors. Even
in the realm of global nance, where
expelling Russia from the SWIFT
payment system is now under serious
consideration.
At this rate, someones really going
to get hurt soon. This is not to make
light of the suffering already being
caused by the conict in eastern
Ukraine, with half a million people
displaced and thousands killed
and wounded in ghting there.
What it does suggest is the need for
perspective amid the increasingly
unhinged talk of war with Russia.
Memories are short. The fallout
from the wars of 9/11 in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya and now Syria has all but

consumed Western strategic thinking.

But the Cold War ended only 25 years
ago, and Ukraines singular strategic
signicance to Russia ought to make
the memory of a nuclear crisis over
Cuba seem positively quaint by
comparison.
Russia still possesses a nuclear
arsenal in excess of 8,000 warheads. It
has a conventional military of nearly
1mn men under arms, and in the age
of cyberwarfare has the ability to
inict catastrophic damage on critical
Western infrastructure.

Russia still possesses

a nuclear arsenal
in excess of 8,000
warheads
To their credit, President Barack
Obama and German Chancellor
Angela Merkel have sought to keep
the West on a sober path, addressing
Moscows annexation of Crimea
with rm diplomacy in the pursuit
of a peaceful solution. Even as this
conict has demonstrated the speed
with which Washington can push for
sanctions whose consequences are
largely borne by Europeans, Merkel
has made maintaining trans-Atlantic,
as well as European, unity her lodestar.
What the current escalation risks,
however, is a breakdown of this unity even as the possibility of open conict

is growing. A new approach is urgently

needed.
It must begin with a reality check
on the nature of the adversary, and the
futility of the current course of action.
The features of Russian President
Vladimir Putins regime that its
critics most like to cite - kleptocracy,
repression, chauvinism, revisionism,
paranoia - are the very characteristics
that will make it utterly unwilling
to capitulate under pressure, be it
nancial or military.
The more the West emphasises a
belligerent course of action, the more
Putins popular support, already in
a range undreamed of by Western
leaders (80% approval), will harden
rather than soften.
The West is increasingly dealing
with a government in Moscow
whose most liberal and pluralist
elements see a reality of economic
war with the West, and a future of
responses without limits to further
sanctions - as that most pliable (and
unrepresentative) of Russian leaders,
Dimitri Medvedev, noted recently.
Moscow will view a decision to
expel the Russian banking system
from SWIFT as not just an economic
measure but as a strategic one. To be
met by any and all means at Russias
disposal. Cyber, energy, nance,
nonstate groups in neighbouring
states - all could become weapons in
such a response. That is also without
considering the risk of a catastrophic
miscalculation or overreaction by

a single pilot, nuclear submarine

captain or militia member with a
shoulder-red missile.
In an atmosphere of zero trust,
anything becomes possible.
If a diplomatic solution is to be
found before - and not after - a
terrible conagration involving the
worlds two nuclear superpowers, a
new US-German diplomatic initiative
toward Moscow must be launched.
Moscow will have to accept that
the people of Ukraine freely elect
their own leaders and can choose
membership in the European Union.
The West will have to accept that the
minority rights we trumpet elsewhere
also should apply to Russianspeakers in eastern Ukraine, and that
membership in the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation will make Ukraine
- and the alliance itself - less secure,
not more.
For this kind of settlement to be
possible, the Kremlin will have to walk
back its most extreme rhetoric - and
ambitions - about a Novorossiya.
The West will have to reverse its folly
of walking the people of Ukraine out
on a plank of military and economic
dependency on Europe in a conict
with Russia that has no sustainable
political support among European
populations.
zNader Mousavizadeh is co-founder
of Macro Advisory Partners, and
the author, with Ko Annan, of
Interventions: A Life in War and Peace.