Getting awesome 5th Freedom Rights and allegations of giving away our sovereignty

I recently read an article by a well respected political and aviation observer in Indonesia. I guess whenever an Indonesia vs Malaysia topic comes up, it won't take long for someone to pour gasoline to the bonfire!

Before we start, what is a 5th Freedom Right? 

Fifth Freedom of the air is the right to fly between two foreign countries during flights while the flight originates or ends in one's own country. 

In the current round of bilateral negotiations between Indonesia and Malaysia, each country agrees to open up 3 airports for onward 5th Freedom Rights where:

• Indonesia is to allow, through Jakarta, Makassar, and Bali:
• 5th Freedom for Malaysian carriers operating to Australia, with a combined maximum of 7 return trips a week.
• Malaysia is to allow, through Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, and Kota Kinabalu:
• 5th Freedom for Indonesian carriers operating to:
• Asia, with a combined maximum of 36 return trips a week
• Europe, with a combined maximum of 14 return trips a week.
• Middle East, with a combined maximum of 21 return trips a week
• United States, with a combined maximum of 14 return trips a week.

By the looks of it, it looks like that we got a total bargain! We give 7 return flights, and gain 85 frequencies in return! So why are the blind nationalists complaining?

Their gripe: "Oh they got big places like Makassar and Bali, and we got little places like Kuching and Kinabalu". "We should have got Penang, then it would be fair!". "We should get Penang, and give them places no one wants to fly to, then it's fair".

WAIT!

Did anyone notice, that neither 2 countries got the 2nd biggest markets? Well, they didn't get Surabaya, and we didn't get Penang.

Facts for 2010:

• Kuala Lumpur: 34,087,636 passengers, 244,179 movements and 697,015 tons of cargo.
• Kuching: 3,684,000 passengers, 46,382 movements, and 26,977 tons of cargo.
• Kinabalu: 5,223,000 passengers, and 55,241 movements.
• Jakarta: 43,704,000 passengers, 338,711 movements, and 633,391 tons of cargo.
• Denpasar: 11,006,359 passengers, 84,252 movements, and 67,760 tons of cargo.
• Makassar: 4,938,468 passengers, 64,495 movements, and 39,620 tons of cargo.

Sure, CGK + DPS + UPG is bigger than KUL + KCH + BKI, but which one is more promising? Remember, Malaysia's 5th Freedom is limited to Australia, but Indonesia's getting those freedoms to Asia, Middle East, Europe and the US.

Many of these so-called blind-nationalists also forget that Indonesia usually give automatic 5th Freedom Rights to Australia anyways, and Malaysia wants passengers to flow through their airports and give generous 5th Freedom Rights.

They also forget or conveniently ignore, that 7x weekly 5th Freedom to Malaysia, or other ASEAN nations, is nothing new!

• Malaysia Airlines did fly KUL-CGK-MEL until recently, and the route was closed because of low demand on the CGK-MEL segment (and therefore easier and more profitable to just go KUL-MEL direct).
• Thai Airways also flew BKK-CGK-SYD, and the route was closed as passenger levels didn't pick up and mainly due to the 98 Asian financial crisis.

The also forget that Indonesia usually give 5th Freedom Rights to Australian carriers to go onto other ASEAN destinations.

• Ansett's SYD-CGK-KUL was quite popular with Australians, Malaysians and Indonesians alike, then closed with the 98 Asian financial crisis. 
• Qantas for many years flew: 
• SYD-CGK-SIN where the CGK-SIN portion was mainly to feed OneWorld alliance passengers to/from Singapore. 
• SYD/MEL-DPS-SIN for the same reasons. 
• In both cases, CGK/DPS-SIN passenger numbers fell steadily over the years as OneWorld passengers preferred to fly using the interline agreement between Qantas, British Airways and Finnair, with Garuda, Singapore Airlines, and Thai (who flew BKK-SIN-CGK), plus Cathay Pacific's previous HKG-SIN-CGK usually fly a few BA/QF passengers just arriving in Singapore from Europe, to Jakarta.

Now, how can Indonesian carriers use this new bilateral agreement? Garuda might want to do CGK-KUL-Europe, or secondary routes to India or Middle East via KUL (which Malaysia Airlines carry a lot of Indonesian bound/origin passengers).

I do wish that these blind nationalists would stop churning out rubbish, and I wish that respectable observers and analysts (who wrote the article that made me write this), use a little common sense!

When poor OTP is caused by stupidity... But who's the stupid one?

Has anyone noticed that since Indonesia Air Asia international flights out of Jakarta has moved to Terminal 3, all of its international flights (except for the first flight of the day for the aircraft) has suffered from delays?

What's happening?

• If it's weather related, then it shouldn't be as spread out evenly as it is.
• If it's maintenance related, then it shouldn't be as spread out evenly as it is.
• If it's passenger caused delays, then it shouldn't be as spread out evenly as it is.

SO WHAT IS IT?

Maybe it has got something to do with the immigration? After all, they did forget to bring their passport stamps on the first day of T3 International Ops. But it has only been this bad in the last 3 days.

I wonder if it has something to do wih the WHOLE CREW SET running through immigration on EVERY turnaround in Jakarta? I have never seen as many number of crew going through imigration back and forth in my lifetime, anywhere!

A new immigration policy? Well, I don't see that happening in the other terminals in the country... well, haven't heard the crew of other airlines complaining.

Why is it limited to Indonesia Air Asia only and in Terminal 3 only? It doesn't seem to affect Malaysia Air Asia operations...

Therefore, this begs the question... If this is a problem between Indonesia Air Asia and Immigration at T3, why isn't something being done about it?

It's only going to be a matter of time before passengers begin to leave Indonesia Air Asia for international flights. Now I am sure those in Indonesia Air Asia know where the real problem is between them and T3 Immigration. The question is, why isn't anything being done about it? Who's supposed to do something about it?

I wonder what the CGK station chief is doing about it.

A fresh way to Scoot around? Yellow 777 or Yellow Scoopy?

After looking at several online stuff on Scoot, the medium-long haul LCC arm of SQ, why do I feel that the whole concept is kinda stale, unexciting, and been done before?

The stuff that got me wondering immediately was:

Nothing fresh here is there...

Really... Come on! If I want to scoot around, I'll go on a scooter... a Yellow Scoopy would do me just fine! (or perhaps a pink one just for fun!) And it looks a helluvalot FRESHER!

Now his is for Scooting around! 

The Yellow Scoopy!

Maybe it’s the stiffness of SQ that made them think, “Oh Wow! This Scoot idea is so radical and cool!?!?!?”

Really, you cannot be serious?

“Not your everyday airline?”, seen that one before, and more than once. Whenever some airline, chants that, it’s usually an LCC. Ryanair has that image with O’Leary’s crazy cheapskate PR stunts (but yes, it works).

EasyJet was perhaps the biggest user of the “different attitude” and “not your everyday airline” concept. In it’s Stelios days, EasyJet used such “new attitude” and out of the box mentality to run its flash mobs around in orange boiler suits at competitor’s inaugurals, or make bets on how much a competitor will lose money.

So, that worked, why not Scoot? Hey! Who said Scoot won’t work or will fail? I didn’t. I just found their concept as stale, and nothing new.

Everything it has said, sounds like copying Air Asia. Even Scoot’s half-sister Tiger has come up with better “tit-for-tat” one liner fights with Air Asia.

The last time some “try to be too radical” airline started up, it was some Dutch LCC based in Maastricht flying out of Niederrhein/Weeze (Germany), which encouraged their crew to be “radicaly different” (yes, FA candidates were told to paint their hair green or some un-invented colour!). That airline didn’t last long! These days, people barely remember V Bird airlines!

So, Tony Fernandez need to change his line from, “imitation is the greatest form of recognition” to “trying to hard to imitate makes you look stupid!” I wonder whether he agrees with me...

Note: No, I'm not being paid by Honda to write this blog! Honest!

The Boeing Airbus... it happened!

Since we never had the chance of seeing McDonRop BoHeed... Fanboys of Airbus and Boeing who keep fighting each other endlessly should be ashamed when they see:

Seriously, Airbus vs Boeing fights are so boring... anyone care to do a Bombardier vs Embraer one?

Inflight Connectivity, hunger for hype, telecommunications law? Do we really need a bogeyman?

I had the pleasure of meeting RunwayGirl and Winglets747 from FlightGlobal during the Paris Air Show. We had an interesting discussion on Inflight Connectivity and the developments surrounding it. One interesting question that came up is, "Why can't Australian airlines provide GSM connectivity through the satcom?" (Hey, they already got it installed)... afterall, Emirates is already providing it through Aeromobile on flights to/from/over Australia. Another point that came up was whether WiFi services could be provided instead for Australian airlines.

As interesting as the discussion went, one thing keeps bugging me. Everytime I explain to someone about Indonesia's Telco laws (Law No. 36/1999), people kept saying, "Oh your country is so protective", or "Oh, you're a monopoly, riiight!", or even, "Gee, your country is so backward when it comes to global trade."

So, tonight, I decided to have a look into how Australian law affects their airlines on connectivity, and how it differs from Indonesia.

The law in Australia separates telecommunications into two parts:

1. The physical act of telecommunications, this is covered by the Radiocommunications Act of 1992. (RCA)

2. The service act of telecommunications, this is covered by the Telecommunications Act of 1997. (TCA)

What is interesting is that RCA defines Australian territory to include space outside the atmosphere above Australia (S18 RCA), but TCA does not cover anything above the stratosphere (S28 TCA).

TCA covers the use of radiocommunications facilities from a point in Australia to another point within Australia or outside. It covers basic telephony services, public mobile telecommunications services, and satelite based facilities (but there are some exemption provisions).

A lot of the contents of the laws are similar with Indonesian law (Law No. 36/1999 regarding Telecommunications). However, the Australian law does not appear to restrict Airtime charges for services used by an Australian company to have to be purchased from or paid to an Australian owned company (but I'm not clear on whether the service company has to be Australian or not), although S65 TCA does mention "Conditions about Foreign ownership or control". And if one thinks about "using an Australian companies" as an intermediary, it's covered by TCA under S87.

International (Foreign) operators and/or their local partners providing services to Australian companies must watch out for TCA S367, which covers "National Interest", to which the Australian government can always intervene at will.

OK, so that doesn't pose too much of a problem for airlines to use OnAir or Aeromobile services for Australian airlines (especially for domestic flights) right? Well, let's have a look at RCA.

There are a few differences between the Australian RCA and Indonesia's Telco laws the radio station permits and spectrum frequency use for airborne mobile satellite services. RCA does not cover foreign aircraft flying to/from/through Australia (RCA S32). The Indonesian law, only provides exemption on the telco certification end for foreign aircraft flying in/to/from Indonesia, so there is a little bit more flexibility with RCA. So, Australia's RCA is less strict than Indonesia's Telco law right?

Errr... not really.

• RCA S16 covers Australian companies using their equipment even outside Australia, Indonesia's telco law only covers airtime when talking about use outside Indonesia for Indonesian companies.
• RCA covers one way emissions (forgot which section), and Indonesia's telco law covers only two way communications (and one-way for broadcast service, but excludes foreign broadcast). Theoretically, GPS receivers, should fall under RCA too! (But again, there are probably sections covering that as exempt).
• Both countries have Spectrum usage charges (RCA S67 for Australia).
• Both countries require the spectrum license to be issued to local residents/companies (RCA S69A for Australia)

I guess, the only difference is, Australia can issue the spectrum licenses for Iridium or Inmarsat-4 services to more than one company for each service, while in Indonesia, each spectrum license for a particular service can only be issued to one company (and one company cannot hold more than 1 foreign satellite spectrum license to prevent monopolistic practices).

Locals here complain, "Oh that means our Telco law makes our local companies not competitive!" Well, I think Australia's RCA makes them less competitive than ours!

Nothing is stopping airlines in Indonesia, or Australia, from providing onboard connectivity provided they follow the respective laws. From what I know, one mining charter airline in Australia already has connectivity installed using the local SatCom providers. Why won't Qantas or Jetstar or Virgin do the same? When it comes to GSM connectivity, why can't they work with the Australian mobile providers for it?

The same questions apply to Indonesia... We already have the highest number of Blackberry addicts outside the Americas, one of the largest social media population in the world (according to Facebook users and Twitter users), why can't the airlines provide onboard connectvity?

Well, the answer is, THEY CAN! But, the question really is more on "Do they want to do it the right way and the lawful way?"

In the case of Garuda Indonesia, the CEO had stated in the past that Garuda plans to introduce onboard connectivity services. In an article dated 18 June 2010, it was revealed that Garuda was preparing to spend US$17.5 million on connectivity. The telecommunications regulators in June 2010 stated that onboard connectivity services can be provided as long as they comply with the applicable telecommunications law. This means that, the service provider for the Satellite service must have the permits, the cellular service must be provided by local operators, and same with the internet service (non-cellular). Back then, no company has the permits for the satellite service. Local cellular provider, Indosat, had agreed to provide onboard connectivity services with Aeromobile and that they would offer the service to Garuda, unfortunately, Indosat has no permits for the satellite services required. This was what prompted the Telco regulator in Indonesia to "warn" everyone about the permits.

The irony is, now that there IS a satellite service provider in Indonesia with the right permits, that can provide onboard connectivity, Garuda seems uninterested.

V-Australia and Qantas had previously announced that they were to use OnAir and Aeromobile, but nothing can be found in their websites today, except that V-Australia states it as "Coming Soon". Perhaps, they ended up falling to the same "trap"? Maybe, in the frenzy to gain media hype on providing this latest "in-thing" in the airline industry, they too, like Garuda, forgot, that airlines need to comply with more than just the respective aviation laws, and that, when they decided to provide connectivity service, they forgot about the telecommunications law when they made the announcements?

On another confusing note, during Paris Airshow 2011, Air Asia announced that they were going to provide connectivity, initially on AirAsiaX, and later on to AirAsia's shorthaul networks. It was announced that they were going to provide the service "leveraging on their EFB connectivity technology", which means, using FlightFocus's Iridium connectivity. I hereby pose a question, what happened to the Air Asia connectivity plans with OnAir that was announced on 24September 2010? It appeared that they went one step further than most, in partnering with local Malaysian mobile service provider, Maxis, for the GSM connectivity, but, look at AirAsia's website today, or talk to the crew, no one seems to know about it! Is it because they didn't talk to or couldn't get an agreement done with Inmarsat-4 rights holder for Malaysia (Telekom Malaysia?) or was it because the service wasn't profitable?

If it wasn't profitable, perhaps they should have attended the "Airline Retail Conference" in London last weekend?

So, what have these airlines really missed? Anyone?