Jesper Rungholm, President of the ERA (European Regions Assoc.) used his keynote at the association’s General Assembly held in Estoril this week, to highlight the pressures that Europe’s airlines currently face.

“The way that pricing seems to be continuously escalating especially on engines and on landing gear components, is simply unbearable”, he told delegates.

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“It is impossible to keep up with these increases. There’s no way we can increase our prices up to 15% each year… It isn’t doable,” he said.
“Salaries are not going up to that extent either, so something is going on that is really unhealthy, and it will lead so some self-destruction at some time”, added Rungholm, who is also the CEO of DAT A/S.

“Some aircraft, and some platforms will simply disappear because it is no longer worthwhile flying them because of their cost. I really urge our suppliers to be very, very careful because it is going the wrong way”.

Rungholm added that the current inflationary pricing will end ‘some way or another’.

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“Either we stop flying or we run out of money, but it cannot continue the way it’s continuing now,” he concluded.

Other topics addressed by Rungholm in his speech included the situation with European Air Traffic Control – which is improving in his view – and EU regulations, notably directive 261 which deals with passenger compensation rights following delays. Rungholm described this legislation as ‘the beast’.