Dewart's new role
Nadine Dewart, one of Europe's leading travel managers and ACTE's president elect for 2005, is leaving her job as EMEA travel manager for BMC Software in Amsterdam to take up the post of global travel manager for Dupont de Nemours in January. Ms Dewart will be based in Mechelen near Brussels.
Alitalia delay
The EC is not expected to make any decision on Alitalia's rescue plan until early 2005 as it has not yet received required information on the scheme from Italy.
Part of the troubled airlines functions are due to be handed over to the state finance vehicle Fintecna but the contract with Alitalia has also not been signed. Fintecna's chairman Maurizio Prato has told the Italian Parliament that he sees his company's role in the airline as “temporary.”
Gatwick fight
The British Airports Authority (BAA), which runs several major UK airports including London Gatwick, plans to fight a proposal to modify the high speed, non-stopping Gatwick Express rail service from London.
The UK's Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), which oversees the country's rail services, wants to change the Express, much used by business travellers, to a stopping commuter service between London and Brighton.
BAA has described the plan as “disastrous” and named its campaign to save the Express as “The Murder of the Gatwick Express.” The SRA said the reaction to its plan was “hyperbole.”
Kerosene tax “untimely” - AEA
A kerosene tax in Germany to help the national rail system would damage the airline industry, Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, secretary general of the Association of European Airlines (AEA), said.
Reacting to apparent plans by the German government to introduce such a tax, Mr Schulte-Strathaus said it was a “red herring” to think that rail travel would be more attractive if airlines had to pay a kerosene tax.
He said such a tax would be a cost burden to German airlines and make them uncompetitive. If such a tax were to be introduced across the EU, only non-EU airlines would benefit.