There’s good news if we care to listen and listen well. Optimism in the global tourism and aviation industries, two of the bellweather indices of recovery and growth, remains despite the lingering turbulence affecting both sectors. In the just concluded Paris air show, the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturers, the US’s Boeing and Europe’s, principally France, Airbus Industrie bagged record-breaking orders which could run up to trillions of pesos and, of course, thousands of much-needed jobs in both continents.
Airbus’s marketing chief John Leahy reported that orders for the company’s vaunted A320neo, considered the aviation industry’s “workhorse,” could top 1000 once confirmations by last-minute buyers get processed. If confirmed, this will be at least 150 more than that of rival Boeing’s souped-up 737.
On Wednesday the Toulose, France-based manufacturer notched an order of 180 aircraft from Indian low-cost carrier Indigo, followed a day after by an $18 billion, 200 aircraft order from Malaysian budget carrier Air Asia Bhd which, together with 89 A320neo already in service, is considered the biggest haul in terms of numbers in the company’s history. Other orders for the same aircraft were from Chile’s LAN Airlines and Kuwaiti leasing company Afco, coupled with commitments for 131 more from US carrier Frontier Airlines and Latin American carrier AnCaTaCa. Amid the A320neo’s success which, of course, ate into Boeing’s long-standing dominance in the single aisle “workhorse” category, the Chicago-based US manufacturer paraded its long expected wide-bodied Boeing 787 Dreamliner with the first model to be delivered to Japan’s All Nippon Airlines (ANA) as early as August. ANA’s vice president Shiuichi Fujimura advised that the company has a total of 55 787s on order and expects to receive delivery of 14 of them by March next year. This wide-bodied aircraft is considered more fuel-efficient and sturdier with the use of carbon fiber and other composite materials than the touted Airbus 380.
Quite apart from this continuing “grudge match” between the two aircraft giants that will translate into buoyant figures not only for these manufacturers but their sub-contractors and suppliers across the board, what the recently concluded Paris air show signaled was a kind of optimism, which has long been awaited in the global tourism and leisure industry. For sometime now, with the lingering global financial crisis, this kicker of an industry whose health and vigor have tremendous impact on the global economy has been plodding along. The new aircraft orders should be taken as a vote of confidence that, indeed, as the world gets into the second decade of the 21st century, things will be turning out better sooner rather than later. And for the French who will be holding the presidency of the European Union for the next two years, this serves as a booster of sorts as they do battle on a number of fronts to regain its footing in the international stage. The French still have that ‘it’, as it were, that is, the means and the resolve to make things happen—a combination which their own rivals within the developed world have long given up on. They are back.
The French ‘nuclear push’
Which brings us to another point. It is also the French among all the world’s nuclear powers who have been moving to allay fears about nuclear energy after the tragic Fukushima incident. Unlike their main European rival, Germany and Switzerland, which got cold feet after the Fukushima incident and announced they were getting out of “nuclear energy,” France has been leading other countries to stay the course. Which is understandable. With 58 nuclear reactors in place, the country gets 80 percent of its electricity from this source.
Recently, French Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet hosted a meeting of ministers and regulators from 33 countries to advise that, yes, there has been a ‘rethinking’ of policy on nuclear energy but that push has more to do with “learning from the disaster” and “improve safety and cooperative” measures rather than abandoning the entire program.
Emphasizing that France is not a “has been” in the energy field, Morizet said the country and its allies were working hard to insure that the needed “stress tests” and other safety measures on nuclear reactors now in place and those coming off the pipelines are not only safe but are efficient in all aspects. “We cannot continue thinking the way we did before Fukushima,” Morizet said, as he urged all concerned to “improve cooperation on nuclear safety in the civil sector, on the international level and in every aspect of the program.” Indeed, there is no way, considering the pressures on other known sources of energy to meet the rising global demands in almost all countries, that nuclear power can be just as easily abandoned. Even the Germans now are in the midst of a prolonged debate even after the Merkel-led government announced it was committed to abandoning the program in due time.
Which is why the news that the Department of Energy (DOE) is considering rechanneling the $100 million budget for “nuclear energy development” embedded in the 2011 budget into some other uses. This should be challenged and stopped at all cost. There is no rhyme or reason for such rechanneling. Precisely, that allotment was made to enable us to review, study and plan for the use, finally, of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. We should not let this multibillion asset go to waste on the fears and unfounded concerns of certain sectors that have yet to submit compelling evidence that the plant is technically flawed. Even the questions of ethics and propriety that were liberally issued in the 1980s have all been properly answered. Precisely, the allotment in the 2011 budget is meant to finally put all the concerns, especially the technical ones to rest. To rechannel those funds in the absence of compelling reasons to do so is bordering not just on technical malversation but treason. This is already a national asset that we should not put to waste. Period.
