ENAC Italian Civil Aviation Authority ANNI 7 1 0 - 2 1 9 9 7 Report and Social Balance 2017 ITALIAN CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY ENAC Italian Civil Aviation Authority Report and Social Balance 2017 Vito Riggio PRESIDENT ITALIAN CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY Alessio Quaranta DIRECTOR GENERAL ITALIAN CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY Alessandro Cardi DEPUTY DIRECTOR GENERAL ITALIAN CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY CONTRIBUTIONS Vito Riggio PRESIDENT ITALIAN CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY CONTRIBUTIONS n the famous fragment 119, Heraclitus seems to say that a man’s character is his own fate. Leaving aside all the discussions and interpretations, we can agree that the principle implies Ithat, in every human being, there are some invariants, a constant which corresponds to his personality’s fundamental area and which defines the developing and the advance towards the target as well. That is what we call destiny and what the philosopher defines as daimon. If we could apply the same idea also to legal entities, agencies, authorities that crowd the present world much more than the past, what would the Italian Civil Aviation Authority’s character be like, considering that we know its legal form, physiognomy, structure and it is so familiar to us? That is not just the legal status, which, from the foundation act celebrated in the twenty-year anniversary, is clearly outlined as non-economic public body to be transformed in economic public 7 ANNI 1 0 body before the 31 July 1999. It is about its structure, about the way its autonomy is expressed, - 2 1 9 9 7 about its capacity to propose and listen to the community, the community of the administration staff, of the air carriers, of the national aviation industry, of the airports and so on. About its administrative and accounting activity; about its way to meet expectations, in one word it is about its actual constitution. About being an body created through a governmental and legislative decision in order to meet an international expectation to ensure the update of some safety standards, and then, in the abstract, put in a position to gradually develop its identity in the world of the legal entities. Above all, it is about being an institutional subject in communication with the supervising Ministry and in collaboration with other entities like ENAV, body which later has been transformed in a joint stock company and then partially - in my opinion, successfully - privatised and the other entities such as airports, air carriers, and the sector’s industry. All this thanks to its ability to convert the original entities, RAI (Italian Register of the aviation), Civil Aviation General Directorate of the Ministry of Transports, “Ente Nazionale della Gente dell’Aria” with its small staff, in a new experienced protagonist, with a strong international connotation, able to be recognised and appreciated by the public opinion and not only by the insiders. REPORT AND SOCIAL BALANCE 2017 REPORT In other words, ENAC’s character definition is bonded with the effects of its actual administration, ENAC with the concreteness named by the fathers of the administrative law, from Orlando to Ranelletti and Romano, who explained us that the administration and the real actions in the real world 3 explain us the nature of the subjects, beyond their illusions and their constitutional expectations. Therefore, the constitution without administration can turn into a dream. The juridical definition is irrelevant if it is not supported by an analysis of the way the functions are performed, of the subject’s inner language and comprehension structure, of the prevalent cultural education, of the exasperate bureaucratisation that is the management skill to light up the actions and give hope and confidence to the surrounding universe. CONTRIBUTIONS That is why in the twenty-year anniversary, I am not enchanted by the discussion about the legal nature if it represents just the formal transformation as provided for in the ignored article 1 of the founding legislative decree. The anniversary spell may have pushed to set a still valid date, but none of the excellent ministers that have succeeded in the last years (they have been 9) really wanted to respect. The new millennium, imagined as a happy time that immediately became painful due to the Twin Towers’ shock and to the Linate accident for us, in the meantime, suggested the formation of the body’s character and to let the fusion go on, between difficulties coming from resistances, corporatism, differentiated competences and heterogeneous styles. Then it came the crisis that involved not only the major company, once monopolistic, and now still goes an affecting competitive market, occupational guarantees, competitiveness and efficiency; more recently, there has been the illusion, somehow clarified in literature, to be transformed in an Independent Authority, a service role overturning towards the supervising minister and the affirmation of a completely different scenario, but actually not coherent with someone’s plan, afflicted by 7 ANNI destructive illusion without result; in the end the economic crisis, the most devastating ever, which 1 0 - 2 1 9 9 7 was faced without considering the differences, as many times reported, like in our case. While the other entities were crying poor cause of the linear cuts, ENAC was able to develop a highly efficient financial system, oriented to an investment increase and then, once normalised the relationship with the air managing bodies and once reduced the personnel, to foster the changing. At the end of this process, that needs a much deeper examination in other specific context, even thanks to the collaboration of Prof. Sabino Cassese, who is great interpreter of the organization and author of the monograph published by Demetra, ENAC is not yet what maybe it should be, but for sure, it is not what some thought it would have been. The Europeanisation and the globalisation revolutionised the goal of the jurist to make fence to contain words and overwhelmed the dykes. Nowadays ENAC is a dynamic European reality. It is an expression of the limited sovereignty treated in the 1948 Italian Constitution. It is a body that obtained prestige thanks to the fact that, after the Linate accident, there have been zero death recorded, despite the extraordinary growth of traffic and airports expansion. Until now, it is wise to say, but for sure with luck and merits; as though making the protagonists feel always more responsible, creating a strong collaboration with them, giving the power to coordinate, as planned by the EU law. In other words, an element of character rather than legislative. However, in Italy someone was planning to wickedly celebrate ENAC, replacing it with something else. Plan which is still alive but every day weaker in Italy, even if, at European level, REPORT AND SOCIAL BALANCE 2017 REPORT it is still inexplicable why the technical and economic regulation are still under the same body. ENAC That is valid for the three biggest Italian airports, which produced impressive results of quality, 4 investment and in the relationship with the passengers, under the ENAC control, despite the clumsy attempts of other subjects searching for space. Just think of the important result of Rome’s Airports, Fiumicino in particular, which has been the best in the world! And Ciampino Airport, which gives big expectations. In other words, we do not really know ENAC’s character. Sometimes it seems that a process of bureaucracy reduction, speeding up and community approaching succeeded. A strong, real, constant process of globalisation as showed the appreciated presence during the international and European bodies. Some time we sink down again in the swamp, in the fear, in the hesitation that characterise many public and private Italian businesses. CONTRIBUTIONS However, since the end is yet to come, although twenty years are a long enough period, to mention Camus, as every man is responsible for his face, it is necessary that ENAC, its staff and its partners work to let the character we have built, if there is any, emerge and appear. Much depends on the ability to use the available resources to fill the gaps and to train always more specialised personnel, as required to meet the needs. 7 ANNI 1 0 - 2 1 9 9 7 REPORT AND SOCIAL BALANCE 2017 REPORT ENAC 5 Alessio Quaranta DIRECTOR GENERAL ITALIAN CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY CONTRIBUTIONS n the twenty years, there have been a transformation of the national and European civil aviation Iand deep changes at global level. Just think of the impetuous success on the market of the low cost air carriers that, in the last two decades, have revolutionised the traditional air transport idea making it a mass transport, enormously contributing to the development of the aviation sector and of the whole world economy. The also achievement of the emerging markets has considerably contributed to move the axis of development of world air transport. Until twenty years ago, it was mainly based on the relations between North/South America and Europe; nowadays we can see an important growth of the Middle East region, in particular of the Persian Gulf and of the South-East Asia, which is where 7 ANNI 1 0 great investments hail from such as major orders of new aircrafts by the Arabian Peninsula’s air - 2 9 7 1 9 carriers. This situation forces the system of the “Old Europe” to face a new reality that is not simple but full of opportunities. In Europe, during these years, we have seen an effective implementation and renovation of the liberalisation process of the air transport European market; it has started in the first half of the Nineties with the so-called “Third Package” and still not completed since it has been influenced by the international dynamics evolution and, in the past years, by the worst crisis from the birth of the commercial air transport, in the Forties.