Story ID: 420EBAABalthus
EBACE Organizers Brace for Turbulence
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: With EBACE in the sights of environmental activists, show planners are prepared to engage.
Word Count: 470
EBACE 2023 promises to be a show unlike any previous due to its potential as a target for environmental protestors. Other European industry events this year—including EBAA’s AirOps2023 Conference in February—have attracted negative attention from organized groups that sought to disrupt the activities.
While a permit has been filed for a peaceful demonstration to take place Tuesday evening near the main entrance to Palexpo, show organizers EBAA and NBAA said they are prepared for any contingency. “One difference that people will notice this year is there is more emphasis on security,” said EBAA COO Robert Balthus. “There’s going to be a few more checks [and] before you get in there might be a bag check.”
While EBAA anticipates the demonstrations will remain civil and peaceful, it noted other precautions have been coordinated with local authorities in case they don’t. “As an organization, to make sure you have a safe event you have to think about all kinds of different scenarios, and hope that the protestors, rather than shout something, sit in on some sessions and listen to what we’re doing and also the questions we ask ourselves as an industry,” Balthus told AIN in an interview on the eve of the show.
“Are we doing enough, are there enough alternatives, and what can we do to improve things?” he asked rhetorically. “At the end of the day, there are so many stakeholders involved that just shouting ‘You need to start doing something’ is not going to help anybody.”
Balthus noted that the industry has been “doing something” on sustainability for more than a decade. “If you look at the Business Aviation Commitment to Climate Change, this is from 2009—before all the protests,” he said. “We as an industry already accepted that we needed to decarbonize, and we looked at an achievable pathway to achieve it. In 2021 we updated it to make sure we were still on the right path and actually brought some things forward, so the industry is working on it.”
Among the areas where business aviation is moving forward is being at the forefront of new technology such as advanced air mobility and potential new propulsion technologies. “That’s where we can lead the industry and are leading the industry by making sure we decarbonize as quickly as possible,” explained Balthus. But he noted that at the heart of the discussion there is common ground with the protestors: “We agree to disagree on the timetable, but not with what we want to achieve.”