Let the airplane soaaaaar!

Globalization is an oft scorned phenomenon. Claims abound that the ‘flattening’ of the world only benefits the rich, leaving the majority of the world, the average consumer, counting the costs. Recently though the EU has scored double points, placing the benefits of globalization not just in the pockets of European but also of Americans. It’s a lesson that the rest of the world, including Washington, could learn from.

I wrote a few weeks ago about new legislation being forced through by the EU to ‘open the skies’ for new competition in transatlantic travel. UK-US flight paths , formerly held exclusively by four airlines, but one of the most profitable routes in global air travel, the has recently been blown wide open. As a result air fares are set to plummet. Just today, RyanAir (which flies all across Europe for fares as low as €0.99) announced they aim to fly from London to Rhode Island, New York and Baltimore for as little as €7 ($14) . Get that? $14! Your flight to Europe could soon be cheaper than your cab ride to Philadelphia International! Suddenly the formerly mighty four aren’t sitting so comfortably. But this is great for us as consumers — this is globalization.

The EU has also been after the airwaves, by attacking European cell-phone networks for their outrageously high ‘roaming’ fees. A call to the UK from Spain could cost up to €1 ($2) a minute, while the charge to the network provider is negligible. Seeing this absurdity, the EU moved to enforce changes and yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of reduced costs, cutting charges by up to 80 percent and setting a cap on all European call costs. This is the way EU should work; this is the whole point of the ‘laissez-faire’ European Union. This is globalization doing its job.

The US and others around the world could and should learn from this. Washington shrugged off new opportunities by refusing to open up Dulles and Reagan National Airports to new European carriers, fearing the competition would damage domestic airlines but ignoring the huge benefits it would bring to US consumers. Soon though, because of this new agreement, Penn students will all have cheap and easy access to Europe. And British students (me) will be able to use their phones anywhere on the continent with little extra charge, another victory for globalization.

So here, today, I take my hat off to you, European Union. Because of you, I can get a job anywhere in Europe without any of the diplomatic hassles present elsewhere in the world. I can fly to France for next to nothing without worrying about visas or immigration checks, and I will soon be able to make cheap phone calls while there. Not to mention my €7 flights to New York.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.