Europes leading soccer leagues, fl ush from spiralling TV deals and infl ated to bursting by their own importance, found this week that, for all its recent problems, FIFA at least recognises the literal meaning of the World Cup.

Tuesdays recommendation by a task force of soccers world governing body to hold the 2022 Qatar World Cup outside of the European summer for the fi rst time brought about the predictable European wailing about disruption and tradition.

It also led to an immediate demand by Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of the European Clubs Association, for compensation for his members being forced to release their players during the season for the fi rst time.

This plea came two weeks after the English Premier League secured a TV rights deal worth $7.75bn over three years from 2016 with no indication that the next deal will be anything other than similarly lucrative.

Rummenigges request was given short-shrift by FIFAs secretary general Jerome Valcke yesterday, who, somewhat exasperated by the carping, said: There will be no compensation. Why should we apologise?

Its happening once, were not destroying football. Valcke reminded

journalists in Doha following a meeting of a FIFA task force that leagues around the world would have seven years to come up with a plan to make space for a shortened 28-day tournament in November/December.

Many of those leagues already incorporate winter breaks in their schedule.

As for compensation, Valcke pointed out that clubs already benefi tedto the tune of 70mn poundsfrom the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

As a fi nal reminder that the clue is in the name, Valcke said: Most confederations say they want the World Cup to end on 23 December.

That is the nub of the matter. While the leagues of England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France provide the bulk of the players at any World Cup, the tournament is a global event.

It is the global eventand it does not belong to Europe. For the fi rst 68 years of their existence, World Cup

tournaments went back and forth between Europe and the Americas until Japan/South Korea broke the monopoly in 2002.

Africa fi nally got a taste of the action at South Africa 2010 while Qatar 2022 will be the fi rst Middle East host.

For one precious month every four years, billions of TV viewers in every country tune in as one to watch. They do in June and they will in November.

As for the disruption, is it really beyond the wit of organisers of the richest leagues in the world, with seven years to work with, to come up with a plan to adjust their current seasonal dates to accommodate one winter World Cup?

Yes, Englands unique tradition of a Christmas and New Year fi xture feast might have to be ditched for a season but Premier League managers been complaining about the programme for years.

Should the date of a tournament watched by fans in more than 200 countries be dictated by the preference of one league for a seasonal feast, even if it is the most valuable and popular?

There can be only one answer, and that is a big No.

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Many of the European leagues already incorporate winter breaks in their schedule

The worlds largest travel show gets underway in Germany next Tuesday, attracting companies across the travel spectrum

By Updesh KapurDoha

Over the next few weeks, media around the world will be bombarded with press releases featuring a common thread that PR agencies will want to ensure maximum coverage for their clients.

Its a busy time for the writers preparing to disseminate news targeting journalists, freelancers and social media infl uencers across the globe.

It will all kick off next Tuesday. The worlds largest travel show gets underway in Germany attracting companies across the travel spectrum. Hotel chains, airlines, national tourist boards, tour operators, cruise lines, car rental fi rms, travel technology providers, web-based travel businesses, the list is endless. ITB Berlin is an annual marketplace in the German capital that brings together the global travel community looking to strengthen relationships and develop new ones.

Press conferences will announce product launches, new campaigns will be revealed and research studies unveiled along with seminars discussing industry trends on the

fringes over a busy few days. With the worlds travel media fl ying in, its their loyalty that PRs will be hoping to win over to secure those all-important column inches.

It will inevitably be a bun fi ght for coverage in the special onsite daily travel broadsheets promoting the fi ve-day event. And of course there will be travel titles and travel sections of national newspapers around the world being fed with news from Berlin. Many global travel companies will want to use ITB Berlin to give their 2015 publicity campaigns a boost. For airlines, in particular, ITB Berlin is seen as a platform to showcase their latest products and fl y in top management to host press conferences knowing their target media audience is spending almost a week covering the vast show. From the Gulf, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Emirates and Oman Air, along with their respective national tourist boards, will all be present with their latest wares.

But it is just after ITB that these airlines and many more around the world will be focusing on and using PR to maximise their message. Its the time of the year when airlines want to capitalise on forward bookings by promoting their seasonal fl ying programmes the common thread referred to earlier.

Twice a year, on the last Sunday of March and October, airlines typically implement their new fl ying programmes. This year, March 29 and October 27 signal the start of new schedules, coinciding with daylight savings, depending on which part of the world you live in.

In the Northern Hemisphere from next month, this means a new Summer schedule fl ying programme while in the Southern Hemisphere, its the beginning of the Winter programme.

So what will we see from March 29?Typically, capacity increases,

frequency hikes, deployment of bigger aircraft on many routes, introducing new planes into the fl eet, reviving services and launching brand new routes, etc. Airlines are preparing for a busy six-month period that will cover the peak summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, taking advantage of near- to full fl ights and

maximum fares to help their balance sheets.

Any talk of scrapping services is not on the agenda. Its all hands on deck to utilise all available aircraft. Its never been so good, you may say. With oil prices plunging over 50% during 2014, this has meant huge savings for airlines, now able to pump capacity back in when they feared loss-making operations due to the hefty price of oil. With much lower fuel prices now, lets operate more fl ights as travel becomes relatively cheaper. Nice thought, but this is not the rationale behind the mega scheduling changes expected from March 29.

Expansion provides consumers with more choice and an edge over competitors unable to do so due to lack of aircraft or lack of precious landing and take-off slots at congested airports.

The Northern Summer fl ying months are traditionally the best ever for airlines worldwide. There is a hive of activity with the deployment of aircraft and coordination of schedules between airlines that have codeshare marketing partnerships or global alliance tie-ups, simply to minimise connecting times and maximise connections. Though the summer has already been on sale for some time, it is the extra capacity being ploughed in, on a number of destination pairings and introduction of new routes that will make the headlines.

In the UK, air capacity data shows a signifi cant rise in international capacity from late March to the end of October coinciding with Northern Hemisphere summer schedules. Over the past four years, the UKs summer capacity has risen by at least 75% against the same years winter off ering, increasing by as much 90% in 2011.

Richard Maslen, Content and Community Manager of Routesonline, the digital platform of the Routes global network planning events, says:

We should see new routes and higher capacity aircraft being scheduled soon to take advantage of summer holidays.

This is a crucial period for the industry as historically, airlines make the lions share of profi ts during the summer for some as much as 80%.

Seasonality is one of biggest issues for airline network planners and can be found in almost all markets in the aviation business, but the degree of seasonality diff ers considerably.

During the weaker winter months, airlines will schedule heavy aircraft maintenance checks and onboard product renovations as such work during the busy summer holiday season would not be logistically feasible.

Some airlines have gone to the extent of parking aircraft in the winter to avoid operating loss-making and non-feasible fl ights, while others have leased out planes to airlines in other parts of the world where there is demand.

Adds Maslen: In a perfect world, we would see level demand throughout the year. However, in the real world, this is the exception rather than the rule. Airlines are forced to manage capacity to meet demand. This could be through the use of diff erent sized aircraft at diff erent times of the year, upgrading to meet peak demand periods and through seasonal off erings.

These include, for example, winter ski destinations such as in Europe packed to capacity or popular winter sun markets such as the Caribbean, also typically full to capacity.

But it is during the summer where there is the largest upward variation in capacity from the worlds airlines.

Its a very complex process of scheduling that airline network planners are tasked with. But the bottom line is to fi ll planes and off er the most competitive service to lure customers and increase revenue, regardless of seasonality. Busy times ahead for airline PRs pumping out similar messages around the world.

Updesh Kapur is a PR & communications professional, columnist, aviation, hospitality and travel analyst. He can be followed on twitter @updeshkapur

Pumping up capacity for busy summer season

Arming Ukraine will put the West in danger By Nader Mousavizadeh Reuters

A dangerous, possibly irreversible, dynamic of confl ict is taking hold of Russian-Western relations. In every arena of the Ukraine crisis,

escalation is the order of the day. On the ground, where fresh fi ghting rages in the Donbass region. In the skies over Europe, where British fi ghter jets are intercepting Russian nuclear bombers. In Washington, where Congress and ambitious policymakers with an eye on the 2016 presidential elections are forcing the White Houses hand on lethal assistance to Kiev. In Moscow, where the few remaining voices of compromise are considered weaklings or traitors. Even in the realm of global fi nance, where expelling Russia from the SWIFT payment system is now under serious consideration.

At this rate, someones really going to get hurt soon. This is not to make light of the suff ering already being caused by the confl ict in eastern Ukraine, with half a million people displaced and thousands killed and wounded in fi ghting there. What it does suggest is the need for perspective amid the increasingly unhinged talk of war with Russia.

Memories are short. The fallout from the wars of 9/11 in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria has all but

consumed Western strategic thinking. But the Cold War ended only 25 years ago, and Ukraines singular strategic signifi cance to Russia ought to make the memory of a nuclear crisis over Cuba seem positively quaint by comparison.

Russia still possesses a nuclear arsenal in excess of 8,000 warheads. It has a conventional military of nearly 1mn men under arms, and in the age of cyberwarfare has the ability to infl ict catastrophic damage on critical Western infrastructure.

To their credit, President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have sought to keep the West on a sober path, addressing Moscows annexation of Crimea with fi rm diplomacy in the pursuit of a peaceful solution. Even as this confl ict has demonstrated the speed with which Washington can push for sanctions whose consequences are largely borne by Europeans, Merkel has made maintaining trans-Atlantic, as well as European, unity her lodestar.

What the current escalation risks, however, is a breakdown of this unity - even as the possibility of open confl ict

is growing. A new approach is urgently needed.

It must begin with a reality check on the nature of the adversary, and the futility of the current course of action. The features of Russian President Vladimir Putins regime that its critics most like to cite - kleptocracy, repression, chauvinism, revisionism, paranoia - are the very characteristics that will make it utterly unwilling to capitulate under pressure, be it fi nancial or military.

The more the West emphasises a belligerent course of action, the more Putins popular support, already in a range undreamed of by Western leaders (80% approval), will harden rather than soften.

The West is increasingly dealing with a government in Moscow whose most liberal and pluralist elements see a reality of economic war with the West, and a future of responses without limits to further sanctions - as that most pliable (and unrepresentative) of Russian leaders, Dimitri Medvedev, noted recently.

Moscow will view a decision to expel the Russian banking system from SWIFT as not just an economic measure but as a strategic one. To be met by any and all means at Russias disposal. Cyber, energy, fi nance, nonstate groups in neighbouring states - all could become weapons in such a response. That is also without considering the risk of a catastrophic miscalculation or overreaction by

a single pilot, nuclear submarine captain or militia member with a shoulder-fi red missile.

In an atmosphere of zero trust, anything becomes possible.

If a diplomatic solution is to be found before - and not after - a terrible confl agration involving the worlds two nuclear superpowers, a new US-German diplomatic initiative toward Moscow must be launched.

Moscow will have to accept that the people of Ukraine freely elect their own leaders and can choose membership in the European Union. The West will have to accept that the minority rights we trumpet elsewhere also should apply to Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine, and that membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation will make Ukraine - and the alliance itself - less secure, not more.

For this kind of settlement to be possible, the Kremlin will have to walk back its most extreme rhetoric - and ambitions - about a Novorossiya. The West will have to reverse its folly of walking the people of Ukraine out on a plank of military and economic dependency on Europe in a confl ict with Russia that has no sustainable political support among European populations.

Nader Mousavizadeh is co-founder of Macro Advisory Partners, and the author, with Kofi Annan, of Interventions: A Life in War and Peace.

Russia still possesses a nuclear arsenal in excess of 8,000 warheads

Any talk of scrapping services is not on the agenda

The World Cup doesnt belong to Europe alone

Airlines will use events like ITB Berlin, the worlds largest travel show, to announce new summer flying schedules.