The following remarks were delivered in Washington DC June 25 by IATA General Counsel Jeffrey Shane at the 2015 L. Welch Pogue Lifetime Achievement in Aviation Award dinner. This year’s Award recipient is Paul Mifsud.

The two largest international air shows, Farnborough and Paris, always boil down to one question: which of the two biggest commercial OEMs ends the week with the fattest order book? Le Bourget 2015 was no different, but there was a distinctly mellow feel to this show as Airbus and Boeing’s record backlogs inevitably started to pinch the front end.

European heavyweights Air France-KLM, easyJet, International Airlines Group (IAG), Lufthansa Group and Ryanair came together in Brussels to voice their shared views on the European Commission’s new EU Aviation Strategy, but *how* it was said was far more important than *what* was said.

CSeries flying, production execution, 757 replacement are among the themes at Le Bourget

Former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson: “Once you know you have a pollutant and you know it’s endangering public welfare, then EPA must act.”

Given my recent experience on a flight to Austin, I thought it would be interesting to share and compare with the flights I’ve just done from Washington National to Miami and back (attending the IATA AGM). This time I was flying American and it must be said that the service was excellent both outbound and return.

The photo was taken in July 1990 when the systems operations control (SOC) building was first occupied in Fort Worth, Texas.

On a recent flight from Washington DC to Austin, Texas, I encountered something that shows customer service in the air means different things to different people.