Air Transport World Editor-in-Chief and Group Air Transport Editor-in-Chief
Washington, DC
Summary
Karen Walker is Air Transport World Editor-in-Chief and Aviation Week Network Group Air Transport Editor-in-Chief. She joined ATW in 2011 and oversees the editorial content and direction of ATW, Routes and Aviation Week Group air transport content.
Karen serves on the board of directors of the International Aviation Club of Washington and was the IAC’s President in 2017-2018.
Karen has been writing about the aerospace and air transport industries for more than 35 years and is a recognized authority and commenter on the airline industry. She is a regular speaker and moderator at aviation events worldwide and a commentator on radio and TV news programs. In 2019, she was a judge and a presenter for IATA’s inaugural diversity awards.
Based in Washington D.C., she gained her degree in journalism in the U.K. and is a multiple winner of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s aerospace journalism awards.
She is the recipient of the Aerospace Media Awards 2021 Aerospace Writer of the Year.
Gittens is a tireless advocate for airports but she also champions a holistic view of the air transport system in which all players work together on key issues.
The commercial air transportation industry is moving to address safety gaps in the system exposed by the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July. The problem the industry has, however, is that solutions to this crisis lie outside of the commercial industry, whose representative organizations have little to no power to enforce change.
