“There is a huge market and demand for travel [from China] to the U.S.,” Dunkerley told Aviation Daily at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) annual general meeting (AGM) here.
Brazil is a particular problem for carriers, both for its tax policy and regulatory framework, said Peter Cerda, IATA’s regional vice president for the Americas. About 75% of the aviation fuel sold in Brazil is produced locally, Cerda noted, and yet it is priced as if imported. “It’s artificial pricing,” Cerda said during a briefing at the IATA Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The looming conflict about alleged state subsidies for Gulf carriers reached the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) on June 8, with Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker calling for the association to stand up against “protectionism.”
IATA has boosted its 2015 collective net profit forecast for the world’s airlines to $29.3 billion, up 47.2% over the the $19.9 billion projected by the organization in December 2014.
South African Airways has looked at a “reset-the-clock” scenario, but at “this point in time there is no such action or need to take such action” to bring the embattled airline to commercial sustainability, acting CEO Nico Bezuidenhout said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has decided not to take away Delta Air Lines’ new Seattle-Tokyo Haneda service. But like a parent upbraiding a teenager who misused the family car, it lectured Delta on the carrier’s “virtual abandonment” of the route and imposed strict conditions upon the airline’s future use of the coveted slot pair.
AEA has taken a massive hit as a result of the recent exit of International Airlines Group (IAG) carriers British Airways (BA), Iberia, Alitalia, and Air Berlin, a move the airlines made after voicing their disagreement in key policy areas, such as how to deal with the Gulf carriers.
Speaking with ATW on the eve of the IATA AGM in Miami, Association of Asia Pacific Airlines Director General Andrew Herdman said that 2014 had been “very tough” for the region, with the majors and low-cost carriers struggling alike.
Müller told Aviation Week at the International Air Transport Association Annual General Meeting (IATA AGM) in Miami that he expects major progress in that regard within the next five years, as countries continue to liberalize their air service agreements and allow their national carriers to combine forces.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr suggests that the airline industry should take a close look at how WTO has been dealing with trade disputes in other industries and try to learn from those mechanisms.
LOT—which hosts the next Star Alliance board meeting in Warsaw June 22-24—hopes to use that opportunity to explore greater partnership opportunities with its fellow Star members.
US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will deliver a keynote address during the opening session of the at the IATA AGM in Miami Monday, raising the possibility that the ongoing dispute between the three major US carriers and the three largest Gulf airlines could be discussed even though it is not on the AGM agenda.
Tony Tyler could be looking ahead at a relatively relaxed annual general assembly. The location in Miami Beach is nice; there are no major decisions to be made by the board; and the industry is doing reasonably well. And the one big policy issue that the industry will have to deal with—the introduction of a global emissions trading system to be organized by ICAO—is only really on the agenda for next year. In other words: “It is business as usual,” Tyler says.
The Gulf carrier issue is not on the IATA meeting agenda for a simple reason of protocol: The association represents airlines from both increasingly hostile camps and cannot take a stance without hurting the interests of important members.
In early May, Cargolux joined the growing list of major passenger and freight carriers refusing to transport lithium-ion batteries. The current risk to continue flying such shipments is “not acceptable,” Europe’s largest freighter airline says.
“We’ve probably seen over 30 customers and talked to them about really what they are looking for in an airplane bigger than the 737 MAX family,” Boeing Commercial Airplanes Senior Vice President John Wojick says.
