Dublin sunshine at IATA

The airlines of the world gathered at Dublin last week with glorious weather, while in the UK people were putting on their central heating, and IATA boss Tony Tyler forecasting £27.3bn membership profits for this year, a rise of 12% (See ON THE SOAPBOX).

Stephen Kavanagh of Aer Lingus starred, Willie Walsh, his chairman, for once subservient to the CEO of the host airline. Walsh, succeeds Andres Conesa, CEO of Aeromexico, as chairman of the IATA board of governors in a one-year term until the conclusion of IATA’s 73rd AGM announced for Cancun (Mexico) in June 2017. Walsh has been heavily involved with IATA over the past 10 years.

As usual, most airlines were represented at the highest level, typically Qatar’s Akbar Al Baker seen in deep conversation with Ethiopian’s Tewolde Gebremariam. Carsten Spohr of Lufthansa held court at a Star Alliance reception with Swiss Thomas Klühr standing guard and Austrian’s Kay Kratky paying attention to the surrounding media’s questions.

Skyteam held a briefing fronted by new chief executive Perry Cantarutti announcing a lounge for Beijing following the April opening at Dubai.

oneworld kept a very low profile but Alex Cruz, the new BA CEO, made a surprise 24hr appearance, his policy being to keep a lowish profile while taking in all that is BA with 40k employees, around the same number of passengers, and 284 aircraft. IATA 2017 takes place next June in Cancun.  www.iata.org

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