Now in its 10th year, the Routes World Route Development Forum expects to welcome more than 1,200 delegates when it opens its doors in Madrid this September
The Routes network planning forum has come a long way from its early beginnings a decade ago. Back in 1995 when Airline Business first joined with the ASM consultancy to bring together airline network planners and airport route developers, the result was a meeting in Cannes with a modest 70 delegates.
Today, with Airline Business as official publication, Routes has grown into a major world event in its own right. Over 1,000 delegates from five continents attended the 2003 forum hosted in Edingburgh, Scotland.
And this year's event in Spain is due to grow again when the doors open at Madrid's Juan Carlos Conference Centre, taking place on 26-28 September. The organisers expect to attract 1,200 delegates from over 500 individual airports and some 250 airlines.
Despite its rapid growth, the basic premise of Routes remains the same: to bring airlines and airports together to discuss opportunities for new air services.
Given Madrid's cultural and trading associations with Latin America, a strong delegation of airlines and airports from that region are expected to be present. The 2004 event is hosted by AENA, the Spanish national airports operator.
Routes is lining up a series of enhancements to the event designed to enable delegates to extract more value from the three-day gathering:
The creation of a themed Networking Village within which delegates can meet informally, in addition to the formal airport-airline meetings which are pre-arranged prior to Routes. Many of the social events which surround Routes will be hosted in the Networking Village, and this level of the centre will also feature the accompanying exhibition. There is a revised delegate pricing structure offering flexible attendance options for all types of airports. This is particularly designed to enable smaller airports to get the most from Routes. The basic format of Routes will remain the same, with a series of one-to-one meetings between airlines and airports lasting 20 minutes. However, there will be the introduction of regular breaks between all of the pre-arranged airport: airline meetings. These will take place on two levels of the conference centre. A limited number of chalets are available to host more private meetings. OAG will, for the first time, host a specific New Airline Hall offering pre-arranged meetings between industry suppliers and start-up airlines. At Routes 2004 Airline Business and its sister online news and data service Air Transport Intelligence (ATI) will run a full-scale internet cafe in the Networking Village. This will be free of charge to all delegates, helping to provide delegates with the latest information that they need to make their meetings as useful as possible. For those with training requirements, the IATA Route Planning Centre will run in parallel to Routes, offering dedicated training courses and an opportunity to gain an approved network planning professional qualification. This is another first for Routes and starts with training sessions on Sunday 26 September, with further modules prior to the start of the Routes one-to-one meetings on the next two days."The widespread feedback from delegates in 2003 indicated that the value of Routes - both for airports and airlines - has never been higher," says Jon Woolf, director of operations for Routes. "We certainly have all the ingredients for a successful forum in 2004."
Routes 2004
Dates: 26-28 September 2004 Venue: Juan Carlos Conference Centre, Madrid, Spain Hosts: AENA Organiser: Routes Contact: Natasha Peck Tel: +44 161 234 2730 Fax: +44 161 234 2737 e-mail: natasha@routesonline.com website: www.routesonline.com
Source: Airline Business
