Tony Tyler is capping off his first year in charge at IATA by taking to the stage in Beijing for what he hopes will be an open, entertaining and purposeful annual general meeting.
"I hope we have a lively, good-humoured and well-mannered meeting and we'll have a contribution from the floor," says Tyler. "Our job as the management is to listen and to deliver."
The director general also hopes that concerns aired at last year's AGM by some members of IATA's lack of transparency have been addressed: "We'll take the opportunity to explain what we're doing and we want to hear what people think," he says.
Hosted by Air China, the IATA AGM is making its second visit to China and Tyler says Beijing is a fitting location for the event. "It is IATA's home in North Asia - the location of our largest regional office and largest billing and settlement office, with 132 million tickets processed in 2011," says Tyler.
"But even more importantly, China is a great aviation success story. The government's strategy of using aviation to drive economic growth has seen China emerge as an aviation powerhouse."
The country's airlines generated half of the industry's aggregate profits last year and three of the world's 10 largest IATA member airlines (by passenger numbers) are based here.
China is the world's second largest airline market, with 300 million passengers and revenues of $57.6 billion. The country also has plans to open 70 new airports by 2015 to fuel future growth.
Source: Flight Daily News
