IATA: Giving Latin American Aviation the Freedom to Succeed

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) urged governments and other stakeholders in Latin America to unite to give aviation the freedom to succeed by improving aviation safety, making badly needed investments in infrastructure and reducing the heavy tax burden on the industry. “The freedom to succeed depends on having the right conditions in place. Many of those conditions are beyond the control of the airlines—or at least require industry and government to work together with a common vision and purpose,” said IATA Director General and CEO Tony Tyler.

Tyler urged governments to use aviation as a catalyst for economic growth and development in the region. Aviation supports more than 4.6 million jobs and $107 billion in GDP in the Latin America/Caribbean region. But this could be much more. Americans travel an average of 1.8 times a year. Chile has the region’s highest propensity to travel. But it is still at 0.7 trips per year. “There is great potential to be achieved if we work closely with governments to secure our future,” said Tyler.

Tyler noted that IATA is strongly aligned with the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) to enable aviation to achieve its economic potential. “ALTA is a partner of IATA in this region and we are working in harmony to move aviation forward.”

Tyler identified three areas that are vital to enabling aviation to fulfill its economic potential in the region.
Safety: “The freedom to succeed begins with safety because without it success is not sustainable. Earlier this month, we announced our analysis of the industry’s 2011 safety performance. It was a stellar year—the best in history: 2.8 billion people flew safely on 38 million flights.” However, Tyler noted that the picture in the Latin America/Caribbean region was not as bright. “Although Latin American airlines achieved a 32% improvement in the Western-built jet hull loss rate compared to 2010, the 2011 performance was still 3.5 times worse than the global rate. LATAM traffic is 6% of the global total but it accounted for 27% of jet hull losses. If this does not improve, then the current rate of traffic growth means that in six years, carriers here will experience a major accident every eight weeks. Clearly that is not sustainable.”


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