Last week, as part of the Routes Americas event in Nassau, the Routes Americas Strategy Forum attempted to highlight some of the key issues that are effecting commercial aviation across the entire Americas region.
With a programme of high profile speakers and specially developed content the forum proved to be a popular element of the event with standing room only available. Each session provided a unique insight into the subject matter with informed moderators who made sure that none of the key issues were missed.
The topic for session one was Taxation – the real cost to the economy and the impact on the aviation industry was moderated by Hon. Senator Richard Skerritt, Minister of Tourism & International Transport for St. Kitts & Nevis and Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) who called on governments to be ‘bolder’ when discussing reducing taxes on airlines. The CTO continue to lobby the British government to reverse a discriminatory APD on all flights leaving the UK for the Caribbean.
Estuardo Robles, CEO of Ciudad Aeropuerto pointed out the value of Tourism in terms of economies whilst John Kirby, Director, International for Southwest Airlines compared airlines to supermarkets with the only difference being that supermarkets can’t fly away if they aren’t making enough money but felt that often the airline is treated as a sin and taxed in much the same way as cigarettes and alcohol. Also on the panel were Glen Beache, CEO of St. Vincent & the Grenadines Tourism Authority and Armando Asturias, Civil Aviation Director, Guatemala.
Session two; Airport Privatisation – short term expectations, long term investment and lessons learnt from across the globe saw panellists discussing, in particular, the recent privatisation of Brazilian airports. Moderated by Mark Clarkson, VP, Consulting Services for ASM the panel discussed the challenge which now lies ahead in Brazil as they prepare for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games giving them two years to build a temporary infrastructure that will add to the costs due to the expected increase of 35 per cent in traffic.
Jaime Daly, CEO of Latin American Airports Holding warned that the winners of the bid to operate three of Brazil’s largest airports may actually turn out to be the ‘losers’: “The winners, or maybe the losers, of the bid have 90 days to decide if they want to keep the employees they have inherited or fire them” Daly explained, adding that “nobody knows” how many ex-state employees actually work at each gateway.
The panel also included Patricio Sepulveda, Regional VP for Latin America and the Caribbean for IATA, Ramon Pereira, Airport Director of Cartagena – Rafael Nunez Airport and Philip Baril, Chairman of ACI-LAC and President & CEO of Quiport SA who raised further concerns about the privatisation stating: “The government's profits from taxation should be reinvested in the airport and infrastructure such as roads and facilities for the benefit of passengers, the government should not take away money to start other programmes that have nothing to do with airports."
The discussion for the final session of the afternoon was The State of the American Market which was moderated by Executive Director of ALTA, Alex de Gunten who had given a short presentation on The New Latin American and Caribbean Airline Industry earlier in the day. The largest panel of the day was made up of Maurício Emboaba Moreira, Senior Strategic Advisor, GOL Transportes Aereos, Alfredo Gonzalez, VP of Tourism & International Business, Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, Kristi Wenaus, Director - Sales & Partnerships, Nova Scotia Tourism, Culture & Heritage, Zhihang Chi, Vice President & General Manager, North America, Air China Ltd, Todd Scott, Global Network Planning Manager, UPS Airlines and Patrick Baudis, Vice President Marketing, Latin America & Caribbean, Airbus.
During this session Zhihang Chi pointed out that the world’s largest carrier, by market capitalisation is Air China which was also the most profitable carrier in 2010. Chi went on to explain: “As china gets wealthier and wealthier the need for travel grows. Chinese people have more and more disposable income and want to spend it. Chinese visitors to the US are the number one spenders of all tourists and in 2010 there were 750,000 Chinese visitors to the US.”
Kristi Wenaus pointed out that there is huge potential for growth in Nova Scotia from both Chinese and Latin American markets and there is a need to look overseas to grow visitation as domestic visitors seem to be in decline.
This Strategy Forum was both engaging and valuable and would suggest that the Strategy Forums planned at other Routes events in 2012 are a must attend component of the event.
For further quotes from ‘Inside the Strategy Forum’ click here.
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