The head of global airline industry body IATA blames overly risk-averse governments for prolonging the COVID-19 crisis for the travel sector but expects the outlook to brighten in the second half of the year. IATA Director General Willie Walsh, the former boss of British Airways owner IAG, expects positive data on vaccine effectiveness to convince governments to start rolling back restrictions. "There is some good evidence there to be optimistic that, going into the second half of this year, we will see a better environment that will allow more people to travel," he told Reuters on Friday. FILE PHOTO: An airplane prepares to land at Cointrin airport in Geneva, Switzerland. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy Most international air travel remains depressed almost 18 months into the pandemic ...
Read MoreTag: Willie Walsh
Industry veteran Willie Walsh will now lead the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as the new Director General. IATA announced leadership major changes approved by the 76th IATA Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Geneva. Robin Hayes, CEO of JetBlue is now the Chair of the IATA Board of Governors (BoG), succeeding Carsten Spohr, Chair IATA BoG (2019-2020) and CEO of Lufthansa. Hayes will serve a term commencing immediately and ending at the conclusion of the Association’s 78th Annual General Meeting to be held in 2022. Hayes will serve an extended term as Chair covering two AGMs due the disruption to governance cycles necessitated by the COVID-19 crisis.Rickard Gustafson, CEO of SAS Group will serve as Chairman of the BoG from the conclusion of the 78th IATA AGM in 2022 u...
Read More
You must be logged in to post a comment.