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The pandemic years are behind us, and borders are open as normal. Despite economic uncertainties, people are flying to reconnect, explore, and do business. Latest data show passenger traffic at over 90% of 2019 levels. Airports are busier, hotel occupancy is rising, local economies are reviving, and the airline industry has moved into profitability.  

Financial Performance

Margins are, however, wafer thin. With US$803bn of revenues, airlines will share US$9.8bn in net profit this year. Put another way, airlines will make, on average, US$2.25 per passenger. So, the value retained by airlines for the average plane trip won’t even buy a subway ticket in NYC. Clearly, that level of profitability is not sustainable. But considering we lost US$76 per passenger in 2020, the velocity of the recovery is strong.

Challenges remain. Inflation continues, cost pressure is acute, and in some areas, labour is in short supply. Unfortunately, many of those we do business with are adding to these pressures.

• OEM suppliers have been far too slow in dealing with supply chain blockages that are both raising costs and limiting our ability to deploy aircraft. Airlines are beyond frustrated. A solution must be found.
• Oil companies did very well on our tab while the crack spread for jet fuel was at historic highs for most of 2022 until April this year.
• And there are grievous examples of some airports and ANSPs shifting the costs of their inefficiency to airlines.
  • On this point, I can now confirm that Schiphol Airport has no shame. After a self-made operational disaster in 2022 the airport continues its three-year 37% charges hike — with 12% this year.
  • In South Africa, airports want a 38% charges increase, only to be outdone by ATC demands for a 63% hike.
  • And, back to Europe, airlines are paying for a EUR1.9bn addition to the air traffic management cost base in 2022. You’d expect good performance. But delays were triple what was anticipated. And capacity and environment targets were missed.

With such bad behavior on open display, calls for lighter touch economic regulation of our monopoly suppliers must not be taken seriously by any government.

Considering these many challenges, that airlines are turning a profit at the industry level is truly impressive.

Safety

We can also be impressed by the industry’s safety record. This year marks 20 years of the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA). In September 2003, Qatar Airways was the first to join the IOSA registry. Today, over 400 airlines are on the registry. It is the global standard for managing operational safety.

More importantly, it is clear that IOSA helps to improve safety. In 2022, IOSA registered carriers outperformed those not on the registry by a factor of four. It is never “job done” on safety. So, we are marking two decades of success by making IOSA even more effective with a transition to a risk-based approach.

Of course, IOSA is not the only global standard improving safety. We prevent future accidents by learning from accident reports. But, of the 214 accidents in the last 5 years, only 96 final accident reports are available. This is an inexcusable violation of the Chicago Convention and a disservice to the safety of our passengers and crew. Governments and their agencies must improve.

Efficiency and Implementation of Global Standards

As an industry connecting people and goods across jurisdictions, global standards are at the core of our success — starting with safety and permeating everything we do.

For example, consumers the world over appreciate the ability to purchase air travel in a single currency for any destination in absolute confidence. That’s achieved with the global standard processes of the IATA Financial Settlement Systems. With half a century of experience and global scale, they are cost effective, safe and reliable. And we are constantly evolving them to deliver the value you expect

This experience also helps IATA to set global standards that make travel ever more efficient:

• The transformation to modern airline retailing is taking shape. The aim is to make buying air travel as easy as ordering from any online retailer.
• Verifiable digital identity standards enabling all players in the supply chain to interact more efficiently and securely are being developed.
• And, with biometric identification, standards for contactless processes are improving the security and efficiency of the airport experience.

Even if not always top of mind, global standards underpin our ability to connect the world. Unfortunately, that appreciation is not universal among our stakeholders, including governments. Fragmentation is growing because governments are either.

• Not acting globally
• Not implementing completely, or
• Simply inventing local solutions.

Local Solutions: Passenger Rights

Passenger rights is an example of the latter. Over a hundred jurisdictions have developed unique regulations intended to protect air travellers. And at least a dozen governments are looking to join the group or toughen what they already have.  

The question I ask myself is what is the basis for all this? We recently surveyed 4,700 travellers across 11 markets to understand their experiences.

• 96% were satisfied with their last trip
• 77% said air travel was good value for money, and
• 73% were confident they would be treated fairly by their airline in the event of operational disruptions

Every journey is not perfect. There are lessons to learn from rare but widely reported incidents where customers were not treated as they should. But governments are going beyond the reasonable.

Europe’s infamous EU 261 passenger rights regulation is a contorting contagion. It penalizes airlines for disruptions—misunderstanding that the huge costs of not operating to schedule are already a major incentive.

Meanwhile, the European Court of Justice continues to transform EU 261 from bad to absurd. Its latest judgement found that the death of a pilot, at an outstation, is not an extraordinary circumstance. Anyone with common sense would certainly wonder who the judges expect to fly the plane!

It should come as no surprise that, nearly two decades after the regulation came to be, consumers are paying more to cover the cost of compensation, and EU studies show no improvement in delays or cancellations. At the same time, Europe conveniently excuses itself from modernizing air traffic management. The Single European Sky contains the tools to reduce most delays at their source and improve environmental performance.

So we were amazed when the US announced that EU 261 will be the model for its punitive passenger rights regime. That closely followed Canada’s latest innovation on its 261-style regime where the airline is now guilty until proven innocent. Considering that 93% of Canadian travellers polled told us that they were satisfied with their last flight, this is a regulatory sledgehammer to crack a nut, and the results will be messy. We must keep careful watch because governments from Australia to Latin America and the Middle East are all thinking about their own innovations in this area, which could be a nightmare for airlines and their passengers.

The rotten tomato prize, however, goes to the “pay as you fly” initiative by the EU’s DG Justice. In a misguided initiative to protect travelers, airlines would only receive full payment when the journey is complete. The cashflow impact would be horrendous. And who’s interest will be served by the higher costs and higher fares that will result?

It is a sad reality that we must remind governments that:

• They should follow the passenger rights principles that they agreed through ICAO, especially on proportionality, and
• That airlines serve passengers who are firmly in control of the ultimate passenger right—to choose the airline they spend their money with.

The Importance of Fully Implementing Global Standards: Slots and Schiphol

Problems also arise when global standards are not implemented as intended. There are two examples:

• The first is slots. The Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines (WASG) underpin 43% of all journeys. And European data show they are effective with a 95% utilization rate and plenty of choice for consumers. Still, some regulators succumb to temptations to “toughen” the rules to be seen to be doing something.

Truth be told, the best way to improve performance is fully utilizing the existing slot guidance provisions. For example, when there are extraordinary situations like Covid-19, the flexibility provided to regulators is the quality that keeps them relevant. Flexibility helps airlines meet consumer demand without perverse requirements to fly near empty planes.

Regulators should also insist on honest capacity declarations by all players—including airports, ANSPs, and border control. Inaccurate capacity declarations resulted in chaos at some hubs last year. A repeat performance cannot be permitted. We need rigorous attention on meaningful capacity declarations. Where known staff shortages and airspace restrictions exist, they must be planned into the capacities that airlines are scheduling against, not absorbed by delays or cancellations on the day.

• The second example is Schiphol. The Dutch government imposed a 12% capacity cut in a crude effort to manage noise. We won a court challenge because the government didn’t honour its decades-long commitments under the ICAO Balanced Approach on noise management. Consultation was a charade and operational restrictions were the first choice—not the last resort as the Balanced Approach calls for.

The Dutch government is appealing, and we continue to challenge for two reasons. An industry focused on safety cannot accept the politicization of technical discussions. And ignoring the rules-based order established by global standards is a slippery slope to confusion that we airlines can ill-afford and our customers will not tolerate.

The message is simple. Global standards are key. When fully applied, they improve safety and drive consumer benefits, operational efficiencies and sustainability efforts.

The Importance of Acting Globally: Sustainability

And on sustainability, we have said from the beginning that it is a global challenge that needs a global solution.  

At the 41^st ICAO Assembly in October 2022 governments agreed a long-term aspirational goal for aviation to achieve net zero emissions by 2050—aligning governments with our net zero by 2050 resolution at the 77^th IATA AGM a year earlier.

That’s important because governments are now accountable to deliver a global policy framework to achieve net zero by 2050. And even though “aspirational” is a qualifier in LTAG, failure is not an option.

What has happened since LTAG was agreed?

Let me just highlight two significant steps.

First, IATA has published a series of roadmaps to net zero by 2050. These roadmaps are the first detailed assessment of the key steps necessary to make net zero by 2050 an aviation success—covering technology, infrastructure, operations, finance and policy. They will, of course, evolve as we dig deeper to set interim milestones on the way to net zero.

I must emphasize that the roadmaps are not just for airlines. Governments, suppliers, and financiers cannot be spectators to the challenge. We all have skin in the game. And each must deliver the products, policies or investments needed to decarbonize.

Expert evaluation is essential. But too often even professional organizations contribute amateur assessments to this important debate. And that helps nobody. The latest that caught my eye, because it received widespread media coverage and is now often quoted, was a recent Royal Society report on resource requirements for net zero aviation fuels.

To underpin their research, they used fuel burn performance data for flights between London and New York for a Boeing 737-300. Yes, you heard me right, a 737-300, an aircraft that went out of production in 1999, flying between London and New York. Now, I’ve flown the 737-300 so I know a bit about it and what I know for certain is you cannot get the minimum of 21 tonnes of fuel that they estimated you would require into the fuel tanks that can only take a maximum of 16 tonnes. So, if we know that that section of the report is rubbish what confidence can we have in the rest of the document?

Decarbonizing aviation is a serious multi-trillion-dollar initiative. It must be informed by expert research that can stand up to scrutiny.

And that leads me to a second important development since LTAG. IATA published a global standard methodology to track progress toward net zero. The transparency that accurate tracking will enable is critical to holding ourselves and our stakeholders accountable—accountable for what is achieved and what is not in the quest for a truly credible net zero by 2050 target.

Temptations

I’ll say it again. Decarbonizing aviation is a serious issue and governments must not be allowed to use it to shore up exchequer finances.

CORSIA illustrates the risk. The ICAO Assembly increased CORSIA’s financial burden by adjusting the baseline to 85% of 2019 emissions. We accepted this as part of a political compromise to achieve LTAG and with the assurance that CORSIA would be the only economic measure applied to international aviation.

Almost immediately Europe developed amnesia. Not only is it threatening to make EU ETS extra-territorial, but several European states also want to tax jet fuel—in defiance of the Chicago Convention and almost every bilateral air service agreement and of course, undermining the CORSIA agreement that Europe promoted.

And the argument that international aviation is not taxed does not hold water. We analyzed data from almost 7 billion tickets for international flights going back to 2018 which showed that airlines have paid over US$380bn in taxes and charges which added over 33% to the price of a ticket. And if we include domestic flights, that figure of US$380bn rises to half a trillion US dollars. It’s important that policy makers are moved by facts not fictions and it’s heartening that 75% of travellers see green taxes for what they are—nothing more than government greenwashing!

Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Of course, our biggest focus is on SAF which will be the biggest contributor to net zero success.

Today’s SAF production is less than 0.1% of what we need for net zero. But the trend is positive. In 2022, SAF production tripled to 300 million liters. And while critics of our industry dismiss that figure as irrelevant, it’s important to remember that airlines used every single drop costing almost US$350m. With the right supportive policies, reaching 30 billion liters by 2030 is challenging but achievable. That would be about 6% of the 450 billion liters annual production capacity we need in 2050. We think it will be the tipping point because achieving it will establish the trajectory needed to scale up for 2050.

Why are we not moving faster? The willingness of airlines to use SAF is definitely not the issue. As I’ve said,  every drop of SAF ever produced has been purchased and used. The problem is insufficient production capacity to meet demand.

That’s why we must increase the number of pathways for SAF production and diversify feedstocks—of course while maintaining their sustainability credentials. Doing so will open production opportunities best suited to particular geographical locations. Governments should be jumping over themselves to be first in line for the job creation, local economic stimulus, and biodiversity protection that SAF production brings—significant benefits for both developed and developing economies alike.

Unfortunately, the politicians have not made good on their COP 26 promise to stop financing fossil fuels. We’ve not seen a major shift of fossil fuel subsidies to green energy—certainly not for SAF.

The US approach to SAF is the most advanced with a system of tax credits to drive up production levels. This will be more effective than purchase mandates being considered as far and wide as Singapore, India and Europe. When there is not enough supply, a purchase mandate will drive prices up, stall innovation and limit competition long before supply increases.

And if there is an early policy decision that is needed, it is to establish global standards for a SAF book and claim system that can fairly allocate SAF credits with no double counting.

Just as location makes no difference on the impact of CO2 emissions, it has no impact on where SAF is uplifted and used either. A global approach to book and claim for SAF credits will help facilitate economies of scale in SAF production. And it will avoid the long-distance shipping (or even importation) of SAF, which would only degrade its climate credentials.

It is important that we get these basics of energy transition done—production incentives, more diversified production pathways and a book and claim system. Our commitment to net zero by 2050 is fixed and firm. We have the roadmaps for an energy transition. Now we need these tools to get the job done!

Looking Ahead

The sustainability challenge is, bar none, the biggest that we will face as leaders of the aviation industry. This will be difficult and take time. As pioneers building the net zero emissions age for aviation, scrutiny of our efforts will be extreme. We must welcome it as a means of telling the impressive story of aviation’s decarbonization and its contributions to society.

We have every reason to be proud of a profitable, safe, efficient and sustainable global air transport industry and our research tells us that people appreciate what we do:

• 87% believe that flying is critical, and we must find a way to fly sustainably without restricting travel
• 88% feel that air travel has a positive impact on society
• 82% recognize aviation as a key contributor to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and
• 91% see air connectivity as a modern necessity and
• 81% of travellers appreciate the freedom to fly more today than they did pre-pandemic

And we have lived up to the faith they place in us;

• Last year airlines transported goods valued at US$8.5tr, supporting enormous economic opportunities
• And this year we expect to safely enable 4.4 billion flyers to do business, reconnect with loved ones, explore our beautiful planet, fulfil something on their bucket list, or expand their horizons.

In the two hours it takes for our AGM, there will be over a million people experiencing the wonders of air travel. We dedicate ourselves to being profitable, safe, efficient and sustainable because each of those arrivals has every potential to make good things happen in our world.

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Aviation is resilient. And we are rebounding.

People who longed for the freedom to fly are taking to the skies again — and in growing numbers. By next year, most markets should see traffic reach or exceed pre-pandemic levels.  

Air cargo stood out as a lifeline for vaccines, supply chains, and airline revenues throughout the Covid-19 crisis. And it has grown to be an even more vital contributor to revenues.  

Covid-19 was catastrophic. It robbed our world of millions of people — family, friends, and colleagues. And the response of governments dismantled connectivity, destroyed jobs and inflicted misery on people, actions justified by politicians around the world that “their decisions were driven by the science”. George Bernard Shaw once observed that “science never solves a problem without creating ten more”. How true that is. 

But we survived, defying predictions of bankruptcies and failures. It certainly helped that prior to the crisis, the industry’s financial foundations were at their strongest point ever, owing to your leadership.

It was a team effort that saw us through. Airlines took prudent and difficult decisions to stay afloat as revenue evaporated. For our people, it was a story of wage cuts, layoffs, reassignments, or retrenchments but let’s not forget that these actions saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. Our shareholders and financiers provided much-needed loans and investment. And some governments had the foresight to financially bridge many airlines through the crisis. 

Our industry is now leaner, tougher, and nimbler. Our latest analysis shows losses in 2021 close to US$42bn, a huge loss, but down from our earlier estimate of US$52bn. And we now believe that global losses will be cut further, to US$9.7bn this year. Industry-wide profit should be on the horizon in 2023.  

Yes, we are resilient, and we are rebounding. 

But while the outlook is positive, the business environment is challenging.  

• Inflation topped 9.0% in the OECD in April.  
• Our outlook expects GDP to grow 3.4% this year. Not bad but down on earlier forecasts. 
• The World Bank expects energy prices to soar 50% compared with 2021. 
• Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has destabilised globalisation, threatened the world’s food supply, and recreated a geopolitical divide not seen since the Cold War.  
• And fixing battered balance sheets carrying debts of US$650bn will be a monumental challenge.  

There is no way to sugarcoat the bitter economic and political realities we face. But the desire to travel and the necessity of moving goods are both solid.  

Recent history supports optimism for aviation in challenging times.  

During the global financial crisis, travel patterns changed, but passenger numbers held steady, with a quick return to growth from 2010. And the decade that ensued delivered aviation’s strongest financial performance ever. 

History repeats itself. We already see strong demand that will grow in the months and years ahead.  

To support our future success, I will highlight just four of the challenges for our collective attention: 

• We, and I mean everyone, must learn the lessons of Covid-19,  
• We need to be clear with governments on what is needed from regulation, 
• We must deliver on our net zero emissions commitment, and 
• It has never been more important for us to improve gender diversity  

Covid-19 

Covid-19 will not be the last global pandemic. We all hope for a very long gap before the next one. But it is vital that we learn from the mistakes made in how aviation was shut down and how it is being reopened. 

When Covid-19 hit, governments closed borders and stopped people from flying. They did not consult with the industry. They did not follow the advice of WHO. Yes, decisions were based on science, but it was political science, not medical or data science. 

Covid-19 still spread around the world.  

Analysis by Oxera and Edge Health concluded that, at best, border closures may have delayed infection peaks by just a few days.  

There was one virus, but each government invented its own methodology to control what travel remained possible. This is documented by Timatic. At the peak of the crisis, it was registering hundreds of changes daily to entry restrictions. How can anybody have confidence in such a shambolic, uncoordinated, and knee-jerk response by governments? 

The cost of government mismanagement was substantial. It devastated economies, disrupted supply chains, and destroyed jobs. The restrictions even hurt people’s health. Our research shows that two-thirds of people felt their quality of life deteriorated because of the impacts of travel restrictions. And this is confirmed by WHO data showing a 25% rise in mental health issues. 

So, the first lesson is the wisdom of what WHO said from the beginning. Closing borders is not the right response to a pandemic.  

As governments eased Covid-19 restrictions, different problems emerged: delays and disruptions.  

Disruptions happen even at the best of times. But many of these could have been avoided. 

Governments had no plan and worked in isolation. They made things up day-by-day, and in some cases did complete U-turns—the worst being the panicked over-reaction to Omicron. This unpredictability made the restart much more difficult. 

It’s no wonder there are operational challenges for some airlines and at some airports today.  

The immediate priority is working together with governments and airports to address capacity issues where they are occurring. Let’s be clear, these problems don’t exist everywhere, and solutions are already emerging.  

The longer-term priority is ensuring that governments work much more closely with airlines in the next crisis—whatever that may be. 

Regulation 

Let’s move to regulation. It is not the most glamorous topic, but there are good reasons for us to be concerned about recent developments.  

As the regulatory focus shifts to non-pandemic issues, politicians are filling agendas with a plethora of initiatives. Not all will be helpful. 

Three areas are of particular concern: slots, accessibility, and consumer rights.  

On slots, we all saw how valuable flexibility in the global system was during the crisis. It preserved networks when government decisions made demand disappear. We still need that flexibility because the world is still far from normal. But even more critically, we cannot let governments forget the importance of a global standard approach for slots.  

The reminder is timely because the UK and EU plan to review slot rules this year. Is there anybody in this room who believes they will reach the same conclusion? Different outcomes will put the predictability of the global system at risk. Brazil offers a good example. It strengthened its regulation by working within the framework of the Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines. It’s the way all governments need to work. 

On accessibility, countries are aligning policies, including on transport, with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, the EU, the UK and the US are particularly active. Yes, we need to improve, but travellers with disabilities would see no benefit if the 185 signatories created 185 different solutions. 

On consumer rights, at least 30 countries are looking at their regulations. Much of this activity is spurred by the extraordinary experiences when governments shut down connectivity at the beginning of the pandemic. In other words, they now want to regulate US for the chaos THEY created. Keeping in mind that EU regulation 261 on consumer rights already costs the industry US$10bn annually, much of it from disruptions forced upon us by other providers such as air traffic control. The stakes are high. 

We don’t oppose regulation, but it must create solutions, not add to problems. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. When it comes to politicians and regulation let me paraphrase another great Irish writer, Brendan Behan, “I’ve never seen a situation so dismal that a politician couldn’t make it worse”.  

And now I turn to the glamorous part of regulation: infrastructure charges.  

In October, I reported on the egregious attempts by infrastructure providers to raise charges. The nightmare is becoming reality. Heathrow was allowed to increase charges 50% and is asking for more. Schiphol confirmed a 37% hike for 2022-24. Not to be outdone, Dublin joined the group, wanting an 80% hike over 2023-2026.  

The prize for the cheekiest behavior, goes to the government of the Bahamas. In 2021, Bahamas regained control of its airspace from the US and contracted the US FAA to continue providing overflight services free-of-charge. The government of the Bahamas then promptly started collecting overflight fees from airlines at double the previous rate! You could not make this stuff up if you tried.  

These are just the vanguard. Focusing on airports, out of the top 100, more than half announced increases for 2022 and 2023—expecting their customers to make up for revenues they did not get during the pandemic. Try that in a competitive business. “Dear Valued Customer, we are charging you double for your coffee today because you could not buy one yesterday.” Who would accept that? 

This behaviour is why we oppose “light touch” regulation proposals by airports. And we categorically reject their characterization of aeronautical revenue as insignificant. In fact, Airports Council International reports that aeronautical revenues for airports were US$99bn in 2019.  

Too many airports are addicted to a “spend big and cream it off the customer” mentality. And airport opposition to strong independent economic regulation demonstrates that they know it’s wrong.  

A rare regulatory success story is Spain. The government rejected AENA’s unjustified request to recover US$2.4bn of pandemic losses. We need other governments to show similar backbone.    

Sustainability 

Now I turn to sustainability. At our last AGM we took the monumental decision to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Now we must turn our commitment into carbon reductions.  

Predicting what technologies will be available in 2050 is an imprecise science. But we currently expect 100% carbon abatement with:  

• 65% through SAF 
• 19% through offsets and eventually through carbon capture.  
• 13% from hydrogen and electric propulsion that Airbus, Boeing, and other manufacturers are committed to delivering by 2035 
• And 3% should come from more efficient operations 

Talking about operational efficiencies, governments also need to do their part. The EU spearheaded the charge on sustainability. But the near complete failure of its member states to implement the Single European Sky (SES) exposes government greenwashing. SES could eliminate up to 10% of Europe’s air transport emissions with technology that exists today. It’s beyond embarrassing, it is a scandal for Europe that it has failed to deliver. 

And insult is being added to injury with European environment taxes reaching US$5bn annually — also greenwashing. These taxes have not delivered SES, produced a drop of SAF or reduced emissions in any way. Taxes won’t stop flights, they just price flying out of the reach of some people and make aviation LESS efficient. 

In contrast, airlines have committed US$17bn in forward purchase SAF agreements. And, irrespective of price, airlines have used every drop of SAF that was available in 2021. And it will be the same for this year. We’d buy more if we could.  

Fortunately, airline demand has stimulated an exponential increase in SAF production. By 2025 there could be 5 billion litres of SAF produced annually — 40 times what was available last year.  

The momentum is undeniable, but there is still work to be done. And government policy will play a big role. 

Governments don’t need to micromanage how airlines purchase SAF. They need to incentivise production. The successful use of production incentives to transition to solar or wind for electricity production proves the point. The cost of the clean solutions dropped below the cost of using fossil fuels. Clean electricity is now cheap and widely available. 

With a similar approach, we could see 30 billion litres of SAF by 2030. That will still be far from where we need to be. But it would be a clear tipping point towards our net zero ambition of ample SAF quantities at affordable prices.  

Offsets are a smaller part of our ambition and bring their own unique challenges.  

Longer-term, as we move from stabilizing emissions to a net zero focus, our offset providers must transition to a viable market that includes affordable and scalable nature-based solutions and carbon removals. 

The immediate use of offsets is with CORSIA—the landmark international agreement reached through ICAO to stabilize aviation’s international emissions from 2020.  

CORSIA is in danger.   

Governments are split on the baseline. It was meant to be the average of international emissions for 2019 and 2020. When CORSIA was agreed in 2016 nobody could have imagined that governments would stop airlines from flying for much of 2020. After agreeing to remedy this by using only 2019—the industry’s position—several governments, now want to penalize us for NOT flying and have proposed to revert to the 2019-2020 average, irrespective of inequities.   

On top of this, not all governments respect CORSIA as the single economic measure for international aviation that it was meant to be. The most worrying is the EU. Its parliament voted to apply its ETS on top of CORSIA, forgetting that the world unanimously rejected this extra-territorial ambition in 2012. 

Where do we go from here?  

First, we need a successful, fair and, effective CORSIA. Our proposal is to maintain a 2019 baseline. If states want to be more ambitious, and they should, incentivising SAF is the way to go.  

Second, to enable a comprehensive approach to sustainability, governments must commit to the big picture. Our net zero by 2050 goal is firm, and we will be accountable. Governments have no similar commitment. To enable net zero by 2050 with an effective policy framework it is essential that this year’s ICAO Assembly commit to a Long Term Aspirational Goal of similar ambition to the industry.   

This approach is in the DNA of aviation. It is how we tackled noise and improved safety. Achieving net zero by 2050 is as critical. Failure to agree on a Long Term Aspirational Goal, or a polite agreement that kicks the can down the road, would be unacceptable outcomes. 

Gender Diversity 

The last area that I will address is gender diversity. A photograph of this room would demonstrate the challenge. Half the world’s population is female, but you would never know it from this male-dominated room. 

Addressing the gender imbalance is the right thing to do. The gender imbalance is short-changing our industry on talent. And it is not sustainable. How can we solve the skill shortages that we are all facing without equally engaging both halves of the population?  

In 2019 we launched the 25by2025 initiative to improve the industry’s gender balance. Since then, 111 organisations have signed-up to its commitments. Signatories commit to reach at least 25% female participation in senior or non-traditional positions or to improve female representations in these roles by 25%.  

We should be inspired that change is happening in our industry.  

In 2019, 3% of IATA airline CEOs were women. Today, that is nearing 9%. Recent female CEO appointments at Pegasus, El Al, KLM, Austrian, and others are part of this momentum. And an indicative sample reporting from 25by2025 signatories shows that nearly a quarter of senior roles are held by women. 

More progress, of course, is needed. If you have committed to the 25by2025 initiative, thank you for your leadership. Those who have not yet committed are encouraged to join. There is a booth in the exhibition hall where the IATA team can help you join the drive for change. 

Conclusion 

This is a unique time for aviation. We have proven our resilience. And we are rebounding as a safe, sustainable, and diverse industry that is on its way to being profitable.  

The recovery from Covid-19, however, is coincident with a tectonic shift in geopolitics. The Russian invasion and subsequent war in Ukraine have shaken the foundations of globalization to which aviation has contributed so much, and that, in turn, enables so much of our business. 

No war is good. Wars bring human suffering. And the stakes in Ukraine could not be of greater consequence. That is why, even for our apolitical business-focused association, there cannot be any ambiguity in condemning what is happening in Ukraine. I am sure that I speak for all participating in this assembly in calling for peace. 

In the meantime, we continue our critical work of bringing people together.  

We are builders of peace and enablers of freedom. 

Thank you 

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