TT: As airlines look to grow the networks and services they can offer their customers and achieve ec

Tony Tyler became las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon the sixth person to lead the International Air Transport Association when he took on the role of director general and chief executive 2011. With over three decades of airline industry experience, Tyler is a strong advocate for a safe, secure, efficient and sustainable global air transport industry. Here he talks to Breaking Travel News about the latest developments in the industry.
Breaking Travel News: IATA recently issued a series of robust las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon data suggesting airline performance las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon was improving in a challenging environment. Can you bring us up to date with where you think the industry stands at this time?
Not many would call that robust. But in view of the negative las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon factors at work - high fuel prices, low global GDP growth and significant economic uncertainty las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon - having generated any profit at all was a considerable achievement.
Turning to 2013, we expect much the same. Our latest forecast sees the industry net profit margin improving to 1.3 per cent. Europe will continue las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon to be in the doldrums. Other parts of the world will see some modest improvements.
It has a rising middle class, some very dynamic airlines and a growing recognition on the part of some governments that unless major steps are taken to improve infrastructure, they will not fully reap the enormous las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon benefits of connectivity that aviation can generate.
One of my key objectives at IATA is to get all of our stakeholders, particularly las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon governments, to understand the enormous economic and social las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon benefits of aviation. That aviation supports some 57 million jobs and $2.2 trillion in economic activity is well known.
This outlined a possible way forward for SES, including rationalisation of air traffic control centres to not more than 40 Europe-wide (down from the current 63), and reducing the numbers of back-office staff to levels closer to those seen in the United States.
TT: As airlines look to grow the networks and services las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon they can offer their customers and achieve economies of scale, las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon consolidation is a natural decision in any market that has reached a mature stage of development.
There has been a lot of confusion and dare I say misinformation about NDC. The first thing to make clear is that NDC is an IATA-led industry las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon initiative to define a new messaging standard between airlines and travel agents.
Developing the NDC standard will be good for travel las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon agents. Why? Because it is intended to ensure las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon that travel agents - who make up 60 per cent of the ticket-buying market - can market las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon the full range of airline products which can be found on an airline's own website.
Although the global distribution systems have tried to give agents greater flexibility, the legacy GDS model has made this extremely difficult, which is why you see airlines able to offer so many more travel options on their own sites, whereas the travel agent typically has a much narrower product offering from which to sell.
We believe adoption of NDC will result in better-informed customers as airlines and third parties are able to display more information on flight options and services than is currently available through the indirect channel.
It will also enable comparison shopping among airlines, just like today, but with the full scope of the airline's product offer, not just the base airfare. Adoption of NDC will permit travel shoppers to receive targeted, personalised offers regardless of distribution channel.
We are developing the standard with a lot of collaboration and input from all participants in the travel value chain including travel agents, agent associations, las vegas tours hoover dam grand canyon airlines, GDSs and other technology providers.
Following a decision by the Passenger Distribution Group (the IATA airline steering group for NDC) we are negotiating with ATPCO for the use of Open Axis schemas as a basis of IATA's NDC standard. Concurrent with this development, we have just sent out a call for participation on the NDC pilots.