Joseph S. Murphy Industry Service Award
The challenges of safely transporting people and cargo in skinny metal tubes at high speeds and altitudes are made vastly more difficult by the conflicting economic rules, technical regulations and financial penalties that appear at national borders. No one airline or small grouping of airlines in an industry kept fragmented by archaic business restrictions has the clout to fight for a harmonized and efficient global system. However, there is the International Air Transport Assn.
Even in its early fare- and capacity-setting days, IATA had a technical role, improving operations, safety and reliability. This role has grown in importance and scope over the years. Facilitation was, and unfortunately is once again, one of the organization's key jobs. And then there is IATA's world role as the honest broker for the interests of airlines in general, fighting unreasonable rules, fees and taxes.
It is IATA's achievements in these and other roles that have earned it ATW's 2006 Joseph S. Murphy Industry Service Award. Over recent years, a reorganized IATA has stepped up its presence, filling leading roles in many areas that lacked coordinated airline leadership.
Its landmark Simplifying the Business effort to streamline ticket distribution and passenger and cargo processing will save the industry $6.5 billion annually, $3 billion coming when e-ticketing blankets the globe by the end of 2007 followed by e-freight in 2010. Also involved are establishment of standards for common-use self-service kiosks, ticket barcoding and soon, RFID for baggage tracking and security.
Demands for improved safety created a need for international safety audits, yet early efforts sometimes penalized safe airlines. The IATA Operational Safety Audit was developed in 2003 to focus attention on the airline as well as to set a standard by which carriers could prove alliance partners' competence. Applied to more than 140 airlines and accepted around the world, IOSA has become a mark of quality. It is a key tool in IATA's quest for a self-imposed safety improvement goal: Cutting the global hull loss rate to 0.65 per million sectors by the end of this year.
Tackling a crucial nexus where expenses collide with environmental standards and aviation system capacity, IATA plays a leading role in opening more direct air routes and improving airport acceptance rates, thereby reducing fuel wastage and pollution. Its Save a Minute effort to fine-tune local air routes, along with Go Teams that help airlines cut fuel burn, are chipping away at the problem. But there are bigger projects: IATA has been instrumental in developing pre-war Iraq airspace contingency plans; opening Russian airspace and cross-polar routes; opening routes across North Korea, including financing ATC equipment; opening and maintaining Afghanistan airspace; developing a new South China Sea route structure; developing solutions to nightly traffic jams on routes over the Bay of Bengal, and producing a Tokyo Narita noise and facility use study that the airport used to increase capacity while improving community relations. IATA also provided persuasive airline input into Future Air Navigation System development.
There are many more IATA roles, such as its leading advocacy for rational user charges and taxes. In 2005 its actions helped airlines save more than $2 billion in fees. Its newest challenge is shaping up in Europe, where the French-led move to fund global social programs from ticket taxes raises a new, unexpected source of suction on airline finances.
For the past three years, IATA has been led by the dynamic Giovanni Bisignani, DG and CEO, a forceful advocate of airline interests around the world. Already an effective organization before Bisignani's arrival, it since has reached new levels of achievement. The world's airlines are much better off thanks to IATA.
Source: www.atwonline.com