CAPA's Airlines in Transition: limits on ownership, legal knots, labour and long haul

At CAPA's Airlines in Transition 2014 conference in Dublin, the opening session included high profile industry figures debating a key area of airline industry transformation (or not): national ownership controls. The panel included IAG CEO Willie Walsh, Norwegian Air Shuttle CEO Bjorn Kjos, AirAsia co-founder and Dublin Aerospace Chairman Conor McCarthy, European Commission Director Aviation and International Transport Policy Matthew Baldwin and Irish Aviation Authority CEO Eamonn Brenan.

John Byerly, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation at the US State Department and a major negotiator in the EU-US Open Skies agreement, set the context for the discussion with a review of the "archaic" restrictions on foreign ownership and control. All panellists, airline executives and regulators alike, agreed that the current system is "stupid".