IATA Regional Vice President Americas, Peter Cerda at the CAPA Americas Aviation & LCCs 2022 Summit

Transcript

Peter Cerda:The good thing is that we have seen a very good recovery in both regions, North America and Latin America, compared to other parts of the world where the recovery is right now around 41% on a global average. In Latin America, we're seeing a 21% to what we had in 2019. Peter, and in North America, 19%. So we're seeing a very strong rebound in both regions, which shows that people want and need to travel, and the airline community is really doing their job as well to slowly recuperate that connectivity that we had lost during COVID We've seen markets like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, that once the restrictions were removed, people just got back on airplanes. There was a strong necessity to really get back to normal ways of living, doing business, seeing relatives. And we're seeing markets like Colombia that's doing 24% better than it was in 2019. Mexico has just also exploded. So we're seeing very good recuperation on the domestic side, but we're also seeing good recovery on the international side. Colombia, Mexico as well, Dominican Republic have returned very strongly on the international side, and primarily because of family and friends visitation. People want to get back and see their family members, but also people want to get out and do travel and tourism, and these are very important markets in that area. We certainly hope it won't be lost for a long time, but in North America, there's still 850 city points connections that have not been recovered. Latin America, there's almost 500 city pairs. So as markets slowly become open again, governments remove the restrictions to travel and quarantine, we're going to see more airlines do their due diligence in recovering that lost connectivity. But it's going to be very important for governments to also do their responsibility. They need to be competitive, they need to put the right framework, the right environment. So airlines during this very challenging times will say, I'm going to come back to the market, because what we are seeing in both regions, there is strong uptake on a regional standpoint. But when you talk about global connectivity, because we have other regions that are still in lockdown or have entry requirements, airlines are more hesitant to recuperate that lost connectivity that we're still missing. It's an exciting time in Latin America and it's ultimately, it's going to help consumers. It's going to give them more options. There's going to be more connectivity, more competition. And that's going to help the region where, you know, we have to think in Latin America, it's a region that's highly dependent on air travel. However, most of the population travels on buses. So when you look at the big countries— Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina— a large percentage of their population has to travel by bus. And the distances are quite expansive. We don't have the same infrastructure as in Europe or North America, high rail or good highway systems. So the mobility, we're talking about days where aviation can connect a person between one city and another in hours. What we need to make sure is governments again do their part. The bus systems in our region are not taxed. They're not overregulated, whereas the industry is highly taxed, highly charged by government, and highly regulated. So we need a fair and open competitive field, not amongst airlines, but amongst different modes of transportation. And that's one of the pushes that we're having with governments. We have to have that balanced playing field because air connectivity plays such an important role, not only for passengers, but also for cargo in our region. Actually, the biggest challenge that we have with COVID and the regulations are in North America, not Latin America. And we would assume the bureaucracy would be in Latin America. We see in the US where mask wearing on board airplanes are no longer required. However, if you want to re-enter the country or come to the United States, you need a negative test, antigen or PCR, regardless if you're vaccinated or not. In the— in Canada, while they've opened the market after many, many months of closure, we're now beginning to see that there's a lack of adequate staffing at security, immigration, and that's causing huge havoc on the recovery of the transportation system in Canada, thus causing long lines, a lot of frustration to passengers. What we need the governments in both countries is we need to have just logical policies being implemented. In the U.S., we need to remove the testing requirement. Certainly for those who are already vaccinated, they should have free and easy access. And in Canada, we need to make sure that we have the right staffing for particularly the summer season, which is a country that's very dependent on air travel in the summer. Canadians travel a lot and many people visit the country. If we're able to do both for the summer, it's going to be a very successful year for for aviation in North America. If the restrictions are not removed in terms of testing in the US, or we don't have adequate staffing levels in Canada, it's going to be a very frustrating year for the air transport system, but most importantly for passengers.

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