IATA Regional Vice President for the Americas Peter Cerda at CAPA's Latin America Aviation & LCCs Summit

Transcript

Peter Cerda:Well, it's an important year. We've just had elections in Colombia, recently in Chile, and next month they'll be in Brazil. So our largest economies are going through an election period, and it's critical because what we're seeing in this part of the world is a shift from a center-right, very open, business-driven-minded type of political scene, more to a shift of a center-left, which is more socially driven, more initiatives and programs on helping its citizens in those local communities. So it puts the industry at a different position in which we're going to have to advocate in a very different way. It's critical that we also change the way we advocate. Traditionally, we have always gone as an industry to the Minister of Transport or to the heads of states, but what we're seeing at the regional level is many of the members of government have a very big say, and in some cases a bigger say than some of these ministers do. Even at the provincial and local state level, they are very influential, so if you're able to have a discussion with the governor of Rionegro in Colombia, that brings tremendous amount of advocacy strength for us in trying to push our agenda rather than solely going to the Minister of Transport in Bogotá. So we have to do as an industry really demonstrate and illustrate to our government officials regardless of federal, local level, the benefits that aviation is bringing both from a social and economic state. There's no other region where air transport is playing such an important role in those 2 aspects, particularly in the recovery mode. As I've said many times, this region does not have formal and structured train systems or good highway systems. And we've seen it with the opening of our borders when it occurred last year. In Colombia, the moment that restrictions for movement were lifted, you know, people started to travel again. The same in Mexico. Colombia has 38% increase from 2019 figures. Mexico has recovered. We're seeing it in other countries. So air transportation is fundamentally a public source of movement. And that's the other thing we're trying to convey to governments. We need to get off the notion that air transport is a— is part of the private sector, is only for the elitists. Air transportation is for everyone in every community in our region because it brings that social and economic well-being to every community. Thank you.

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