IATA Update
IATA Regional VP for the Americas Peter Cerda provides an update on progress Latin American governments are making in adopting a more liberalised approach to aviation, how Argentina and Peru are addressing infrastructure challenges and if there are any threats on the horizon that would slow Latin America’s economic recovery.
Transcript
Peter CerdaWe are seeing some governments taking proactive steps. Not to the level that we would like to, but we are seeing governments such as Argentina, Chile, Peru who are being proactive, sitting down with the industry to see how we can make aviation even stronger. How we can increase capacity. Give more opportunities for our citizens in the region to travel even more. So we are seeing some progress not to the level that we're expecting. Unfortunately, we still have lots of barriers that many of our governments are imposing on the industry and they need to change the mindset in terms of considering aviation as a cash cow. We just want to be treated as an industry that is supporting transportation within the region.
We've seen tremendous progress in our Argentina in the last couple years. We went 14 years with the previous government where aviation wasn't even on the agenda. And with the Macri' government, in three years we have seen tremendous amount of progress. Lots of investments, lots of resources and efforts on airport infrastructure particularly in the market that's gonna see tremendous growth over the next years. So we do expect more progress, more reforms, better infrastructure in Argentina. Not only on the airport side, but on the air traffic side.
Well the region's gone through four or five years of tremendous headaches from the economic, political and social standpoint. We have what we call the perfect storm in Brazil, which had huge implications on the region, pretty much put it on hold any progress in Brazil. But we are beginning to see a shift. We are seeing new governments coming into play. We've had important elections in Chile, Argentina, more business driven government, which is going to stimulate more growth, more opportunities. And we're seeing it in those markets thanks to that mindset these governments are bringing in. We're seeing the ultra low cost coming in. We've seen the legacy carriers increasing capacity. So the horizon looks good. It's an important year in 2018 because we have elections in Brazil, Columbia and Mexico, which can have significant consequences for the industry either positive or negative depending on who the candidates are elected.
I think one thing that the region has is probably some of the best CEO's in the region. We have CEOs [Latam 00:02:28] out of Mexico, Avianca Copa who have been in those positions for over 20 years. They understand the industry. They've adapted to the many challenges that they've experienced because of there again, the social, political, and economic stimulus. These are airlines that have invested quite a lot on new airplanes, better service, and taking advantage of the technologies that are available to give more offerings to the traveling public.
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