A NEW ROLE FOR IATA

12 June 2023

Despite its shortcomings, in particular, it's very difficult relations with travel agents that are necessary for the life of air transport, IATA (International Air Transport Association) has perfectly succeeded in its mission of creating a prosperous and reliable air transport. And yet it was not easy when it was created on April 19, 1945, at the Hilton Hotel in Havana. The world was then in chaos, the Second World War was certainly coming to an end, but it ended only after the capitulation of Japan, on September 2 of that same year.

Everything had to be rebuilt. The Chicago Conference in November 1944 laid the foundations of modern air transport by positioning it from the outset with a global vocation by applying the same rules to all countries, including defeated countries. These guidelines still had to be implemented by the carriers. This has been IATA's role. Some milestones have marked the life of this organization.

This was first the creation of airline and airport codes, an essential instrument for the standardization of this activity. Conceived in 1946, these codes have remained unchanged, signifying each airline's entry into the world of scheduled air travel. And then came the stroke of genius: the development of the "Interline" agreements that made it possible to use tickets issued by one company to travel on another, by setting in motion the compensation mechanism between carriers. This is how air travel became global. The great era of the construction of networks and major carriers could begin, under the watchful eye of IATA, which ensured that competition between airlines did not degenerate into a tariff war that was then incompatible with the enormous investments that this activity had to deploy.

From the 1970s, i.e. the arrival of very large aircraft and the generalization of electronic reservation systems, IATA has striven to provide operators with efficient distribution tools. It was first the creation of the famous BSP (Billing and Settlement Plan) by Brian Barrow, still active, which transformed the distribution of airline tickets to travel agents and provided carriers with a statistical tool of great use. 53 years later, it is still active. In the mid-1990s, IATA embarked on a new challenge called "Simplifying The Business", which involved replacing paper tickets with electronic files. No one would now dare to go back. Led by Tom Murphy, the STB has allowed a real leap in the management and development of air transport. The latest innovation has been launched for 6 years now, it is the NDC "New Distribution Capability" which, in the long term, should revolutionize the relationship between carriers and customers. I could also mention the IOSA (IATA Operational Safety Audit) product, which has become mandatory for IATA membership and whose aim is to improve the operational reliability of air transport.

It should be noted that each new advance took years to be accepted by all actors and therefore generalized. It took an average of 20 years for each of them. The great strength of the Association is to never let go of a project before it is brought to completion. Admittedly, in many ways, IATA's sometimes very arrogant behaviour towards other players in air transport is open to criticism. But this should not take away the fact that this body is still irreplaceable. It is ultimately the only one that makes it possible to unify all air transport for objectives useful to its future.

And it is now that it becomes even more indispensable, at a time when the sector of activity has become the black sheep of ecologists but also of politicians. We recently saw the Prime Minister ask France before the National Assembly for an additional tax, not to create a fund for the research of its decarbonization, but to feed the coffers of its competitor, the railway! Defending air travel will require pooling all resources, whether they come from airlines, airports, manufacturers, countless service providers and even travel agencies. Considerable resources will have to be made available to carry out an extremely powerful lobby, capable of acting not country by country, but globally.

There is an urgent need to pool all financial capacities and to stop small actions and separate small press releases, as each of the actors wants to be more active than the other. This is a natural goal for IATA. Having built air transport, now comes the time to defend it.