Carsten Spohr appointed 78th IATA Board chairman

June 3, 2019: Lufthansa Group chief executive officer, Carsten Spohr, took charge as the chairman of the IATA board of governors (BoG) for a one-year term effective from the conclusion of the 75th IATA Annual General Meeting in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Spohr is the 78th IATA BoG. He succeeds Qatar Airways group chief executive Akbar Al Baker. IATA also announced that JetBlue Airways president and CEO Robin Hayes will serve as chairman of the BoG from June 2020, following Spohr’s term.

Saying that he was honoured and excited about the new role, Spohr outlined the challenges that faced the industry. “We face a number of challenges, including growing protectionism, high taxes and trade wars. Probably the greatest challenge of all is sustainability. The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is a major achievement that will stabilise our carbon emissions from 2020. Now we must map out the path to achieving our much more ambitious 2050 goal — to cut net emissions to half 2005 levels. Aviation is serious about its climate change commitments. And we will be pushing hard for governments to do their part by sorting air traffic management inefficiencies and laying the policy framework for the commercialization of sustainable aviation fuels,” said Spohr.

The full list of the 2019-2020 IATA board of governors is given below: 

Vitaly Savelie, director general and CEO, Aeroflot

Calin Rovinescu, president and CEO, Air Canada 

Maria Jose Hidalgo Gutiérrez, CEO, Air Europa

Benjamin Smith, CEO, Air France/ KLM (Representing Air France)

Yuji Hirako, president and CEO, All Nippon Airways

Douglas Parker, chief executive officer, American Airlines

Rupert Hogg, chairman and CEO, Cathay Pacific

Liu Shaoyong, chairman, China Eastern Airlines

Wang Changshun, chairman, China Southern Airlines 

Pedro Heilbron, CEO, Copa Airlines 

Ahmed Adel, Chairman and CEO, EgyptAir

Tewolde GebreMariam, CEO, Ethiopian Airlines 

Donald F Colleran, president and chief executive officer, Fedex Express

Christine Ourmieres-Widener, CEO, Flybe

Luis Gallego Martin, CEO, Iberia

Yuji Akasaka, president, Japan Airlines

Robin Hayes, president and CEO, JetBlue Airways 

Sebastian Mikosz, managing director and CEO, Kenya Airways 

Walter Cho, chairman and CEO, Korean Air

Enrique Cueto, CEO, Latam

Carsten Spohr, chairman and CEO, Lufthansa

Mohamad El-Hout, chairman/director general, Middle East Airlines

Mehmet Tevfik Nane, CEO, Pegasus Airlines 

Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas

Akbar Al Baker, CEO, Qatar Airways 

Rickard Gustafson, president and CEO, SAS

Saleh Nasser Al Jasser, Director General, Saudi Arabian Airlines 

Goh Choon Phong, CEO, Singapore Airlines 

Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director, SpiceJet

Oscar Munoz, CEO, United Airlines