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.
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
