World Routes is the only route development forum operating on a global scale, providing a meeting place for airlines, airports, tourism authorities and governments that want to plan new air services.

The Strategy Summit conference will take place on the opening day of the event (25 September) to give delegates the chance to hear from senior leaders and experts in route development. The hot topics that will be discussed in presentations and panel discussions include:

• The impact of terrorism on aviation
• How do tourism destinations cope with new threats?
• Is there a new reality in aviation that disruptions will be regular?
• Is a new era of information sharing needed?
• Are we at peak capacity or is there more to come?

The Asian market has continued to grow for a decade and 14,000 more aircraft will be delivered to the region by 2034. The Summit will ask:

• Where will they go?
• How can airport planners cope?
• How can airlines help governments look ahead?
• Is consolidation likely?

Other discussions will focus on the ways that route networks can be expanded and how partnership working can make this happen.

The high profile speakers include Peter Bellew, CEO of Malaysia Airlines; Hou Wei, vice president of Hainan Airlines; Benyamin Ismail, CEO of AirAsia X Berhad; Kathleen Tan, CEO North Asia at AirAsia; Zhu Songyan, assistant president of Air China; Pekka Vauramo, CEO of Finnair and Neil Chernoff, senior vice president of network planning and alliances at Iberia.

Up to 3,000 delegates from around 300 airlines, 700 airports and 130 tourism authorities are expected to attend World Routes. The biggest names in the industry have registered for the event including Air China, American Airlines, British Airways, Emirates, Japan Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Lufthansa and Qantas.

The full Strategy Summit programme can be viewed at the event website.