ROUTES AMERICAS: Inside the Strategy Forum – The Key Quotes

Yesterday’s Routes Americas Strategy Forum attempted to highlight some of the key issues that are impacting the commercial aviation business across the entire Americas region. With a high profile list of speakers the content was specially developed to provide a unique insight into the business with informed moderators ensuring the key issues were not glossed over.

The HUB highlights the key quotes from yesterday's discussions ahead of the publication of a full report into the event in tomorrow’s The HUB Daily.

Event quotes...

"Mexico has 55 airports, they were privatised in five years using a model that works."
Phillipe Baril, chairman ACI Lac and president and CEO of Quiport S.A.

“The government's profits from taxation should be reinvested in the airport and infrastructure such as roads and facilities for the benefit of passengers, the government should not take away money to start other programmes that have nothing to do with airports."
Phillipe Baril, chairman ACI Lac and president and CEO of Quiport S.A.

"What drives our business is the GDP of a country and more or less, the GDP in Brazil is stable and growing. With some 2% increase in GDP the air transport demand goes up 3-4% in most countries."
Mauricio Emboaba Moreira, Senior Strategic Adviser, GOL Transportes Aereos

“Air China is the world's largest carrier by market capitalisation and the most profitable carrier in 2010 with profits of $2.1 billion.”
Zhihang Chi, Vice President & General Manager North America, Air China

"As the Chinese population grows wealthier the need to travel grows leaps and bounds; the way the Chinese celebrate New Year, first they would celebrate with a meal, then its with a TV, then someone says lets go to a restaurant, instead of staying at home lets go to a hotel, then they go to a new city then they say let’s go to a neighbouring country then they go further and further.”
Zhihang Chi, Vice President & General Manager North America, Air China

"Most international visitors first time coming to Canada will go to cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Quebec, but we are more than just Mousse, Mounties and Mountain country, we are probably the third or fourth visit to Canada.”
Kristi Wenaus, Director, Sales & Partnerships, Nova Scotia Tourism, Culture & Heritage

“Latam is a market that is growing very fast, we see this market continuing to grow, the main driver is the burgeoning middle class, in 20 years it will be the same size as that in North America.”
Patrick Baudis, Vice President Marketing, Latin America & Caribbean, Airbus

“There will be a market for the A380 in Brazil, it is a big market and if I was a betting man I would say there will be an A380 flying to Brazil in 2012, but the question is not when but simply which airline?”
Patrick Baudis, Vice President Marketing, Latin America & Caribbean, Airbus

"Most growth will be occurring in the Asia-Pacific region and in particular the western cities in China. Where the manufacturing is, we are going to go.”
Todd Scott, Global Network Planning Manager, UPS Airlines

(additional reporting by Oliver Clark, Editor of Routes News)

Richard Maslen

Richard Maslen has travelled across the globe to report on developments in the aviation sector as airlines and airports have continued to evolve and…