‘Eurozone crisis could tip airlines into the red’

Improving business confidence and encouraging news from the US economy are heartening developments, but it is far too early to start predicting a soft landing for 2012. That was the message from Iata director general and CEO Tony Tyler. “The euro zone crisis is far from over. Failure to achieve a durable solution will have dire consequences for economies around the world and it would most certainly tip the airline industry into the red,” said Tyler. “Airlines have made massive investments in new fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly aircraft. The challenge is to deploy them profitably into a dynamic and uncertain market. Governments, meanwhile, need to take a strategic view of the airline industry that recognises its value as a catalyst for economic growth.” Airlines transport about 3 billion people a year and over a third of the value of goods that are traded internationally is transported by air. “Getting people and goods to their destinations more efficiently improves competitiveness. Infrastructure investments to enable aircraft to land and take off with a minimum of delay and fly the most fuel- and carbon-efficient trajectories will return a far greater payout to global GDP than shortsighted and narrowly focused tax grabs,” he said. “Let’s hope that 2012 will be the year when politicians put the required political capital behind important projects such as the Single European Sky and NextGen in the US,” said Tyler.