IATA: Carsten Spohr New IATA Board Chairman

Seoul – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that Lufthansa Group Chief Executive Officer, Carsten Spohr, has assumed his duties as 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 chair of the IATA BoG. He has served on the BoG since May 2014.

Photo by: @asiacargobuzz

Spohr succeeds Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive His Excellency Akbar Al Baker, who will continue to serve on the BoG.

“I’m honored and excited to take on this role at this important time for our 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 stabilize 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.

Spohr has been Chairman of the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG since 1 May 2014. In this role, he manages the Lufthansa Group comprising the business segments Network Airlines, Eurowings and Aviation Services, with around 135,000 employees worldwide. Spohr began his aviation career after receiving a graduate degree in business engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and holds an A320 family captain’s license.

“I look forward to working with Carsten as Chair of the IATA Board of Governors. As we continually seek to broaden the IATA membership, his experience within the Lufthansa Group will be particularly valuable.
I also want to thank Akbar Al Baker for his strong leadership and support as Chairman over the last year. Under his leadership, IATA has made progress on a number of IATA initiatives including New Distribution Capability, One ID and digital transformation. Akbar also encouraged our gender diversity initiatives, leading to the creation of the association’s Diversity and Inclusion Awards to recognize those companies and individuals who are leading in this effort,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

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.

The full list of the 2019-2020 IATA Board of Governors is as follows:

Vitaly Saveliev	Director General and CEO AEROFLOT
Calin Rovinescu	President and CEO AIR CANADA
María José 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 Ourmières-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

Press release IATA