By Jose Ricardo Botelho, CEO of ALTA We begin a new year reaffirming ALTA's strong mission to represent the voice of the aviation industry in Latin America and the Caribbean and to build bridges of collaboration within the industry and between the public and private sectors. We need to continue advancing on critical measures to make the region more competitive for the development of air transport, generate greater opportunities for the population and greater benefits for the countries. Building these bridges involves consistent teamwork, contributing technical knowledge, listening and making proposals. Since its inception, aviation has been an industry that challenges the status quo through innovation, that generates opportunities that were not thought of before, that generates development. And this has been and [...]

By Jose Ricardo Botelho, CEO of ALTA and Adrian Neuhauser President of ALTA We are days away from the end of 2022. A year where aviation has brought us many satisfactions and reactivation results that exceeded our expectations, despite the extremely challenging environment shaped by the conflict in Europe and the macroeconomic environment in our region, which once again challenged us to be more flexible, to adapt our plans as we went along, and to do more with less. So much so that by September we had already surpassed the passenger traffic vs. pre-pandemic in Latin America and Caribbean with over 28.6 million travelers. In this 2022 we also managed to see each other in person, give each other a [...]

By Marianela Cartagena* In previous columns I talked about someone that has a well-developed resourcefulness sense, that being exposed to a series of stimulus or chaotic information situations, will be able to combine elements and generate a structure, among them, to produce a value. We also know that a resourceful leader gets inspired by creative teams when he or she leads them, combining his/her ideas instantly, making accurate decisions, to be successfully in that particular moment. Resourcefulness is the capacity of recursive optimal use; the mental ability to redefine purposes and usage; the quality to convert a thing into something else; to approach new ideas1. Micheal Charles Corballis (1936/2021) quotes René Descartes “I think, therefore I am,” as an example [...]

By Carlos Vianna, Head of Business Development, SITA. The current turbulent economic environment is undoubtedly adding new challenges for aviation, an industry still reeling from the devastating impacts of COVID-19. Operating on thin margins and with an ambitious goal of net zero carbon by 2050, can the industry ensure its long-term success and growth after the pandemic? We believe that growth and an environmentally sustainable industry are not mutually exclusive, but to achieve both, we must start now. The recovery of aviation and the benefits for the world economy SITA data shows that the industry recovery in 2022 is underway: in 2021, global air traffic was at 64% of pre-COVID levels, but still 18% higher than 2020 figures. The signs [...]

By Alejandra Labarca* Blockchain technology, or to be more rigorous, the "Distributed Ledger Technology” (DLT) as it is called due to the generic name of the technologies that include the block chain, is breaking with more force in different sectors of the economy to solve already structural bottlenecks and that only a technological shock can break in order to expand the productivity limits in different industries. The emergence of blockchain technology in 2008, during what was called the "subprime crisis" was nothing more than the result of a history of work initiated by intellectuals, mathematicians, computer scientists, Crypto-Punkies using cryptography as a method. It was not just a technical job but rather something based on strong paradigm-shifting beliefs about how [...]

By Arpad Szakal* Navigating Today’s Aviation Talent Landscape ‘The Great Resignation’ movement of 2021[1] caused a significant shift of power from the employer, to the people they are looking to hire. This trend impacted the aviation industry with significant consequences on attracting and retaining talent. The past couple of years gave people the rare opportunity to reflect and think about what they really wanted to do with their careers and lives. As a result, some left the industry to pursue new careers, and others turned to freelancing or self-employment. Now that businesses in the aviation sector are once again looking to invest in new talent to help drive recovery and growth, there simply aren’t enough candidates out there to deliver [...]

By Exequiel Sanhueza  Since the agricultural revolution twelve thousand years ago and then from the first industrial revolutions, all societies have required energy to be able to live and have obtained it from the beginning, by using our muscles and we discovered fire. Later we learned to use coal and oil to promote industrial development and then came the use of electrical and nuclear energy, irremediably depleting the non-renewable resources of our planet. The footprint that human beings have left on the planet has been deep and has covered our sky with harmful greenhouse gases (GHG) and today we observe that Mother Nature is responding fiercely, sending us unusual heat waves, melting ice, floods, extreme droughts and turbulence in the [...]

By Jose Ricardo Botelho* I would like to share some thoughts on an issue that we are facing in Brazil and that has a profound impact on the recovery of travel in the country and the region. It is about the mandatory inclusion of checked baggage with the purchase of air tickets; a measure proposed by the Communist Party of Brazil that was approved again by the National Congress last May and now depends on the sanction of presidency. Having nearly 10 years working in aviation, I have personally participated in projects that have managed to encourage a more competitive, open and aligned to global standards market in Brazil. In 2017, from the aviation authority ANAC, I participated in the [...]

By Marianela Cartagena Teamwork and creativity, two skills that are always so necessary and especially in these days of pandemic, are little studied in schools, universities and other educational settings. We can understand teamwork as a highly organized social structure oriented towards the achievement of a common goal, made up of a small number of people who adopt and exchange roles and functions, with flexibility and according to a procedure to manage socio-affective processes, in a climate of respect and trust. Effects of cooperative behavior within teams Trust and loyalty produce behaviors oriented towards a common goal and openness to dialogue. Communication and creativity as part of the knowledge of people are encouraged. The historian Arnold Toynbee proposed the “challenge [...]

By Jose Ricardo Botelho* Welcome to Colombia! To the beautiful land of CHARM, where DISNEY recently transported us with such enthusiasm. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the oldest and largest technical meeting of Latin American and Caribbean aviation, with almost 60 years of history: the ALTA CCMA & MRO Conference. A new opportunity to meet friends, do business, share good practices and, above all, demonstrate once again that this industry is alive, that it is transforming and looking for solutions to each crisis it faces. Truly, the event that is at the heart of this magnificent industry and when, during the most difficult times of 2020 and 2021, airlines and suppliers supported each other, walking hand [...]