By Constance von Muehlen Today, I’m writing with gratitude and immense pride to tell you about some truly heroic efforts carried out by our employees and communities. This is about people coming together in a powerful way and demonstrating the very best of what Alaska is all about:Stepping up when we’re needed, serving our communities, working together as a team, and providing remarkable care for people. This really is an example of Alaska at our very best. Recently, Alaska Airlines employees answered the call to provide domestic charter assistance to the U.S. government to transport Afghan refugees fleeing their country and seeking safety in ours. Within a matter of hours of receiving our initial instructions from U.S. Transportation Command, we [...]

By Ignacio Biosca Vancells The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the world, and the air transport sector has undoubtedly been, along with tourism, one of the most affected. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Aena carried out various initiatives to, on the one hand, guarantee the development of air activity as an essential service for citizens and, on the other, to implement all those measures necessary to guarantee the safety of the facilities. In the first case, Aena has continued, during all the difficult stages of the Covid-19 crisis, carrying out its work of managing an essential infrastructure to allow the development of vital operations for society at a critical moment. In the second, an operational recovery [...]

By Jose Ricardo Botelho One of the main challenges of our time is to find answers to the impacts caused by climate change and aviation, as a global industry, plays a decisive role. The sector is responsible for only 3% of CO2 emissions and aims to reduce emissions by half by 2050, compared to 2005 level. Several industry segments have set clear targets for themselves, including reducing net carbon emissions to zero, and they are already working intensively to achieve this by implementing actions in line with the provisions of the Paris Agreement and ratified by ICAO. The adoption of SAFs (Sustainable Aviation Fuels) is an important part of this strategy. Last month, the European Union launched a package of [...]

By Marianela Cartagena I would like to write about how to achieve in-flight passenger care excellence. Crew members who work on-board know that this is not something easy to accomplish as it may sound. Without a doubt, firstly we should consider self-knowledge. If one does not know oneself it will be more difficult to know others. Crew members should interact with empathy. The passenger is in an uncommon environment so we have to be understanding. There might be some of the following behaviors: uncooperativeness, faintheartedness, annoyance, talkative, curious, and affectionate among others. To inspire confidence in passengers from the moment they get on-board is priceless. Very especially for those who are anxious or afraid of the unknown. Therefore, I will [...]

  By Jose Ricardo Botelho Dear readers, In 2018, inbound tourism in Peru grew above the South American average with 4.4 million international tourists (Promperú) and, in 2019, foreign exchange income from inbound tourism reached close to 5 billion dollars, up 6.2% compared to 2018 (MINCETUR). When we look internally, domestic tourism positioned itself as one of the economic sectors that had been thriving the fastest with very interesting prospects for the near future. Peru has significant natural, historical and cultural attractive that draw people from all over the world and create 7.5% of the jobs in the country and contribute with 9.3% of the GDP (WTTC). With 60% of visitors to Peru arriving by air, the pandemic and its [...]

By Pedro Martin, President of the Cabildo of Tenerife. Tenerife will become for a few days the central point of the debate on the tourism and aviation industry, thanks to the meeting of all Europe in this field: the Aviation-Event Tenerife 2021. A meeting that is being held for the first time outside the usual circuit of European capitals in which it has been taking place until now, which for the island makes it even more special and relevant. The meeting, in which we have been working for many months, and which included the celebration on the island of the preparatory meeting of the members of the Supervisory Board of Aviation-Event during the month of March, will have the participation [...]

By Exequiel Sanhueza * Our sun, the Sol Invictus for the Romans or the Ra for the Egyptians, is a yellow dwarf star within the immense universe of stars and fortunately it still has enough capacity to give us warmth and life; the necessary and vital heat for our subsistence. However, for commercial aviation that flies high-performance aircraft at high altitudes, for its passengers and for its crew, our Sun is a huge concern. This has led scientists to develop an area of ​​meteorology called Space Weather, which aims to study, in real time, the behavior of the solar wind or the detachment of part of the solar corona and its impact on the magnetosphere, this essential part of the [...]

By Marianela Cartagena It was 2008, in Viña del Mar, Chile. I had been asked to give an interview at the request by a local newspaper, which was launching its first edition. I walked very confident with the support of my company, MCM Silva consultores -created in June 2005- and my brand new psychologist degree, obtained from the Diego Portales University in September 2003. All this after having worked seven years as a Flight Attendant and another ten years on the ground -the first six years, as secretary of the Operations Management Unit, another as secretary of the Presidency- and three years as head of the Training Department at Lan Chile Airlines. My answer to one of the questions I [...]

By Exequiel Sanhueza* By definition, the disruptive passenger is one who adopts altered, violent or unruly behaviors on an aircraft on the ground or in flight that interfere with the normal duties and functions of the crew and that also disturbs the tranquility of the rest of the passengers. In this regard, ICAO points out: The expression "unruly or disruptive passenger" has always been used in reference to those "passengers who do not respect the rules of conduct on board aircraft or who do not follow the instructions of the crew members and that way they disturb order and discipline on board. " Whatever the name by which it is designated, whether it is disruptive, insubordinate or disturbing, it is [...]

By Myriam Gómez* and Jeff Peet, Managing Editor ALA News  2021 can undoubtedly be, thanks to the hope that mass vaccination provides to prevent further infections by Covid-19 and the management of this devastating pandemic, a year in which the industry really takes on pending issues and, among them, Gender Equality should be a priority. Aviation must seize the opportunity provided by this reset, to take on this important challenge and work with the urgency that, according to IATA figures, women only occupy less than 5% of airline CEO positions in the world. But why do it? Because as the world is, it is essential. To ignore this matter is not to ensure the social sustainability of humanity. In times [...]