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 [...]

By Nicole Noack.     Airline operators or owners have any number of business reasons for modifying their aircraft fleet. Whether it’s modernizing the flight deck or adding new passenger friendly amenities to the cabin, a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) is an often-used and effective method which also maintains the aircraft’s airworthiness. The process to complete an STC is complex, and to the uninformed may be perceived as a black box. It is important to keep in mind, however, that while the STC process is indeed complex, it is both well established and rigorous. While the interaction of airline owners or operators with aviation authorities like ANAC, TCCA, or CASA may be minimal, understanding key details about the process is [...]

By Jose Ricardo Botelho, Executive Director and CEO of ALTA. This year we embark on a new space that we call Overflying Latin America and the Caribbean to share with distinguished industry professionals perspectives on the future of aviation in the region and the work that industry and government must develop to accelerate recovery. For this first edition, I had the pleasure of talking with the elected Secretary General of ICAO, Juan Carlos Salazar, who will take office on August 1, 2021, being the first Spanish-speaker to assume this position in the organization that represents world civil aviation. . With more than 26 years of outstanding experience in the industry, Juan Carlos has recent achievements such as a 60% growth [...]

By Jose Ricardo Botelho, Executive Director and CEO of ALTA   We have reached one and a half months of the long-awaited 2021. A year full of hopes with the beginning of the COVID-19 vaccines global distribution and prospects of recovering step by step in-person activities after a 2020 with human and economic losses, as well as a heavily impacted aviation industry.   According to ICAO data, in 2020 there was a 50% overall reduction in seats offered by airlines around the world vs. 2019, and a 60% reduction in passenger traffic with 2.69 billion fewer passengers from 2019.   In our region, we estimate a 59.2% reduction in passenger traffic vs. 2019, totaling 177.3 million passengers carried in the [...]