Dear Members and Associates,
I am pleased to attach Keith Wallis' event review from yesterday's lively lunch with CX veteran of 30 years and current Chief Executive, Tony Tyler.
Apologies to attendee's for any inconvenience caused by late overbooking challenges at a full-to-the-rafters Foreign Correspondents' Club, top deck.
160th Industry Leader Lunch
I am pleased to attach, for those of you who could not make it, the text of Tony's speech. As advertised, it was a tonic filled tour of local and global issues affecting our industry. Today's Hong Kong print media picked up on the event, with pleasingly positive comments on ATC issues.
Yesterday's commerative Industry Leader Lunch programme has been posted to our web site. This lists upcoming speakers for 2008 and will give those out of towners who could not join more of a flavour for yesterday’s upbeat gathering. The appearance of "Mango Crumble a la Tyler" on the menu is an example of our aim to satisfy industry leader appetites with empathy.
Looking Ahead
I have had an extensive dialogue with a wide range of industry colleagues at recent events in New York, Manila, Dubai and Bangkok. The outcome is refreshed ambition for AFA, very much fuelled by our recent airline CEO speaker's generous feedback. Tony Tyler's comments yesterday and Idris Jala's letter of support are the kind of tonics AFA thrives on.
In summary, we will be building a stronger alliance with the Wings Club as it continues its overseas expansion (Rio in September / Dublin next March / a Hong Kong event muted for September 2009).
We will also formalise links to ISTAT while increasing our IATA "amplification of issues" role and developing more links with AAPA.
New AFA Chapters in 2008
These goals link to the formation of AFA chapters, of initially a modest size in the cities of Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Tokyo, Sydney (or Melbourne?), Delhi and Dubai in 2008.
These chapters are envisaged to evolve much as our initial AFA group in Hong Kong did in the mid-80s - informally and with a minimum of bureaucracy.
The AFA HQ in Hong Kong is pleased to help facilitate this "around the region" expansion via a more user friendly web site, specifically formatted to promote these new chapters and our outreach initiative to other activists in aviation groups.
New AFA Website/ Features
AFA's new web site will launch in mid-December. It will include an overview of the aviation industry calendar. Plus a Google application, which will allow you to selectively patch in other key sports, national holiday and global events.
We will undertake to refresh this calendar - members will merely need to tick their special industry and personal interests - say, aircraft finance / rugby / Asian holidays / to get a customised travel and resource planner. Event audit pulldowns will be added to this calendar to keep fellow members informed on what they believe are the most value adding events. Rather like an Amazon book or movie review.
Our AFA policy, as often articulated, is to encourage a consolidation of events and only actively support events which are produced empathetically “by the industry, for the industry"
I trust the above and attached is sufficient for members to absorb and react to.
Call for Activists
Specifically, please volunteer industry colleagues and friends who you feel would add value to the AFA’s expanding network. I have 27 names so far and would like to publish a list of 4-6 core activists per city by mid-December.
Each new chapter’s commitment minimally will be to organise 2-4 small gatherings per year. ie; for a lunch or two for 8-12, an after work cocktail reception once or twice a year and ideally to host an annual or bi-annual aviation facilities tour for AFA regional members. In short be an “activist? Help steer your industry’s future.
I believe AFA has somewhat by accident found a significant niche as an advocate and information exchange point for our “Trillion Dollar Club" That relates to Boeing’s US$1,002,000,000,000 estimate of the value of large airliners to be delivered to Asia/Pacific based airlines in the next 20 years.
It’s your industry. Your legacy. Please do play a part!
At this point in time, “a golden era" for airliner sales it is already easy to see where bottlenecks will choke growth. It is also easy to see where unreasonable taxation of our industry, by well-meaning, influential but often misguided green extremists could divert scarce R & D resources.
Finally, as I indicated yesterday, our industry may have lost the high ground and moral stance of “The Right Stuff" era. Airline offerings are now far more commoditised and price driven. However, please remind critics that the cost of a Sydney to London air ticket in 1946 was the equivalent of 60 weeks average wage, today it’s 10 days.
We don’t expect rose petal welcomes for this stunning delivery of service and personal choice but surely we should not allow ourselves to be kicked into a corner labelled ”New Tobacco" feel free to tax and harass.
Enough said...certainly for now.
Your news and views as ever appreciated.
Best,
Martin J. Craigs
President
