11 April (Day 1) highlights

• Partnerships, JVs and equity stakes are in the strategic mix for American carriers wishing to tap into Asia’s growth
• How are Asia’s airlines tapping into the Americas to expand their global footprints
• Bilateral trends
• US airlines often go outside traditional alliances in ensuring they have blanket coverage of Asia

• Evolution of global and bilateral alliances
• The second coming of equity alliances?
• Are immunised airline JVs sustainable in the long term?
• Protectionism meets open skies: who wins?

• Disrupting ‘sameness’: What can airlines do to differentiate and create new customer value propositions?
• Owning the customer journey: Do airlines have to become shrewd retailers to maximise revenue from every seat?
• Getting the right internal structure to shift data from the IT geeks to the business strategists: Airlines are sitting on mountains of data and discovering a strategic opportunity

• In trading off between risk and reward, where are the likely new expansion routes of the late 20-teens?
• Does solid performance at home allow more risk taking in exploring new opportunities?
• Is open skies an important feature in assessing new routes or growing them?
• Will partnerships/equity investments characterise most future route expansion?
• What different/similar considerations apply for freight markets?

12 April (Day 2) highlights

• Search: It’s where customers begin their journey, searching for their flights. Hear from the leading meta-searches (and those powering them) on how they are evolving their business models and what’s the new dawn of search.
• Book/Manage: Once the trip is booked, managing an itinerary and sharing it with friends and family is important. What efficiency and profitability gains do the latest mobile products offer airlines?
• Staying efficient: How can airlines cater to the growing demands of connected travellers? Is the answer in the cloud?

• Some US pilot contracts have been rejected in the past two years due to unhappiness with profit sharing and work rules, rather than pay rates. It is hard to discern patterns in voting on different issues. Where are we headed in the coming cycle of negotiations? 
• Metamorphosis of Pilot relations: Is it, simply the passage of time, or is it company size - as you get bigger people lose personal contact? How much is the result of internal union ambitions? 
• Is there a “fair” distribution of benefits between employees and shareholders?

Our 2016 event partners