International Air Transport Association

The International Air Transport Association (IATA pronounced [aɪˈɑːtə]) was founded in April 1945 in Havana, Cuba, as the umbrella organization for airlines. It is the successor organization to the International Air Traffic Association, founded in The Hague on 28 August 1919. Its headquarters are in Montreal, Canada.

IATA's goal is to "represent and serve" the air transport industry. The industry association aims to promote understanding of the issues affecting the air transport industry and to raise "awareness of the benefits" that aviation brings to the global economy. It also aims to promote the safe, scheduled and economical transportation of people and goods by air and to encourage cooperation among all companies involved in international air transportation services.

The organisation has 300 member airlines, which operate around 94% of all international flights. Members are large or national airlines operating international and intercontinental flights. Low-cost airlines, pure charter airlines and airlines operating only domestic flights are often not members of IATA.

With airports, air traffic authorities, travel agencies, suppliers and ground handling companies, companies in the aviation industry and other interested parties, IATA enters into so-called strategic partnerships, of which there are more than 300.

In Germany, the organisation maintains a representative office in Frankfurt am Main, in Switzerland in Geneva, and for Austria the office in Prague is responsible.

Tasks

IATA is trying to simplify processes in the aviation business. This concerns, for example, the standardization of tickets and baggage transport. This means that passengers can travel with several airlines with a single booking and do not have to worry about their baggage. The same applies to cargo handling.

The association organizes - with the exception of the USA - the settlement of airline tickets issued by travel agencies with IATA licenses worldwide. Every year, more than 400 million tickets are issued via the system. In addition, IATA influences the pricing of international air travel.

It produces anonymised statistics for airlines so that they can benchmark themselves against other market players.

IATA codes provide for the identifiability of airports, airlines and aircraft types. IATA codes for airports have three digits, for airlines two. There are "controlled duplicates", and codes may also have been assigned to several airlines with a time difference; therefore, IATA codes do not allow a clear assignment, a shortcoming that brings the use of the ICAO codes, each extended by one digit, into discussion.

In addition, safety standards are defined and also controlled, which are binding for all members.

However, the organization also offers support to startup airlines, government agencies, airports, etc.

IATA is financed not only by membership fees (at least $15,000 per year), but also by the sale of services, manuals, statistics and electronic documents.

History

The founding of the predecessor organisation in 1919, i.e. only one year after the end of the First World War, showed that the increased economic possibilities of air transport, which were made possible by the technical advances achieved during the war, were soon recognised.

Shortly before the end of the Second World War, IATA was re-established on 19 April 1945 in the Hotel Nacional in Havana. At the time of its re-establishment, it had 57 members from 31 predominantly European and North American nations.

One of their main functions was price-fixing and service agreements in international air transport, which were effective until the 1990s or until about 2006, when they were terminated for antitrust reasons, as were other similar arrangements.

IATA originally planned to introduce electronic airline tickets worldwide by the end of 2007. This is expected to bring savings of up to $3 billion a year for the international air transport industry. This will bring a saving of nine dollars per booking and 50,000 fewer trees cut down each year. For this reason, 16.5 million tickets were ordered from seven printers for the last time on August 27, 2007. By May 31, 2008, the paper tickets were distributed to the 60,000 travel agencies and since June 1, 2008, only so-called e-tickets have been issued.