International Air Transport Association (Iata)

GEOVANI GOMEZ VALIENTE
20/04/2012

International Air Transport Association (IATA)

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is an international industry trade group of airlinesheadquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where the International Civil Aviation Organization is also headquartered. The executive offices are at the Geneva Airport in Switzerland.

IATA's mission is torepresent, lead, and serve the airline industry. IATA represents some 240 airlines comprising 84% of scheduled international air traffic.[1] The Director General and Chief Executive Officer is TonyTyler. Currently, IATA is present in over 150 countries covered through 101 offices around the globe.

History
IATA was formed on 19 April 1945, in Havana, Cuba. It is the successor to theInternational Air Traffic Association, founded in The Hague in 1919, the year of the world's first international scheduled services. At its founding, IATA had 57 members from 31 nations, mostly in Europe andNorth America. Today it has about 243 members (as of April 2012) from more than 126 nations in every part of the world.

Mission
IATA’s stated mission is to represent, lead and serve the airlineindustry. All the Airline rules and regulations are defined by IATA. The main aim of IATA is to provide safe and secure transportation to its passengers.

Price setting
One of its core functions was toact as a price setting body for international airfare. In an arrangement going back to 1944, international fare prices have been set through bilateral governmental agreements rather than throughmarket mechanisms. Airlines had been granted a special exemption by each of the main regulatory authorities in the world to consult prices with each other through this body.

Originally both domestic andinternational aviation were highly regulated by IATA. Since 1978 in US and later in Europe, domestic deregulation highlighted the benefits of open markets to consumers in terms of lower fares and...