Governments and regulators adding burden to industry crisis
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Cathay Pacific Airways Chief Executive Tony Tyler has said that governments and regulators are working to make life more complicated for an aviation industry that’s already reeling from one of the deepest and most-sustained business downturns in recent years.
Speaking at the Asian Transport Luncheon Conference, Mr Tyler said the industry is an anachronism in the way it’s regulated, is scarred by inefficiencies and anomalies, and dogged by government interference.
“Historically the industry has been viewed by governments and regulators as a cash cow. But in the last 60 years, airlines generated US$32 billion in profit and US$11 trillion in revenues for an average margin of just over 0.3%. Even at the peak of the cycle, margins were less than 3% - some cash cow!” Mr Tyler said.
“Regulators and governments and stakeholders like airports don’t make it easy to improve on that. When they met in Brussels recently the Association of European Airlines branded regulation on the industry ‘unacceptably burdensome’ and that much of it was ‘costly and needless’. I couldn’t agree more - and it’s never more apparent than when the industry is wracked by crisis, as at present.”
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