Originally Posted by
WHBM
IATA is a trade body of all the mainstream carriers, on the commercial side. They represent interline agreements, revenue division, commercial policies, relations with travel agencies and other sales agents, and such like. This mirrors what ICAO do on the operational and technical side.
Their relevance to the situation is in the forward planning of schedules and making reservations, where the aircraft provision and schedules are currently substantially disorganised by the grounding, such that carriers currently are unsure what capacity they may have available for the season ahead. It now looks likely the Max is going to be grounded right through the summer peak period, and carriers affected are going to be facing up to different timetables, and offering different fare structures through their yield management plans, to what they might have hoped.
Making schedules and reservations. IATA does that? Not the airlines themselves? So if, say, Lufthansa or British Airways want to open a new route, they have to go through IATA?
And another thing that caught my eye is "revenue division". How do they do that? Airlines pay to some kind of fund which then gets redistributed? I have never heard of any of this. Very interesting.
Is membership in IATA mandatory for any airline?
Just trying to understand how it works. (insert confused smiley)