The International Air Transport Association has announced an organisational restructuring of its main divisions and regional operations to even better address the needs of its 240 member airlines.

Senior management changes were also announced to support the new structure.

All changes will take effect from July 1st 2013.

A key guiding principle of the restructuring is the concept of ‘Global Development, Regional Delivery’.

“IATA is changing to deliver even greater value to its members.

“Strengthening our regional structures where we are closest to our members will help us to understand and meet their needs better. 

“We have also regrouped activities that have grown organically over time with the goal of being more intuitive to those we deal with.

“This will optimize our ability to develop, modernize and deliver the global standards which are the foundation of aviation-enabled global connectivity,” said Tony Tyler, IATA director general.

IATA’s regional operations will be consolidated from seven regional structures into five.

These will be based around the five hubs (Amman, Beijing, Madrid, Miami and Singapore) where IATA has already been amalgamating activities associated with its industry financial systems.

Each region continues to be led by a regional vice president who is responsible for driving all activities within their region, while maintaining the consistency of IATA’s global standards and positions.

To ensure effective regional input to IATA’s leadership, RVPs will report to the director general. 

Under the plans North and South America will be consolidated into an Americas region and based in Miami.

The combined region will be led by Peter Cerda who is promoted from regional director for safety, operations and infrastructure for the Americas to RVP for the Americas.

Africa and Middle East North Africa will be combined into one region to be known as Africa and Middle East.

Hussein Dabbas, from IATA’s Amman regional office, will lead the region as RVP.

Asia-Pacific, North Asia and Europe will continue to serve members in those regions as in the current structure with regional offices in Singapore, Beijing and Madrid.

The RVPs leading these regions continue to be Maunu Von Lueders, Zhang Baojian and Rafael Schvartzman, respectively.