Organizations To Participate In An Online Panel Discussion To Evaluate Response

As air travel in Europe moves slowly back to something resembling normal, the European ash crisis continues to impact airlines, passengers and cargo around the world. An interactive, online discussion will be held at 1500 BST Friday, April 23, to address the situation, examine what happened, and identify what needs to be done next.

A panel of key stakeholders from the aviation sector will discuss the crisis from an insider's perspective. The virtual event format will also allow the aviation community to pose their questions to the experts directly.

The speaker line-up includes Bo Redeborn, director of cooperative network design at Eurocontrol, David Stewart, partner at AeroStrategy, and Justin Zatouroff, head of transport restructuring at the auditing firm KPMG.

"The high fixed cost nature of the airline industry means that significant decreases in revenue, as experienced by carriers in the last week, have an immediate impact on financial viability, especially cash flow," said Dr Ashley Steel, Global Chair for Transport and Infrastructure at KPMG. Carriers should recast their cash flow forecasting and contingency planning. Discussions with key suppliers and financial stakeholders will also be important."

"This event is another reason why national airlines should be allowed to merge cross border. A truly global airline with a global footprint would be better positioned to absorb the revenue impact of a regional nature, because the revenue impact is spread across a wider cost base," he continued.

The one-hour event is free to attend and is accessible online. Participants will hear a number of speakers present their views which will then be discussed, during which time participants will be able to submit questions.

FMI: www.ubmaviationnews.com/ashcrisiswebinar