ANN discusses ALA and future of Latin American aviation, Part 1

On June 15, ANN Publisher Jim Campbell and Associate Editor Juan Jimenez attended ALA's conference at the Radisson Miami Hotel and Convention next to the Miami International Airport. The conference recently moved from its previous location at Palm Beach (FL), where it had outgrown the facilities.

Frankly, we at ANN were very impressed with the convention's new digs. It's not every day that you drive into a convention parking lot and park next to a Blackhawk and a sleek Sikorsky turbine helicopter. The staff attending to the folks entering the convention were extremely professional and courteous. The exhibit hall itself was of modest proportions, but the exhibitor list was top notch, and the facilities were impeccable.

About an hour into our visit we were offered an exclusive interview with ALA's president and founder, Ernesto Rois-Mendez, a very outgoing and obviously intelligent man who has no shortage of good ideas to improve the quality of life of the Latin American aviation community. What follows is the content of the interview between ANN Publisher Jim Campbell, ANN Associate Editor Juan Jimenez, and ALA President Rois-Mendez.

ANN-Campbell: Good morning! Thank you for having us on such short notice for this interview, we certainly appreciate your sharing your time with us.

Rois-Mendez: It is my pleasure, Jim. Thank you for coming to our convention!

ANN-Campbell: I would like to begin by asking you a question about the purpose of ALA. Is it an organization that is dedicated to the entire Latin American community, as far as aviation is concerned, independent of borders?

Rois-Mendez: Independent of borders?

ANN-Campbell: Yes, everywhere.

Rois-Mendez: Yes.

ANN-Campbell: Mr. Luis Monsante, ALA's General Manager, told us that you already have 8,000 members. Is this number correct?

Rois-Mendez: Approximately, yes.

ANN-Campbell: That is impressive!

Rois-Mendez: Well, we have different types of membership categories. Our current distribution of the magazine is currently a bit over 10,000. As part of that 10,000, there are about 3,700 that have signed up as members of the Association. There are another 3,000 or 4,000 that have requested the magazine, which we don't really categorize as members.

When Luis talks about 8,000, he is taking about subscribers; he's talking about the total number, so there are different levels there. We have members who are individual members, and we also have members who are companies, and those are counted differently.

ANN-Campbell: I understand.

Rois-Mendez: Going back to your first question about "independent of borders," I find that curious, and wanted to know where is it that you are coming from with that question, or what is it that you mean. If you mean Latin America, yes, we're talking about Latin America, but this question has never been put to me in quite this way. There are some borders in Latin America where the countries speak English, French and Portuguese, so I want to make a parentheses there, as they are indeed in Latin America. Our Association targets all of Latin America and the Caribbean. Our magazine is written in Spanish and Portuguese, as you have seen.

ANN-Campbell: Yes, indeed we have.

Rois-Mendez: And of course, if you look at Latin America, just about all of it speaks Spanish, except for one country which speaks Portuguese, which of course is the most important country in Latin America in aviation terms, as well as in size, population...

ANN-Campbell: Particularly when we mention one word, Embraer...

Rois-Mendez: Well, yes, Embraer is big but there are many operators in Brazil. Of course there are many manufacturers there of small airplanes as well as in the industrial side, but Brazil is by far the largest operator of aircraft in Latin America. It is also the largest country in Latin America, largest in population, as well as the richest country in the continent, not on a per-capita basis, but as a country. So, it is a very important country.

But again, I've never been asked if we operate independent of borders; no, we don't have any borders in our association, but there are some countries that, because of their language, may not be as close to ALA as other countries.

ANN-Jimenez: How many of your membership reside in Spain?

Rois-Mendez: Spain is actually fairly small, and yes, the magazine goes there and we have members there too, but Spain is not a significant percentage for us. I would say Spain represents 5 percent, at most. Anyway, these countries may not perceive us as being an association for them even though they are in Latin America, but they have a different language.

Now, having said that, let's remember what countries speak languages other than Spanish or Portuguese. Belize, very, very small country in population and in aviation size. The Guyanas, same thing, and some of the islands in the Caribbean are also the same. So... how do I put this... in terms of aviation importance, these countries are almost insignificant. Now, this is hard to say, because I am not saying that the countries themselves or the people are insignificant...

ANN-Campbell: We understand, you mean from an aviation point of view?

Rois-Mendez: Yes, from an aviation point of view, that's the reality. In Latin America, Brazil is number one, Mexico is number two, Venezuela and Colombia always debate third and fourth place. Argentina and Chile, and then go on from there, and from there to Belize and the Guyanas, they are very, very small in aviation size. Many people don't realize this, but there are many languages spoken in Latin America, you have Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Dutch, and Papiamento. We would have to put a magazine out, and our association would have to deal with six languages! It's just not feasible.

ANN-Campbell: I see. Well, let's move to another subject. We came here to see the show, and your staff was kind enough to call us just before we were planning to call you to request media access. Since we are circulated all around the world, it would be very foolish of us to ignore ALA. What we've heard about what ALA has been doing has all been very positive, and you folks seem to have shown a good growth curve after the 9/11 setback. I'm sure that 9/11 hit you pretty hard, as it did all of us, but judging from the attitudes out there on the convention floor, it looks like everyone's attitudes are very upbeat.

Rois-Mendez: Oh, yes, it is. Every year we grew, and the best year thus far -- not counting this year, because this year we are breaking all records so far -- thus far the best year was 2001. Of course, our convention was in July of 2001, and then we had 9/11 afterwards. We dropped in 2002; however, we were not as affected as most shows. I remember, of course NBAA was highly affected because they were scheduled right after 9/11, in fact they were scheduled for September and they had to postpone until December.

ANN-Campbell: Indeed, we covered NBAA in 2001 and it was a ghost town.

Rois-Mendez: Yes, but perfectly understandable. But we were not as affected, and of course we had a whole year to recover, but even then the show dropped about 30% in participation in 2002. In 2003 things improved back to the levels we saw in 2001, and now in 2004 everything points to our breaking all records for attendance.

ANN-Campbell: That is outstanding! What is your estimated attendance for the show this year?

Rois-Mendez: Well, if I may go back a bit, in 2001 the attendance was nearly 1,500 people. I expect this year to be better than that; maybe 1,800 based on the projections. But the projections can be very deceiving, last year we had so many people pre-registered and then we ended up with so many individuals. We did the projections based on our pre-registrations, which usually account for just a little over 20%, so we did our projections based on that. However, we will not know until tomorrow... most of our attendance are walk-ins, people who are registering right now as we speak, as well as tomorrow.

ANN-Jimenez: Personally, we think this location is perfect. People arrive at the airport and come straight to the show. Your planning was outstanding.

Rois-Mendez: I am glad you said that, because this is the first time we took the show out of the beach. We used to do it in Miami Beach, and it was a very hard decision to make.

ANN-Campbell: It's a like a sardine can out there, you're sandwiched in among so many other hotels and activities...

Rois-Mendez: Yes, sandwiched in among so many things, all the hotels are only valet parking... all kinds of problems, and more expensive. Let's face it, though: many of us come to these conventions to kill two birds with one stone -- to enjoy ourselves and to do some business. That's why Las Vegas is so popular! In New Orleans, everyone goes to Bourbon Street after the convention. That was the whole idea of doing the convention in Miami Beach, but we basically outgrew Miami Beach. The only hotel that can accommodate us in Miami Beach is the Fountainbleu, where we held the convention in 2000. It was very expensive, but then we were smaller.

ANN-Campbell: We were there.

Rois-Mendez: Ah yes? Excellent. The problem was that even though the hotels may have the capacity for the number of visitors, the exhibit halls don't have it. Over here it was the other way around. We took over the hotel, totally. It was totally full, although yesterday I understand that there were eighteen people that did not show up, so eighteen rooms became available, but the hotel is totally full. People had to go to other hotels, but we have a lot of exhibits on the space here. So it was a hard decision to make, especially leaving the beach...

ANN-Jimenez: Still, you have an excellent location here where people can still go to the beach if they want to...

Rois-Mendez: Yes, but keep in mind that we have to attract people from Latin America, so we have to have a number of... distractions, amenities, things like that, but apparently everyone is having an experience like yours, everyone is happy with the new location, so that is good. We are a small show, and we will project that we will never grow out of being a small show for one major reason: we target Latin America.

By targeting Latin America we are not closed to other visitors from Florida or other places, but by targeting our main customers in Latin America, we are filtering a lot of people. We cannot get masses of people from Latin America to this show, because it is just so expensive to come here. Most people can't afford it, either in terms of cost or in terms of time off from work, or they cannot get the authorizations, whatever.

So, what we are basically accomplishing is having a small show that is quality oriented, not quantity oriented. People that come here are either decision-makers, or people who are influential in the decision-making process. We hold this show in Florida, and from this area we may get everyone from the CEO to the secretary to the janitor over here, because we're local. Visitors from Latin America, people who can afford to come here - and by "afford" I don't mean in economic terms only, but people who can take a week off from work, because the show is a week long - can afford to invest a week of time into the show, and the expenses related to that.

ANN-Jimenez: This is really a business-oriented show, no?

Rois-Mendez: Yes, this is a trade show, not open to the public in general. We only promote it in the trade media, so no, we don't have a newspaper ad or anything like that, to bring the general public, it is a trade show.

(Continued in the next edition of Aero-News...)

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