Airlines and airports must build a constructive partnership to ensure adequate capacity for the future needs of the industry, Fernando Pinto, chairman of the Association of European Airlines, said.
Speaking at the annual congress of ACI-Europe, representing Europe's airlines, in Munich, Mr Pinto said the two arms of the industry must also collaborate more closely to meet the challenges of securing an “environmentally-sound basis for sustained market growth.”
He also hit out at “fiscal measures” - understood to be a reference to the proposed EC air ticket tax to aid developing countries – as “inappropriate and immensely damaging” both to the industry and Europe's competitiveness.
But Mr Pinto, also ceo of TAP Portugal, told airport executives that the European airline industry, despite making collectively a small profit in 2004, had previously suffered five years of loss making.
Between the AEA airlines and the airports they serve, there existed a multi-billion-dollar supplier/customer relationship, he said, and it was in the interests of the industry as a whole, that both sides should feel comfortable with that relationship.
'Lufthansa to sign new deal with Amadeus'
German national carrier Lufthansa is about to sign a 300m deal with GDS Amadeus to provide it with a new IT platform for ticket sales and passenger handling, according to Reuters.
Lufthansa, which owns a share in the IT travel solutions company, declined to comment.
BA recently completed the switch of its inventory and route network to Amadeus's “next generation” Altea Plan which the airline helped to design.