IATA Celebrates 75 Years Since Foundation

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Sunday, April 19, celebrated 75 years since its foundation.

“As we mark IATA’s 75th anniversary during these challenging times, we recommit ourselves to representing, leading, and serving the airline industry. We will get through this crisis together,” the association said on social media.

IATA was founded in Havana, Cuba, on April 19, 1945. It is the prime vehicle for inter-airline cooperation in promoting safe, reliable, secure and economical air services – for the benefit of the world’s consumers.

Today, the international scheduled air transport industry is more than 100 times larger than it was in 1945. “Few industries can match the dynamism of that growth, which would have been much less spectacular without the standards, practices and procedures developed within IATA,” the association says.

At its founding, IATA had 57 members from 31 nations, mostly in Europe and North America. Today it has some 290 members from 120 nations in every part of the globe.

The modern IATA is the successor to the International Air Traffic Association founded in the Hague in 1919 – the year of the world’s first international scheduled services.