Event guide • 2021
Americas
4 Welcome Welcome to all of our friends in the Americas and those who support the region from elsewhere in the
world.
GHI’s Digital Reconnect Americas is here to help foster the conversations and exchange of ideas that
will help the market begin the turnaround from this wretched pandemic.
An awful lot has happened since GHI was wrapping up our 5th Americas Conference in Panama City
back in the halcyon days of summer 2019.
The market has endured a catastrophic loss of passenger volumes, route closures, airline bankruptcies
and a whole raft of complexity opened up around Covid-safe boarding and unloading of aircraft.
So much devastation has arrived so quickly that there is a very human temptation to wallow and fret
about even worse yet to come. Resist that urge. For ‘worry is like a rocking chair’, as we have heard
from one senior airline director in the region at a GHI Webinar – ‘it gives you something to do, but it
gets you nowhere.’
Instead let us use this event to channel and cultivate hope. Let’s focus on the importance of innovation
to remoulding a more value-based and prosperous supply chain for all. Our attention must adjust to
cargo and harvesting the enormous opportunity this pandemic presents to develop our cargo handling
capability. There is a well-documented capacity crunch in cargo that is ours to conquer.
The most precious cargo of all can be found in the Covid vaccine shipments that have begun their
journey in the holds of our aircraft via airport aprons and onwards across the Americas. It will be
fascinating to hear the latest on this epic challenge at our special vaccine delivery debate on ensuring
the integrity of Covid vaccine doses during air transport (31 March 0935EDT). The session features the
stories of freight forwarders, airports, handlers and suppliers.
Their effective coordination through stakeholder collaboration will be the difference between a
medicine reaching a patient or perishing in the hold. The world is counting on aviation to deliver.
Receiving essential financial aid from policy makers could be critical to ensuring we can amid such
caustic trading conditions. News of President Biden providing additional funds for US airlines and
suppliers is a bright sign. But, will our colleagues elsewhere be able to count on such state support?
There is plenty to discuss over the next two days and beyond. GHI is
delighted to offer a forum for doing so and thanks every attendee for
their loyal support with this event.
Through collaboration we will conquer this pandemic.
Max Gosney
GHI Portfolio Director & Conference Chairman
/sponsors