Jetrader - Summer 2018 - 29

Steve Udvar-Házy, executive chairman, Air Lease
Corporation, delivers his keynote presentation,
"Developing a Major Leasing Platform."

Fleet-Planning Panel, moderated by Daniel J. Pietrzak, managing director of fleet transactions,
Delta Air Lines, Inc.; Kevin Fallon, director of fleet development, air finance and networks, UPS
Airlines; Kevin Burkhart, managing director - aircraft acquisitions and sales, Federal Express; and
Richard Greener, senior vice president and manager cargo aircraft group, GECAS.

Freighters and Air Cargo Panel, moderated by Steve Rimmer, chief
executive officer, Altavair LLC; Rich Corrado, chief operating officer; ATSG;
Hiran Perera, senior vice president, Emirates Sky Cargo; and Michael Steen,
executive vice president and chief commercial officer, Atlas.

Airlines, summarizing the conversations by
saying "We will do whatever we need to do
to get the rightsizing that works for us. All
options are on the table."
After a break for lunch, the Regional
Aircraft Panel met to discuss the "elephant
in the room:" the Bombardier-Airbus CSeries
partnership (see Bombardier President
Fred Cromer's comments in the interview
on p12). "It's an endorsement of that segment of the market," said Christian Scherer,
chief executive officer, ATR.
Next up, longtime ISTAT member and
industry pioneer Steven Udvar-Házy delivered a keynote presentation centered around
the keys to developing a major leasing
platform. "Aircraft leasing is a relationship
business," he noted. "Those relationships
transcend metrics and should absolutely not
be underestimated. You can't achieve growth
without first building that solid foundation."

ISTAT President Doug Runte, managing director and head of aviation
research, Deutsche Bank, delivers a hefty check to the ISTAT
Foundation and Jep Thornton, ISTAT Foundation chair and partner,
Aerolease Aviation LLC.

Afterward, the day's penultimate session, the Freighters and Air Cargo Panel,
took the stage for a conversation about
industry growth and potential signs of
a slowdown. "We are still going to see
growth, but not like the kind we saw in
2017," observed Hiran Perera, senior vice
president, Emirates Sky Cargo.
Immediately following, one of the most
anticipated assemblages - the Lessor
CEO Panel - convened to a packed
house, where John Plueger, president
and chief executive officer, Air Lease
Corporation, offered his take on potential
industry shakeups as, "less about disruption and more about evolution - like the
emergence of long-haul low-cost carriers,
for example."
And with that, the education portion of
ISTAT Americas concluded, but the events
weren't yet finished.

That evening, attendees reconvened for
the President's Gala Reception, Dinner and
Award Presentation, the latter of which saw
an "honored and humbled" Jeff Knittel,
who recently assumed the role of chairman and chief executive officer of Airbus
Americas, receive ISTAT's highest honor,
the ISTAT Award.
"I have been in this industry a long
time," he said, "and I've made some lifelong
friends. Whatever success I've achieved
is a direct result of those friendships
and the people around me. ISTAT is a lot
like a family, and we are all a part of one
another's stories."
Presentations and photos from ISTAT
Americas are now available via the ISTAT
mobile app (for all event attendees) and
the ISTAT website. We hope to see you
next year as ISTAT Americas returns to
Orlando, Florida.
Jetrader * Summer 2018 29

Jetrader - Summer 2018

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