Qantas’s Joyce named airline CEO of the year

Aviation consulting house CAPA – Centre For Aviation has recognised Qantas and its chief executive Alan Joyce for the airline’s recent revival.

Qantas received the airline turnaround of the year award, while Joyce was named airline chief executive of the year, at the World Aviation Summit held in Helsinki.

CAPA executive chairman Peter Harbison described Qantas’s return to profitability in 2014/15 as “one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the history of the aviation industry”.

“The restructuring is particularly noteworthy as it was intelligently implemented without the benefit of Chapter 11 style bankruptcy protections,” Harbison said in a statement.

Among the other awards, Ethiopian Airlines was named the airline of the year and Indian carrier IndiGo took out the low cost airline of the year.

In terms of airport awards, the airport of the year for 2015 was Budapest Airport, while Athens Airport boss Yiannis Paraschis was named airport chief executive of the year.

Meanwhile, Vancouver Airport Authority took out the airport product innovation of the year award for its development of automated passport control kiosks BorderXpress, which had reduced waiting times and was now being rolled out to 25 airports across Canada.

And IBS’ iCargo IT solution was awarded the airline product innovation of the year.