IATA was formed in April 1945 in Havana, Cuba. It is the successor to the International Air Traffic Association, which was formed in 1919 at The Hague, Netherlands.[4] At its founding, IATA consisted of 57 airlines from 31 countries. Much of IATA’s early work was technical and it provided input to the newly created International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which was reflected in the annexes of the Chicago Convention, the international treaty that still governs the conduct of international air transport today.
The Chicago Convention couldn’t resolve the issue of who flies where, however, and this has resulted in the thousands of bilateral air transport agreements in existence today. The benchmark standard for the early bilaterals was the 1946 United States-United Kingdom Bermuda Agreement.[5][6]
IATA was also charged by the governments with setting a coherent fare structure that avoided cut-throat competition but also looked after the interests of the consumer. The first Traffic Conference was held in 1947[7] in Rio de Janeiro and reached unanimous agreement on some 400 resolutions.[8]
Aviation grew rapidly over the following decades and IATA’s work duly expanded. It transformed its trade association activities to take account of the new dynamics in aviation, which was seeing increasing demand from the leisure sector. Price flexibility became increasingly important and the United States led the way into deregulation in 1978.[9][10]
IATA has cemented its position as the voice of the aviation industry in recent years, launching a number of important programs and lobbying governments in the wake of successive crises. Despite its factual influence, the IATA is a trade group with no legislative powers.