World Aviation Festival 2026: Day 2 highlights

Airline and airport chiefs in Lisbon discuss TAP’s next chapter, Lisbon’s new airport and high fuel costs as Portugal selects Lufthansa as TAP’s new shareholder

Day 2 of the World Aviation Festival 2026 opened today in Lisbon with the CEOs of TAP Air Portugal, ANA Aeroportos de Portugal, LATAM Airlines Group and Abra Group discussing the future of TAP, plans for a new Lisbon airport, high fuel costs and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in airline operations.  Later sessions covered IAG’s move to modern airline retailing and how airports can grow commercial revenue.  The sessions took place on the day the Portuguese government announced that Lufthansa will become a shareholder in TAP.

The festival brings together more than 4,500 attendees and 600 speakers over three days at the Feira Internacional de Lisboa (FIL), from Oct. 13 to Oct. 15.

TAP prepares for a new shareholder

Following today’s Council of Ministers meeting, the Portuguese government announced that Lufthansa will become a shareholder in TAP Air Portugal.  Lufthansa and Air France-KLM had submitted final bids for 44.9% of TAP’s share capital, with a further 5% reserved for TAP employees.  The sale requires approval from the European Commission and is expected to be completed in 2028.

Speaking on the morning of the decision, before it was announced, Luís Rodrigues, CEO of TAP Air Portugal, said the airline did not know which bidder the government would choose, but that the process, which took nearly a year and a half, had gone smoothly.  Under TAP’s 10-year plan, long-haul flights to South America and North America, along with maintenance, will remain its main markets.

Rodrigues said the new investor would change how TAP delivers its strategy rather than change what it does, and would bring synergies such as integrating loyalty programmes.  He also said TAP needs a new airport in Lisbon, as the current airport was designed for 10 million passengers but carried 37 million last year and cannot expand because the city has grown around it.

Building Lisbon’s new airport

Thierry Ligonnière, CEO of ANA Aeroportos de Portugal, said ANA is now designing the new Lisbon airport, which will be the biggest construction project ever undertaken in Portugal and will be able to handle 56 million passengers after its first phase. He said building a new Lisbon airport had been debated in Portugal for 16 years, and that the new airport outside the city will have much less noise impact and more space to grow.  ANA is working with the government and airlines to speed up the process and could reduce the timeline by around a year.

Airline CEOs on fuel costs, fleets and AI

In a panel moderated by Peter Campbell of the Financial Times, Rodrigues was joined by Roberto Alvo, CEO of LATAM Airlines Group, and Adrian Neuhauser, CEO of Abra Group, to discuss how airlines are planning for a period of uncertainty.  Rodrigues said costs have risen and the next three to five years will be tough, and that airlines need to be more careful with cash than with profit.  Neuhauser said higher fuel prices are the new normal and that, while consumers have proven very resilient, the industry will probably grow more slowly.  Alvo said airlines should plan for high prices to last a long time, expects to see consolidation, and said a healthy balance sheet is now a key strategic advantage.

On technology, Alvo said AI is a tool and the challenge is to set up the organisation to make the most of it, adding that technology is more important for efficiency than new aircraft.  Neuhauser said Abra has introduced an AI agent that listens to every customer call and checks that the resolution offered is consistent with airline policy.  Rodrigues said aviation is a physical business that is not threatened by technology, and that TAP employees have put forward 95 new technology ideas through an internal scheme, including one that makes reviewing crew reports much faster.

IAG on modern airline retailing

Julio Rodríguez, chief commercial strategy officer at IAG, said the group has moved its distribution to New Distribution Capability (NDC), the airline industry’s modern standard for selling flights, and that global distribution systems (GDSs) now play only a residual role in its distribution strategy.  He said NDC was rolled out as a group initiative, with a few airlines leading and the approach tailored to each carrier, as British Airways operates differently from LEVEL.

Rodríguez said Offer & Order is now a major focus, and British Airways will be the first IAG airline to move to this kind of platform, with timing for the group’s other airlines still to be decided.  AI is the group’s second focus area, where it is used to speed up coding and for quality assurance, and he said IAG is moving towards a much more personalised offer for customers.

Airports rethink commercial revenue

In a panel moderated by Peta Wolmarans of Ricondo, airport and lounge leaders discussed how airports can grow revenue beyond aviation charges.  Gintare Norvilaite-Tautevice, chief commercial officer at Lithuanian Airports, said demand for lounges has grown significantly since the pandemic, and that a smooth journey supports commercial activity because passengers enjoy shopping when they have extra time.  Philippe Guertin, vice president of business relations at Plaza Premium Group, said lounges, once considered an exclusive service, have become a valuable way to understand what customers want.

Industry announcements

Accelya launched FLX Recover, an agentic AI solution that helps airlines recover passengers during disruption by evaluating recovery options and coordinating rebooking, passenger care and communications.  Built on Amazon Web Services, it works with an airline’s existing systems and can either recommend an action for human approval or carry it out automatically, depending on the airline’s own rules.

“Disruption is a critical moment in an airline’s relationship with its customers,” said Sam Gilliland, CEO of Accelya.

Information Design One, the developer of the aFuel digital aircraft fuelling network, announced that it processed 500,000 fuelling transactions in the first half of 2026 without paper records, and recently went live at four Portuguese stations.

The company expects to pass 1 million transactions by the end of the year.

To be continued…

The festival concludes tomorrow with further keynotes, panels and announcements, including the live final of the new Ancillary Arena pitch competition at 1:15 p.m.  For details on this year’s speaker line-up, visit:https://www.terrapinn.com/conference/aviation-festival/speakers.stm