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Conference Overview

AGIFORS' 60th Annual Symposium will go virtual on October 20 – 23, 2020.

 

Covid-19 has dramatically impacted the airline industry. Analytics play a vital role for the industry recovery – from understanding those impacts to developing mitigating strategies and future business models.  The AGIFORS Symposium provides an opportunity for airline experts and decision makers to come together and exchange ideas.  At the Symposium, speakers, panelists, keynotes, and attendees will share their recent experiences on how they responded to the Covid-19 crisis and share analytical models they developed for the airline industry.  These experts come from airlines, air transport associations, universities, industrial research labs, and consulting firms.  Many throughout the airline industry have expressed interest in hearing about what our members have to say – for example, the AGIFORS operations conference, which was held online last June, was just featured in the August-September issue of Aviation Today’s Avionics Magazine (click HERE to read the article).


The online program for the Symposium will feature several key events, including three panels focused on how experts in operations, revenue management and crew management have are responding to Covid-19 and two presentations that are finalists in this year’s Anna Valicek student paper competition.  Keynotes, technical presentations, and vendor presentations will round out the online program.

Panel discussions

Panel 1: COVID-19 operations update, and when/what will be the “new normal”

Moderator: Mike Irrgang


Panelists:


  • Pablo Aznavurian – Vice President Operations – Aeromexico Group
  • Bolivar Dominguez – Vice President Operations – Copa
  • Jason Herter – Vice President OCC – Indigo
  • Jeff Meaney – Director Aircraft Routing and Operations Planning, SOC – Air Canada

Panel 2: COVID-19, a chance to reset revenue management practices?

Moderators: Virginie Lurkin and Laurie Garrow


Panelists:

  • Dennis Buitendijk, Manager Operations Research, Qatar Airways
  • Richard Cleaz-Savoyen, Director, Revenue Optimization, Air Canada
  • Eric Ruhlin, Managing Director Revenue Decision Support, United Airlines
  • Arjan Westerhof, Manager Revenue Management Systems, Air France-KLM
  • Peter Belobaba, Director of the MIT/PODS Revenue Management Research Consortium

Panel 3: COVID-19, in search of gems amongst the lumps of coal

Moderator: Daniel Stecher


Panelists:

  • Viktor Forsman, Optimization and System Delivery Manager, Cathay Pacific
  • Martin Hoffman, Head of Operational Planning Optimization, SAS
  • June Ma, Principal, Operations Research and Advanced Analytics, American Airlines
  • Peter Reynolds, Manager Network Ops Systems & Logistics, Emirates
  • Nicolas Rhoads, SVP Labour Strategy and Crew Planning, AeroMéxico

  • Sunny Liao, Principal, Strategy and Market Analysis. Boeing

More information

For more information about the 60th Annual Web Symposium Conference:

How to join the online sessions

Everyone who has registered for the conference should have gotten an email on Monday, October 19 with instructions on how to join the GotoWebinar session. Just in case, this is the link for the last day
(Friday, 23 October)


JOIN HERE

Technical Program

The list of accepted presentations can be found here


The detailed agenda for the live program can be found on this web page or downloaded as PDF here

Important dates

  • Registration: open on August 29th, 2020
  • Abstract deadline: September 11th, 2020
  • Notification of acceptance: September 18th, 2020
  • Presentation videos deadline: September 28th, 2020

Sponsors

We thank the following sponsors for their support:
  • Boeing
  • Motulus
  • Dassault Systemes
  • Lufthansa Systems
  • Cirium
  • PASSUR Aerospace
  • SlickOR
  • SlipStream Aviation Software, Inc.
  • FLYR Labs

Questions and answers

For answers to common questions, click here.

Virtual conference logistics

The online format will necessitate some key changes for this year’s symposium. In particular, we will need to impose strict deadlines in order to give our production engineer time to prepare presentations in a format that facilitates broadcasting in our online meeting platform.  Individuals submitting abstracts will be asked to confirm that they will submit a pre-recorded presentation (following instructions that we will provide) by Monday, September 28th, 2020 and will make themselves available to test their video and sound equipment with our production engineer prior to the conference.


If there is a high demand to give technical presentations, we will select some of the accepted presentations for the main program (that includes a live broadcast and live Q&A session) and make the other accepted presentations available to members as part of an offline supplemental program (that can be downloaded and viewed by conference attendees).  Presentations will be selected by a review committee that will consider multiple factors and ensure the program represents a diversity of technical areas and analytical techniques.  Presentations related to Covid-19 will received priority for the live broadcast portion of the program.


More information on the logistics will be forthcoming. 


Conference Registration

This year, more than ever, the AGIFORS Council believes it is important for our members to hold the Symposium online and provide an opportunity to exchange ideas and contribute to rebuilding the industry. AGIFORS is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of operations research within the aviation industry.  Consistent with our mission and in recognition of the difficult financial circumstances facing many of our members, the AGIFORS Council will offer the conference at

  • no charge to member airline and member academics
  • highly discounted rate of $20 for other members

Non-members and registrations after October 18 are charged an additional $10.  The registration fee for the annual symposium is typically $800 - $1200 USD.


Register here
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