The 9th Routes Europe, the largest route development event for the European region, opens Apr. 6-8 in Marseille, France.
This year, the event expects a record attendance of over 1,100 aviation professionals from airlines, airports and tourism authorities to discuss new air services to, from and within the entire European region.
The event will be hosted by Marseille-Provence Airport, the gateway to the South of France. It attracts the highest level of senior decision makers, representing over 114 airlines (more than at any previous Routes Europe event), 340 airports and 30 tourism authorities.
“Europe is one of the largest and most advanced aviation markets in the world. You might see more impressive growth rates elsewhere, but the European Union is the world’s largest and probably most interconnected economy, and the region boasts over 500 million affluent consumers. That explains the strong interests and high attendance we see at Routes Europe this year,” said Katie Bland, director Routes, UBM Live.
In addition to around 6,000 Face-to-Face meetings to discuss air services taking place at the event, Routes Europe will open with the Strategy Summit, which will include a keynote address from Frédéric Gagey, chairman and CEO of Air France.
“Marseille was voted No. 2 ‘Place to Go this Year’ in 2013 by the New York Times,” said Pierre Régis, managing director, Marseille-Provence Airport. “The city was founded over 2,600 years ago and is the second city in France, and after several years of renovation work and urban investments, rarely equaled in Europe, the New Marseille is finally being unveiled at the heart Provence. That’s the perfect timing to welcome this main event, Bienvenue!”
Participating airlines include Europe’s leading network carriers, such as Air France, British Airways, Iberia, Lufthansa and Alitalia as well as all major European low-cost carriers. In addition, numerous leading non-European airlines will attend the event to discuss air services to and from Europe, including American Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Turkish Airlines, S7 Airlines and WestJet.
