The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has appointed Saadia Zahidi, currently a managing director at the World Economic Forum, as its next director general, the group said in a news release on Thursday. Zahidi will assume the role on November 1 and will be the first woman to lead the Geneva-based airline trade body.
The appointment follows the departure of the current director general, Willie Walsh, who is moving to the Indian carrier IndiGo. The news release said the announcement confirmed an earlier report.
Zahidi, a Pakistani-born economist who has not previously worked inside the aviation industry, steps into the position as airlines confront a range of geopolitical and economic headwinds. The group highlighted that oil prices have climbed above $100 a barrel amid strife in the Middle East, a development that is weighing on airline operating costs.
The organisation has traditionally appointed former airline chief executives or board members to lead it; Zahidi represents an outside selection from that pattern. Her remit will include navigating discussions over how to curb pollution from aviation, an issue that has become more urgent as carriers strive to meet their stated target of net zero emissions by 2050.
Those environmental goals have been complicated by an industry shortage of newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft and by limited supplies of sustainable aviation fuel, both factors that the release identified as putting the net zero objective at risk.
In a January World Economic Forum podcast discussing top global risks for 2026, Zahidi warned that environmental risks were being deprioritized as corporate leaders concentrated on nearer-term threats such as geopolitics, geoeconomics and potential asset bubbles. She said: "I think the fact that these have been deprioritized is concerning, but it’s also to some extent understandable because there has been this focus on shorter term risks around geopolitics, around geoeconomics, around potential asset bubbles.
All of that is starting to detract the attention of many leaders and experts. But that is not to say that this isn’t something that we also need to be looking into."
As director general, Zahidi will be expected to lead IATA through both operational and policy debates affecting airlines, including cost pressures from elevated oil prices and the environmental challenges linked to fleet renewal and fuel availability.
Context limitations: The announcement and details above reflect the information provided in the association's news release; additional implementation plans and strategic responses by IATA under the new director general were not specified in that release.