Sustainability budgets are at risk: TIACA’s Bakker

Sustainability budgets across air cargo are at risk as fuel costs climb and outside pressure eases, according to Roos Bakker, Chairperson of The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA). She said the industry should defend that spending by treating it as a way to protect margins.

“Yes, I think budgets are at risk, and I’d rather say that openly than pretend otherwise,” Bakker told The STAT Trade Times at the TIACA Air Cargo Forum in Miami. “When fuel costs spike and external pressure eases, sustainability is often the first line to be questioned.”

Bakker took over as Chairperson at the close of ACF 2025 in Abu Dhabi after two years as vice chair. Her comments follow TIACA’s 2026 Sustainability Insights report, which found that 95 percent of members have CEO backing for sustainability. The same report showed external pressure at its lowest since 2021 and a wide regional gap: 44 percent of Americas-based organisations say sustainability is part of their culture, compared with 87 percent in Asia.

Bakker said high fuel prices also strengthen the argument for green investment. “With fuel costs this high, fuel efficiency is no longer only an environmental topic, it’s a cost and resilience topic,” she said. Measures such as route optimisation, electrified ground handling and better load factors “pay back faster when fuel is expensive.”

She described the gap between the Americas and Asia as “a gap in culture and incentives, not in capability.” She said TIACA would respond by sharing benchmarks so that “a CFO, not just a sustainability officer, sees the value,” by linking members across regions so they can learn from each other, and by pressing for harmonised reporting and carbon accounting rules.

Useful between events
The Middle East war has closed airspace and disrupted Gulf hubs, and tariffs and the end of de minimis are redrawing trade lanes. Bakker said an association “earns its place in a crisis year by being useful between events, not only at them.”

She set out three roles for TIACA. The first is to act as an information hub, giving members fast updates on closures, rerouting and customs changes, especially smaller members “who don’t have large government-affairs teams.” The second is to bring the whole supply chain together in task forces on hub congestion, rerouting and surcharge transparency. The third is to give governments “concrete, data-backed asks” on overflight coordination and customs facilitation.

Asked whether TIACA risks being drowned out by IATA, FIATA and national associations, Bakker said she does not see them as competitors. TIACA’s distinctive contribution, she said, is “the end-to-end operational view of the whole air cargo chain.” She added: “A coordinated message is stronger than five separate ones.”

A new Director General
Bakker’s term also covers a leadership change at the secretariat. Glyn Hughes has retired, and Mammen Tharakan took over as Director General in August. Bakker said the board “sets the strategy, priorities, and guardrails,” while the secretariat under Tharakan “owns execution.”

She called Tharakan’s airport background, which runs from Edmonton to King Salman International in Riyadh, “a real strength rather than a change of direction,” and said it should leave TIACA “more connected to airports and emerging hubs.” She noted that the Gulf is among the fastest-growing cargo regions.

Security without friction
Beyond sustainability and digitalisation, Bakker named three issues she wants TIACA to own: talent, cross-border e-commerce and security. She described AI as “a tool running through all of them rather than a separate priority.”

Bakker has spent her career in aviation security at ICTS Europe. She said supply chain security should be one of TIACA’s top priorities, but she wants to be careful how she frames it. “I’m conscious that I shouldn’t turn the chair into a platform for my own field or my employer,” she said. “The test is whether members tell us it matters, and increasingly they do.”

She pointed to rising exposure from high-value shipments, cargo crime and the shift to digital booking. “One serious incident damages trust in the whole chain, not just one company,” she said. “Security works best when it is an enabler, not a brake.”

Bakker said TIACA is already working on four elements of a security agenda. The first is a confidential system for members to share cargo crime incident patterns, hotspots and methods across airlines, handlers, forwarders and airports. The second is baseline cyber and data security standards and incident-sharing for the digital chain, with special attention to smaller members, because “a weak link at any one party exposes everyone.” The third is good practice on vetting, access control and training to address insider risk, an area where “culture matters as much as technology.” The fourth is a push for mutual recognition and risk-based screening to cut the duplication and delay caused by differing regimes, pursued through the channels IATA and national associations already use.

To keep the effort focused, she would set up a small working group with balanced representation from across the chain. That group would produce guidance, shared alerts and a position paper “rather than another talking shop.” She added: “The agenda belongs to the members, and I’d be happy for others, not only me, to lead it.”

Talent and e-commerce
On talent, Bakker called for internships, trainee exchanges and a young professionals network “with a real voice in our working groups, not a side event.” On e-commerce, she said TIACA would bring an operational view to its work with postal operators, the UPU and customs authorities, “so that compliance doesn’t mean congestion.” She said infrastructure was left off her list because “airports and national bodies already carry strong voices there.”

As TIACA’s first woman chair, Bakker said she wants that milestone to be “a door that stays open” rather than a headline. She plans to increase the visibility of women and younger professionals on panels and committees, start a mentoring and sponsorship programme connecting emerging leaders with board members, and report diversity figures for TIACA’s leadership.

“If, years from now, a woman chairing TIACA is simply unremarkable, I’ll consider that a success,” she said.

By the end of her term, Bakker wants TIACA to be “an association that members can’t imagine doing without.” She hopes to leave behind more active members, a sustainability and digitalisation roadmap “that members are actually using,” and a more diverse leadership team.