Alex Zoghlin begins his leadership amid the COVID-19 pandemic; believes with crisis comes innovation, needed change, and deeper collaboration.
DULLES, VA – Alex Zoghlin has officially started his new role as President and CEO at ATPCO following a two-month, in-depth handover with the executive team. His strategic focus over the next year is accelerating the 56-year-old organization’s ongoing transformation, with an emphasis on making it easier for the airline industry to work with ATPCO in its capacity as a standards body and technology provider, with the intent to dramatically reduce the complexity, cost, friction, and barriers to entry for new and existing customers.
Zoghlin will also explore opportunities to help airlines increase their revenues and drive efficiencies through the development of products that make an impact and deliver demonstratable ROI for all.
Zoghlin was unanimously appointed by ATPCO’s Board of Directors in October. Chair of the Board and Head of Product Delivery, Global Revenue at British Airways, Jerry Foran stated, “Alex understands ATPCO’s unique and pivotal position as the foundation of flight shopping and recognizes the needs of airlines, especially in the current market conditions. He has the Board’s unequivocal support and trust. Under his strong leadership ATPCO’s modernization will continue at pace.”
Zoghlin begins his role as CEO following the most challenging year the air travel industry has ever faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “While the next few years of recovery will be a long road, I believe that ATPCO’s position as an honest broker to the industry can help facilitate a renaissance in travel,” says Zoghlin. “I see ATPCO playing a central role in facilitating innovation throughout the industry and enabling a much-needed transformation following this downturn, for the benefit of all players in the ecosystem.”
ATPCO has been at the core of global air travel for decades, providing the industry infrastructure to manage massive amounts of flight shopping data; a database that processes millions of fare changes each day and has more than doubled in size over the last decade. Much of Zoghlin’s career has focused on helping airlines become more efficient while addressing the digital-first needs of the consumer. In his role as CEO, Zoghlin aims to drastically reduce the complexity of technology for the airline industry, beginning with solutions provided by ATPCO. This includes driving the development of agile innovations and new technologies to modernize the aging, legacy infrastructure on which the industry is built.
“I intend to lead ATPCO further into the future of ground-breaking product development and ensure we own our place as a true technology company and standard setter,” says Zoghlin. “Together with the ATPCO team, which boasts a hybrid of industry experts with decades of airline experience and new staff that bring creative ideas from different industries outside the sector, I’m confident that we are up to this task.”
Zoghlin brings to ATPCO over 25 years of knowledge and experience in technology, airline distribution, and travel. He founded Orbitz in 1999 and left at its first IPO. He then went on to create G2 Switchworks, a direct connect between major airlines and third-party distributors, which was acquired by Travelport in 2008. More recently, Zoghlin was the Executive Vice President, Global Head of Strategy, Innovation and Technology at Hyatt Hotels Corporation, where he learned lessons from the hospitality world that can be applied to the airline industry, such as addressing digital booking flows, digital displays, unstructured datasets, and dynamic pricing.
Zoghlin has travel in his DNA. His mother was a travel agent for many years and as a young child he would see the airline tariff books ATPCO used to publish in his mother’s office. Zoghlin is a proud college dropout, a life-long learner, and an innovator.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
