Carlos Hassey Artigas is an integral member of the Grupo Aeroméxico in-house legal team in his position of senior vice president legal and deputy general counsel, and lays out the main responsibilities that operating in a flagship airline’s legal function entails. These are many and varied, and include: ‘commercial agreements, financing, capital markets, leasing, transactional and corporate structures, operational issues and regulatory matters, dispute resolution and litigation’.

He has amassed an impressive roll of honours whilst operating with the company. He mentions reducing the ground delays of new aircrafts prior to starting operations by 70% as a particularly important achievement for the company (and one that was ‘really complicated’ to manage), as was working on the Aeroméxico Tower real estate transaction which brought ‘great economic terms for Aeroméxico’.

A commercially-minded lawyer, Hassey is mindful that the legal function must be ‘pro-business without putting Aeroméxico at risk’, and instructs the team to ‘act as an in-house law firm’. Hassey has also pioneered a summer associate program with an external law firm, whereby one of Aeroméxico’s junior lawyers gains valuable experience with a top US law firm in Miami. This has had a positive effect on team morale and the capabilities of the junior lawyers involved.