CAPA TV

Privatisation will help drive and speed up innovation for Travelport believes President & CEO, Gordon Wilson. The acquisition, which was completed on 30-May-2019, occurred just days after CAPA met with Mr Wilson to discuss future plans for the GDS, get an update on its NDC offering and discuss the value it provides to agents and airlines all over the world.

Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths believes short haul transport could change as new technologies are introduced, but notes that where such technologies are already available, consumers have shown a reluctance to embrace them. While this resistance is more about the resistance to change than the resistance to technology, it highlights that education and a mindset shift will be required to break away from the ‘we have always done it that way’ mentality. And technology shouldn’t be about replacing the human touch and instead should be used to ultimately enable airport staff to deliver a better customer experience.

London Stansted Airport CCO Aboudy Nasser says “airports have to change the way they think” as most see themselves as simply infrastructure. Mr Nasser says this mindset has to change and airports must instead be a partner to airlines through the whole customer experience process. The London airport is currently working on a new flight connection model and successfully conducted a full end-to-end test of the service in Apr-2019, ahead of its formal launch.

IBM chief innovation officer Bernard Meyerson says transformation of governance is an important part of business transformation, and  it’s not just about technology”. Dr Meyerson says executives need to separate innovation from the slow legacy processes of businesses and put trust in employees to execute projects. “You may lose a bit of control, but you may gain some spectacular outcomes,” he says, and while not all initiatives will work, “there has to be some tolerance of risk”.

Sabre VP travel solutions Middle East and Africa Dino Gelmetti believes achieving innovation comes down to a company’s willingness to change and lessons in any future retail like strategy will mainly come from outside the aviation industry.

Already established in the London market with flights to Heathrow and Gatwick airports, Emirates Airline inaugurated flights between its Dubai International hub and Stansted. Now, just a year on and the carrier is adding a second daily frequency, meeting strong local demand, but also delivering additional connection options. London Stansted Airport CCO Aboudy Nasser explains why the route has proved successful and sees the London airport become the second fastest global destination airport to secure a second daily Emirates frequency from Dubai.

This special interactive Open Forum, open to all sectors of the industry will offer a unique opportunity to provide a greater understanding of the intricacies of how the NDC proposition is progressing and how different sectors and airlines are being affected.

Legacy distribution systems have for decades presented airlines with the twin problems of high costs and product commoditisation. In efforts to address these issues, carriers throughout the world have invested heavily into establishing their own API channels with agents, while the concurrent push by IATA for airlines to implement the NDC standard has encouraged the industry to adopt a retail focused approach to distribution.

In this Open Forum, industry experts will address all sides of the distribution model, to assess the NDC strategy, what it means for their section of the aviation ecosystem, and how the environment is changing.

Industry experts will include GDSs, OTAs, Travel Management Companies and Corporate Travel Buyers, as well as representatives from IATA and airline members.
Audience participants will have the opportunity to interact with the experts in a wide-ranging discussion on:

• How different participants are being and will be affected by the evolution
• Where they are in delivering the strategy;
• What they would change in the strategy if they could;
• What is the desired end point;
• What are the complexities of the strategy;
• What impact will this have on their bottom line

Session Provocateur: Travelport, Global Head of New Distribution, Ian Heywood

Moderators: CAPA – Centre for Aviation, Chairman, Peter Harbison & CAPA – Centre for Aviation, Senior Advisor, John Thomas

Panel:

• Amadeus, Executive Vice President, Airlines, Cyril Tetaz
• CTM, CEO Asia, Larry Lo
• IATA, Director, Transformation Financial and Distribution Services, Eric Leopold
• Japan Airlines, Regional Vice President Global & Strategic Sales – Asia Oceania, Derek Ho
• Skyscanner, Commercial Director, Gavin Harris
• Travelport, Global Head of New Distribution, Ian Heywood

Asia is the fastest expanding and most innovative market in the world, it has enjoyed spectacular growth over the past several years and while China has clearly led the way, South Korea and Taiwan have also grown rapidly, and even Japan has had a resurgence in the past few years.

LCCs have finally started to penetrate the North Asian market, helping to drive the rapid growth as lower fares have stimulated demand. LCC capacity in North Asia particularly has increased tenfold over the past 10 years, albeit on a small base, and has nearly doubled in just three years. This represents an LCC penetration rate of less than 20%, indicating that there is still plenty of opportunity for further LCC growth. LCCs are planning more rapid expansion in 2019 but the region’s FSCs are also growing, particularly in China.

• What is Asia doing to meet this increasing demand?
• Is this level of growth sustainable?
• How is the travel industry reacting to this growth?

Session Provocateur: Skyscanner, Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships, Hugh Aitken - What is coming from the East? Is China going to eat our lunch?

Moderator: AAPA, Director General, Andrew Herdman 
Panel:

• Air Vanuatu, CEO, Derek Nice
• China Southern Airlines, SVP International & Corporate Relations Division, Guoxiang Wu
• Skyscanner, Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships, Hugh Aitken
• SpiceJet, Chief Customer Service Officer, Kamal Hingorani
• Spring Airlines, Chairman, Stephen Wang

Travelport, President & CEO, Gordon Wilson
CAPA – Centre for Aviation, Chairman Emeritus, Peter Harbison

LOT Polish Airlines, CEO, Rafał Milczarski