Flybe CEO Update – Bombardier Q400 Forms Backbone Of Future Fleet

Transcript

Christine Ourmières-WidenerSo a fleet decision is, as you can imagine, a very big decision for an airline. If it's not the biggest decision, so we took time. Took Flybe process a little more than one year, I joined Flybe a little more than one year ago. From the beginning it was the most important decision. So we want to analysis and compare different scenarios, and we came to a conclusion that, in fact a fleet was 2 components. A main component was our triple prop Q400, and another one was a jet, a 175, was the best fit for our network and our business. So, we are still with our strategy reducing our fleet from 85 aircraft to 70 aircraft into 2020, and we are on track with the strategy.

Well, we just celebrated a one year anniversary for our Heathrow operation, end of March. I must say it has been a great experience. We started the project, it was a project also with NATSt. It's a very good project because it was a first operation into London Heathrow]. The operation is doing very well, on the operating side I think we are being also able to reduce elapsed time because in fact it's going very well and the corporation with NATS and Heathrow are showing fantastic results and on the revenue side, trading, we are ahead of forecasts, so all in all a fantastic experience.

We have today a core business with our region to region network for domestic crew. We are in fact, the only real UK domestic airline, and we have in addition to that 11 co-chairs with partners Char, Legacy, All, Virgin Atlantic. And these co-chairs have been going year after year. Why? Because we work better with our partners, we optimize a network, our frequencies, our schedule, and also our tools are better, we interconnect our affairs. So, one of the reasons why we are also migrating this year, we have a big investment in IT. We are migrating our commercial platform into a [inaudible 00:02:17], to be even more standout. To be easy to work with for big partners, such as Legacy Airlines.

So, the changes the GDS is only the first step because we need to get from a standoff platform. So, more we can get from, and that's the foundation of our new platform. Flybe is already a digital airline because in a way more than 84% of our bookings are coming through our website. So, our customers are used to having an interaction, digital interaction, with Flybe. That's quite different from other airline profiles. We want to connect better with them, pre-booking, during the booking, after booking, and to have a connection with them. So, when something wrong is happening because they want to stay connected. It could be different channels, it could be social media, it could be on their mobile. So, we want to offer to our customer, any platform they want to connect to. So, standoff platform will improve this connectivity, so we will have product for disruption, improving disruption management with our customer. We are investing social media, we are strong on social media. We are investing also in data strategy and big data. Today, we have so much data, but we don't really use our data. Using data to improve the customer experience.

Well, I don't think that anything really changed. We are still waiting for our final decision. We are trying to explain to the government our critical decision at timing. We are preparing ourselves, Flybe compared to other airlines is a little bit different. We don't see any risk for us for traffic rights because we don't have intra-European routes. So, we always fly from one point in the UK to our destination, and back is the same. But, we have so many questions about regulations. So, its certainly never good for any business. We are of course looking at backup solutions, risk management, but we need a decision as soon as possible.

From a CEO perspective, it's a big destruction when you have something like that happening to any public company. So, I'm going to say I'm very happy to be back managing 100% of my time, my business. Let's see when you take a distance when something like that is happening, and the message to my team, and to all the Flybe employees is a very good indication that there is value in our airline. Because some of the players in the market here saw an opportunity in Flybe. I think it is a good message for the employees, but at the same time you need to reinforce your strategy, to explain your strategy even more. It's about communication, communication increase in your partner.

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