How AI is shifting the technology and distribution landscape for aviation and travel

Transcript

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Good morning, everyone. Oh, what a lovely panel. A lot of interesting insights. Let's try and continue on that. So first of all, thank you so much for agreeing to join this panel where we are trying to understand how is the industry— because airline industry is going through a huge transformation. Be it how passengers book their travel, how they search for their flights, and now how also they want to experience their flight, their air travel as well. So for that, we have a very esteemed panel. We have a wide range of stakeholders covering the value chain. So thank you so much, all of you, for joining this panel. So let's, let's get right into it. Let's try and understand where do you see this transformation coming from? What are some of the key factors that is driving this transformation of the air travel as we speak about. We saw different aspects from it, and the focus for this panel, we are trying to keep it more from a digitization perspective. That's what we are trying to focus here today. So some of your insights on where this transformation is going, what are the factors that's driving it? Maybe we start with you. Sure.

David Gunnarsson:I think maybe looking at the sort of travel industry and coming, you know, over the years and for decades really, it's been becoming, I'd say, more and more fragmented. So more personalization, more choice, and that is— which is good in a way, but that also brings friction. So I think the shift now is sort of away from fragmentation and kind of into a more frictionless environment where it becomes simpler for a traveler to make the choices that you talked about, to to plan, to search, and book, and travel. That's kind of how I see it.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:So you're saying it's now becoming more seamless from a fragmented part of industry, which it was previously.

David Gunnarsson:Exactly.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Fair enough. Michael, what's your thought on it from a—

Michael Clarke:From an operational standpoint, I think one of the biggest challenges or opportunities is access to data. I mean, travelers are much more informed about what is happening on the day of operations. which in turn drives their expectation about how their journey experience will be. Their future purchasing is going to be driven more and more by experiences, their self or influencers, and less so by price sensitivity because in the marketplace, there is a difference between different airline business models, but there is a convergence on pricing, at least at the base level, basic fares. People are more focused on their experience and the access that they have to data to make informed decisions.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Right, we'll definitely come to that influencer part of it later in the conversation for sure, because I'm sure that is— a lot of airlines are going through that. Cindy, to you, from more of an aggregator perspective, how do you see this transformation impacting your business?

Cyndi Hui:Yeah, so from a Skyscanner perspective, we work with 160 million travelers worldwide. So what we are seeing is that there's definitely a change in terms of their behavior. So travelers are expecting a lot more personalized experiences. experience. They still want to compare all the options easily, compare not only the base fare but lots of different attributes that are increasingly getting complex as this landscape is evolving. Also, what we're seeing is that the personalization piece has been enabled by technology such as AI, and we can't have a panel not talking about AI these days. From an AI perspective, our research shows that 54% of travelers globally are already confident using AI.

David Gunnarsson:Okay.

Cyndi Hui:So this is an area where we are paying a lot of attention. There is unprecedented growth in AI, and so we obviously need to make sure that we work with technology providers, airlines, and also the ecosystem to build tools that will actually work for travelers. So from Skyscanner's perspective, we have also been using AI for more than 10 years, mainly to supercharge our data. So Michael mentioned that data is really key in travel. We aggregate the data of 1,200 partners. So we really do leverage technology and specifically machine learning over the last decade to help us supercharge our recommendation and results engine.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:That's quite interesting. I mean, more than 50% is a huge number.

Cyndi Hui:Yeah.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:We'll definitely speak about AI and about the collaboration part of it, which you mentioned, which I'll come to it in a bit. What are your thoughts on the transformation of the industry and the factors that are driving it?

Luc Lachoix:Well, I would probably build up very well on what my colleagues have just mentioned. What we experience is passengers' expectations are evolving, focusing on customer experience. The complexity is ever-present. David talked about frictions. At Star Alliance, what we're trying to really focus on is decidedly looking at the customer experience, elevating the customer experience, to ensure seamless travel among the network of airlines by overcoming the complexity that would come as an obstacle for that. So we try to ease the way through technology in order to enhance the customer experience.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:So Loup, you are in a very interesting position because it's not just one airline that you're representing. There are multiple airlines which you need to collaborate with as well. So this is a follow-up question to what we are discussing now. Of course, as we talk about, the industry is changing. It's evolving, but is it, which side is it that's driving this change? Is it the changes in the passenger dynamics, their requirements, that is what is changing what we are talking about today? Or is it because now the availability or the accessibility to those technology solutions that is driving? So which of one other side is actually making those changes happen?

Luc Lachoix:I would say that those 2 factors go hand in hand. Of course, passenger expectations are evolving. They demand more personalization, more self-service, more control, more visibility over, over what's happening. And the technology now allows enabling this either through AI tools or through various technologies that we try to bring together in order for our member carriers to better deliver on those expectations. So again, Star Alliance is not delivering technology that airlines could deliver on their own. We're there to enable them to better collaborate together In order to meet those expectations from their passengers.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Which is very important now more than ever. So, yeah, Cindy, a similar aspect. So you definitely mentioned AI for sure, but apart from that, some of the most probably in the last 5 years, we have seen a lot of different changes in the way passengers think about air travel. So some of them have also now started to think about sustainability. We heard some We had a conversation yesterday where they do think about sustainability, but sometimes may not want to pay for it, but that's a different aspect. So because of these changes in their perspective towards air travel, have you had to make certain changes in the way you display your prices or your flights or the way you put them together?

Cyndi Hui:Yeah, so first of all, on the sustainability, that has been something that Skyscanner has been really focused on. So showing flights based on the emission so that our travelers can make informed choices in terms of being more sustainable. But what we're also seeing is that a lot of travelers now are exploring lesser-known destinations. So we have a lot of capability to be able to support travelers wanting to do that. A lot of people mentioned yesterday that cost is still a major factor in travel, and there's no doubt about that. So a couple of tools that Skyscanner have developed that combines AI and giving more personalization and also help to disperse tourism.

Michael Clarke:Yeah.

Cyndi Hui:Would be a tool that I can recommend, which is Sabi Search. So that's basically based on natural language search where you can describe essentially the type of trip that you want, and we will provide a recommendation of different destinations. If the travelers like what we recommend, they can go straight into a flight search and explore options straight away. And so that's one way that we can actually help travelers in terms of tailoring their trips, whether their decision is driven by sustainability or other factors.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:I think that makes sense, the dispersing of the tourism that you mentioned, because as we see, keep reading about how certain locations are being favored because passengers may not know something else. But I think so giving that recommendation helps, I believe. Michael, to you about the similar aspect what we're talking about, is it that you are getting those insights or those requirements from airlines or passengers because of which you have to make certain changes? Is that what is happening or is it the other way around?

Michael Clarke:I mean, from our perspective and what we deliver to the industry, especially on the day of operations, you know, the most important thing is that there's a tremendous expectation on the customer, on an airline being able to deliver on their brand promise. So whether they're a low-cost carrier that has the best fares and gets there on time, or a full-service carrier that serves the best meal on board and has the best Wi-Fi experience. The customer has an expectation about what they're paying for, and being able to deliver on a brand promise is by far the most important thing. And with the advent of, you know, AI— and we've tried, I wouldn't say we're still in its infancy in terms of the use of AI, especially on the day of operations— there's tremendous opportunities to streamline the passenger experience, especially when there's a disruption.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:That's more— most important is how do you perform in a disruption, right? Because that's what passengers remember most of the time.

Cyndi Hui:Exactly.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Not when everything is going on well. What are your thoughts on this, David?

David Gunnarsson:Well, I mean, we work with airlines all over the world, mainly helping them deliver and build partnerships with other ones, with other carriers, airlines and rail carriers, etc. And we are specialized in just that, in what happens when something happens, right?

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Okay.

David Gunnarsson:So we clearly see, and if you think about how, you know, we've already touched on AI, right? And how that's kind of evolving our business and the industry. It really starts in, it's probably all, we've heard stories yesterday, and for example, on customer service and how that's evolving with AI, even though maybe in a disruption you wouldn't want to be stuck in some sort of endless loop with an AI agent.

Cyndi Hui:Absolutely.

David Gunnarsson:But it can certainly help there. I think then if you think back to the industry, or sort of the travel process, you know, from planning to booking and all of those things, I think distribution is probably evolving first, right? How travelers discover new things, and they're probably less so going in and having decided to go somewhere. They're more AI is supporting them on the discovery path of how they're getting around, how they're figuring out what to do, and they're less so deciding where to go and what to do, but more sort of setting intent and letting AI orchestrate the trip, the journey.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Interesting. So what I'm hearing, the sense, what I'm getting the sense here is that it's not only driven by what technology can do, but it's also driven by what actually the travelers are wanting. demanding as they evolve, supported by the technology available. So that's—

David Gunnarsson:I think so. And if I may, sorry, I think the— as Cindy mentioned, the sort of the comfort of users with already using AI, or travelers. And as soon as they get into— as that becomes more general and people understand the capabilities, I think Luke mentioned expectations and, you know, then it resets expectations almost immediately to what travelers will want from the websites where they book. And of course, then you get into the question of, will they do that in the future? Maybe not. If I were running a very large travel booking website, I might be concerned about how that's going to change. But it certainly will raise their expectations or change their expectations quite dramatically, quite instantly, as AI is influencing the world. to how they book, how their experience gets delivered from a personalization perspective, et cetera, when they know the capability or understand the capability of AI.

Cyndi Hui:I think just if I can just layer on, because I mentioned that 54% of travelers are confident to use AI, but what we are seeing is throughout the funnel, it's not the same throughout the funnel. So where travelers are using AI a lot more is at the beginning when they are doing discovery. So whether it is destination search or they're looking for inspiration and they want to compare different hotels or different options, that's where they use AI a lot. From a provider's perspective, where they're using AI a lot is obviously productivity improvement. And one of that piece that is really important for that is the customer service aspects of it. So a lot of partners of ours are embracing AI to really better serve the travelers. Not only significantly decreasing the cost and improving productivity, but also delighting the customers in a way that before the AI world was not possible. So this is definitely what we are seeing. But if you think about the middle where travelers actually have decided what they want and they are close to deciding what they want, they need to compare it and they need to make that booking. What we are finding is that traditional AI is still not the best for that, and travelers still need to go to a provider that they can trust. First of all, as an established travel brand, but more importantly, it's also the data layer. I mean, I'm sure a lot of us in the room use AI day to day, but a lot of the times, the AI is only as good as the data that powers it. So from our perspective, I mentioned that we've been using AI for over 10 years. Basically, how we use that is, you know, we consolidate all this data, search 100 billion prices a day. So that is serious scale that we operate at. And in order for that to be meaningful data providing the right recommendation to the traveler at the right time, we do need to filter the data, organize it, predict what's going on, use machine learning to, you know, manage that really mass scale of data. And that's where Skyscanner will continue to add value. And that's why we launch partners of ChatGPT, Microsoft, to make sure that we meet travelers where they are. If they prefer to search from natural language, you know, we can serve them there. If they come directly to Skyscanner, we're also there for them. And then building tools to evolve as their expectations continue to evolve, because I think we're only scratching the surface from an AI perspective. We're still learning a lot about it. It still has, you know, risk of hallucination, inaccurate data, and that's dangerous in travel. So, um, yeah, so we're still evolving.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Absolutely. I think, uh, that's for sure that as, as the technology progresses, as industry evolves, we'll see more integration of AI going further than just searching, maybe creating itineraries or comparing. Maybe one day in future, about 5, 10 years from now, you could also book an, uh, air ticket or flight, hotel, uh, from an AI agent. Possibly, but who knows? Let's see. So it's interesting. We have spoken about these different technology solutions, the changing environment of the air travel. But I would now like to understand. Of course, there are certain challenges, right? Be the technology maturity, be the training change environment, multiple aspects to it. So in your perspective, what are some of the challenges that the industry is facing when addressing this transformation? And maybe some insights on how your organization is addressing it. We can start with you, David.

David Gunnarsson:Well, I think as always, there are multiple challenges. I mean, you know, and maybe to Cindy's point on data, it's really, you know, as we get into sort of the further evolution of how AI gets integrated into everything, basically. And it's not really— I mean, from my perspective on AI, it's not really how do we make— how do we get 10% better? How do we sort of slightly augment our business or an industry or whatever, but how do we reimagine the industry as if AI had always been there so that it sort of permeates everything, right? And I think then it— what's going to become the key questions are around sort of the content. So the original providers, the principals in, you know, in— we're talking about airlines, hotels, the sort of providers of the actual you know, the actual services. But how that data is accessible to AI, how it's structured, and how it's delivered, that's going to become— I think those kinds of challenges are going to become the key ones. Because as we know, in, you know, the airline industry, for example, where we spend most of our time, that data and how airlines—

Cyndi Hui:Yeah.

David Gunnarsson:exchange data and these things. This is, this is pretty, pretty fragmented and it's all over the place in terms of, you know, we've had— there's a— we've obviously had NDC hanging around for years, not really getting anywhere, but maybe now accelerating slightly. We've got the offer and order transformation in the industry going on, but, but we still have such a vast amount of data that sort of possibly very closed off, also not very well structured, and the semantics in the data are not, you know, good enough for AI to be able to read it. So I think those kinds of challenges will be paramount in what comes next.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Absolutely. I think the data sharing part of it still is a big challenge. If you speak to airports, sometimes airlines don't want to share, airports don't. So that's still there for multiple reasons, of course. But I'm sure as technology progresses, we may have certain transparent solutions that understand where, how data is used. So I think that is where the data sharing should be addressed. Look, coming to you, because from a multiple airline perspective, how is it— is it challenging enough to manage? Because everybody has a different solution, different technology, different way they are deploying it. Is it something that you face as part of a challenge?

Luc Lachoix:Yeah, this is certainly a large focus for in— for an alliance in our position. We are working on, again, elevating the customer experience in a context where passengers are exchanged from one airline to the other, looking after the entire journey. So we look after the various large pillars of booking, airports, connections, and loyalty, and trying to address those in such a way where all those frictions are going to be addressed. Michael implements systems solving complex, you know, business problems from an operational standpoint with one airline. Now, when more than one airline with 2 disparate systems are involved, the complexity is practically exponential. So as, as an alliance, this is really what we're trying to, to achieve by bridging that gap, by allowing a more seamless journey throughout the process. at every one of those touchpoints for the passengers.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:I see. And that's where you need to maybe standardize those solutions in a way, or how they are used at least, so that is—

Luc Lachoix:Or representing a sort of technology backbone that every airline can connect into in order to easier access the others. Absolutely.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Right, right. Michael, to you from an operations perspective, because you do work with— in multiple locations, multiple airlines, infrastructure is different. Regulations are different, the people who handle those have different training. How challenging is it to make sure that your solution can be offered in the same experience to everybody on the channel?

Michael Clarke:Sure, so if you look at the airline industry, we've done a great job from an integration standpoint in selling something to someone. So an airline is always trying to sell you a hotel room, a car rental, or an alliance is trying to give you a journey from anywhere to anywhere in the world. Even value-based and low-cost carriers have the value alliance. Everyone is looking at working together on the retailing side. On the operational side, there's a significant breakdown around system integration.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Okay.

Michael Clarke:And interoperability between, between partners. So this transcends 2 airlines working together. Even if your flight is delayed and you bought a hotel on that airline's website. I'm sure the hotel is not going to communicate to the airline when their flight is delayed and you miss your check-in time, and the hotel is still going to charge you for the night that you can't achieve because the airline didn't get you to the destination before midnight the day before. There's no communication after the, after the hotel is sold on the airline's website. So a lot of that is just driven around system integration and interoperability. I mean, as an IT provider, I'd love for everybody to buy our IT systems, but I think from an industry standpoint, you know, our predecessors had it right with EDIFACT and all the archaic standards that are out there. But the most important thing is to have some level of standards for integration that transcends an individual IT provider, but enables us to deliver on the brand promise of interoperability and efficient sharing of data. And it's not just within the Star Alliance. It's across the entire ecosystem of how collectively we're trying to enable the passenger's experience.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Yeah, I think, I think that's, that's what, uh, the industry is trying to look for.

Michael Clarke:So I know I've heard about this NDC thing for a long time when I worked for one of the largest reservation companies in the world, and I'm still observing. Yeah, absolutely.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:I think this is a specific question to you, Luke, because of the different airlines. So we don't have an airline on the panel, but I'm sure you represent airlines as well.

Cyndi Hui:Yeah.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:So it's about the seamless experience that we were talking about earlier, right? Increasingly, passengers now want that. So they want it from end to end, even at the airport, before they reach the airport, after the airport. They want a seamless experience throughout. And let's say if they have flights on multiple airlines as well. So how do you reach to that? How do you match up to that level of their requirement of that seamless experience when you have different airlines involved, different stakeholders involved?

Luc Lachoix:Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. The expectations from passengers are very high, rightfully so. And every airline is working on their own at developing their own approach to delivering on that promise. From an airline perspective, we are essentially trying to bridge the gap between this online connection experience within a single carrier to provide the same experience when passengers are flowing over multiple airlines. So in a way, what we compete against is ourselves, in a sense that we want to ensure that from an airline's perspective, from this collaboration among— within a network of airlines, that the experience, the seamlessness that you would expect more easily from a single carrier is passed over to a network of different carriers operating different technology, but aiming at similar standards that they've agreed upon. So in order to achieve this, this is where we bring technology that will allow that similar features, that similar level of service to flow among those those carriers. Some of the examples where we could take our interline seat selections— seat selection is a trivial feature of a booking. We do it naturally. It is rather complex to do. So right now, the vast majority of our interline traffic within Star Alliance have access to free seat selection, and we're implementing paid seat selection across the alliance. In order for— to represent not only an incremental revenue stream, but also to meet that passenger expectations. We talked about the desire for passengers to have a better control, better awareness of their journey as they go. So in order to achieve this, we provide baggage tracking features, for example, that allows each airline to provide their passengers with visibility over when the baggage are checked in, transferred, delivered, arrived, not only within themselves, which they're already able to do very well, but across a network of airlines. So we're trying to bring that seamlessness that each airline is able to do very well by themselves typically to a multi-airline itinerary to bridge that gap.

Cyndi Hui:Right.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:And in that—

David Gunnarsson:sorry, I have a point on this as well. Yeah, just as— so We spend a lot of time in the low-cost space.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Okay.

David Gunnarsson:So we work with low-cost carriers quite a bit all over the world, a few in this region. And there's probably a segment there that has maybe lower expectations of seamlessness, as you would expect. You know, obviously we heard a lot about yesterday the sort of greater prevalence of premium travel post-COVID, but there's still this, pretty significant sector around LCCs, and our business evolves around bridging the gap between LCCs. They are usually islands, they usually stand alone, and also from an LCC to a full-service carrier. So you might do an LCC on short haul and then connect onto a full-service carrier on long haul.

Michael Clarke:Right.

David Gunnarsson:And we are, you know, in the same way as Luke and the team at Star Alliance are bridging the gap between those carriers. We work with about 100 airlines whereby we try to bridge that gap between all of them. It's not seamless all the time, but it certainly is sort of a way for airlines to collaborate with much less cost and complexity than in sort of a traditional interline environment. But it's still— and obviously we see a significant opportunity in how we can be better at delivering that in sort of a new world where technology is much more flexible and feasible.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:But as you mentioned, because you mentioned this about bridging the gap between or connecting LCCs to full-scale carriers, isn't it tricky to manage the expectations? Because not every traveler might be aware of what to expect suddenly moving from a— you've sat in a 17-hour flight or 14-hour flight on a full-scale carrier and you get on a 2-hour flight of a low-cost carrier, you suddenly move into a different So isn't that a tricky thing to manage?

David Gunnarsson:Yeah, it really depends on the marketing carrier, right? So we have a lot of, you know, easyJet in the UK is a very large LCC across Europe, and we manage all of their connectivity, and we serve their customers, the connected customers as well. So, and they are the marketing carrier, so people have certain expectations from that perspective. You know, we help them connect with Emirates and Singapore. And we— so, and then EasyJet customer, an EasyJet customer will come in with LCC expectations. If it's the other way around, and one of the airlines we work with is Air France, and we help, we sell connections between Air France and Transavia, their low-cost subsidiary, then it might be trickier to manage those expectations. But we also facilitate a partnership between Air France and And SBB, the rail carrier in Switzerland, where, you know, that's also a slightly different sort of expectation that the customer might have when that's happening. But as long as— I always feel as long as the customer knows what's happening and knows what's going to happen, more importantly, I think then it becomes maybe slightly easier.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Yeah, I think you mentioned a very important point, and it's about connecting outside the air travel journey as well, and which is becoming even more prominent now more than ever. I think that's happening more in Europe. I think Asia is not still there, but it's about connecting to the ferries, to the trains, and that's where— so, so that, out of curiosity, that brings me to the question, Cindy, for you. Is this something that Skyscanner is looking forward to or looking into? That one is the intermodal connectivity. So if I go to Skyscanner, if I want to select a place, you offer me the long-haul flight, and as a sustainability aspect or any other aspect, you offer me a train journey for the rest of the short haul. Is that something that SkySafari—

Cyndi Hui:Really good question. We've actually launched rail in a number of markets. We also launched packages in a couple of markets. Early days. These verticals are in really, really early days. You know, ultimately we want to serve the travelers for all their needs across— obviously we already have very established verticals like flights, hotels, and cars. But I think going back to, you know, the traveler problem with all these fragmented distribution and a lot of legacy technology that we're still working with, you know, one of the key traveler problems that we're seeing at Skyscanner is that travelers want to be able to compare everything, not only the base fare. They want to know whether my flight comes with a seat, a meal, and beyond that as well, you know, like they want to know cancellation, flex the And what we're finding is that, you know, we work with airlines and also online travel agencies in this space. Because of the inconsistency of how bundles are created and how offers are made, and there's also dynamic pricing on top of all these, you know, offers and prices and ancillary prices, it's getting increasingly complex for both the travelers in terms of navigating the options but also for us to be able to help them consistently get the accurate data and compare. So this is an area where Skyscanner is investing very heavily. We call it total cost of search. It's not easy, but we're working, you know, we're very committed to work with partners, especially airlines, in terms of aggregating that data in a way that allows for that easy comparison. Now, if you use Skyscanner to search for a flight, we've got a bag filter where if you want to check in a bag, you'll be able to check that filter and compare the options that are available to you and the prices that would include a check-in bag. So we want to continue to evolve in this space, even though the inconsistency and the legacy technology does make it somewhat challenging.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:No, absolutely, it will be definitely tricky, but I'm sure it will be worthwhile. So that's for sure. A follow-up question, Cindy, if I may, was about, is it— does it happen that airlines, because of these alliances, these collaborations, the seamless experience that we were just talking about with Luke previously, is it that sometimes airlines reach out to you to enable you to give— allow passengers to see the seamless experience between the different airlines that they have collaboration or they have partnerships with? Is that something that comes to you?

Cyndi Hui:Yeah, so I touched a lot on the traveler side and how technology is evolving to help their experience, like, although getting more complex but more simple in terms of what they experience. But on the airline side, what I want to share is that we are also increasingly becoming a more strategic channel for the airlines. So from the airline's perspective, you know, they are leveraging a lot of these technologies to be able to offer different experiences to their travelers and obviously to also maximize business outcomes as well at the same time. So what we know is that, you know, Skyscanner works with a lot of partners and we work with a lot of travelers, so our data is pretty useful to the industry and airlines in particular. So by leveraging that, we're able to help airlines, for example, be much more optimized in terms of their marketing investments and their efforts. We invest in contextual cohorting, basically using microscience of our travelers to create audience cohorts so that we can tailor marketing messages better for the airlines. The other piece is also we are providing our data subscription to 60 partners in the travel industry— airlines, airports, and also destination organizations. So they use this data to make some decisions— network planning decisions, pricing decisions, marketing decisions— and this is where we are able to collaborate with them very closely. And thirdly, we also know that dynamic pricing and bundles are something that a lot of airlines are heavily investing in. So on Skyscanner, we also work with the airline as an extension of the e-commerce site where they can make specific offers to our audience that are dynamic, and we share real-time data to enable those offers to make sure that they are as, you know, attractive and as effective as they can be.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:That e-commerce aspect sounds Quite interesting. Michael, before we move to the next question, would you have something to add on this part of the intermodal operational part of it from your side?

Michael Clarke:Sure. If you look at where we are today in especially Europe and the intermodal travel between air and rail, there's a tremendous opportunity in the future to go beyond where we are today. In Asia, especially in Northern Asia, there's a lot of Combinations of air travel and ferry, especially in Hong Kong and other destinations. So there's definitely— but it goes back to the fundamental issue of the expectation of the customer and the ability that if you sold me something that is supposed to take me from A to B, ensure that I can get from A to B in the experience that I am expecting. And I think that is just a fundamental issue at hand. You know, so today it's getting from an airport to a ferry terminal or from a train station downtown to a destination. But, you know, there's tremendous opportunity in the future about what that means. But for it to work, even with just going from one mode to the other, we need to figure out the interoperability and the data issue before we go.

Luc Lachoix:Yeah.

Michael Clarke:further to where it could be. I think there's tremendous opportunities to where it could get to.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Absolutely. In the future, maybe UM as well for your last mile?

Michael Clarke:Yes. My thought process is, one of the questions that you had asked us to think about was really where we see the industry in 2030. It's really about being able to deliver a seamless door-to-door experience, especially if you think about the advent of eVTOLs. Some of us in the world are truly bought into that. including myself. And if you also look at the evolution of rideshares and robo-taxis, it's really about being able to deliver on that overall end-to-end process and being able to know that if you call a Grab— I need to adapt, I'm local— if you need to— if you call a Grab and you're planning to get to, you know, Kensington in London, you can manage your entire journey from when your Grab shows up here to when you get to Heathrow and get into an Uber or some other local rideshare provider or the Heathrow Express to get to your destination and have that ability to see the entire lifecycle. And if anything goes wrong along that path, you are aware of what's going on and you have options to make a decision.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:I think being aware of the status of the changes in the travel journey is very important, as Luke mentioned about the baggage part of it. Previously it was quite a blind spot, but now passengers are also having their own ways. They have their tags which they put up on their own bags, which now airlines are also trying to integrate. So I'm sure that that will now give that complete seamless experience. I think a quick discussion point here. Some of you mentioned the influence of the social media or the technology part of this evolution of the air travel. So is that something that you would like to add, Luke, on that part of it? Is it something that you're Are you really looking at how social media or social influence or loyalty programs is impacting your industry?

Luc Lachoix:Well, look, yes and no. Star Alliance is really an internal brand, a secondary brand. We're not the main brand driver. Our goal is to play behind the scenes to enable our carriers to deliver a cohesive customer experience that will be enhanced. So in that aspect, Of course, social media and those influences are always relevant for Star Alliance, which is more of a secondary brand versus a Singapore Airlines or United or Lufthansa or all of our individual brands of carriers. We are supporting them. We are enabling them to some degree behind the scenes, but we would not be the main driver of that by ourselves, essentially.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Absolutely. So not much of an influential aspect for you personally as a Star Alliance, but I'm sure it might trickle down in some way or another.

Luc Lachoix:Only to the extent that we contribute to our member carriers' brands.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Cindy, I remember earlier in the conversation you had mentioned the social aspect. Is there something you would like to add upon?

Cyndi Hui:Yeah, there's no doubt that social media influences how we travel. There's social media, there's AI, but from Skyscanner's perspective, we see 51% of travelers coming to us not knowing where they want to go or where they want to go. So, you know, travelers are also coming to us for inspiration. So I think it's not one single channel, but they go to multiple channels, maybe even their family and friends as well. So what we do is to ensure that when they come to us, we actually help them with inspirations and we recommend them what is relevant to them from a destination perspective. I mentioned about about SavvySearch, which is the AI tool that we have, but we also have an app-based feature which is called Drops where we actually show the flights that are dropped by at least 20% compared to the last 7 days. If you go on the app, you can actually look for a good deal to share some inspirations if the traveler don't know where they want to go but they are quite cost-conscious. And another way to actually look for inspiration is also that we organize by themes as well. And for those who are conscious about, you know, overtourism and sustainability, we offer an underrated filter allowing the travelers to actually check that and avoid all the crowded, you know, really overtourism destinations, and they can actually choose lesser-known destinations. The other way is also, other than how we work with the general-purpose AI. We also work with travel startups. So, for example, Layla is a platform where— it's a travel startup, and they have an app where they combine a bit of social video together with travel planning, itinerary planning. And so we actually power their flight search as well. So we're also working in this space as well to serve travelers wherever they are.

David Gunnarsson:Sure.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Maybe in the future you may have a filter for— you could select which loyalty program you need to book your flights into. So that is something that could also be just a thought. All right. So we just have about 2 minutes to go. So one final closing question to each of you, maybe just 30 seconds if you can. As a future perspective, as a— for the next 5 to 10 years, where do you see this air travel industry evolving? And what are some of the aspects that you think would be changing, maybe for the passengers or maybe for the industry? We can start with you, David.

David Gunnarsson:Well, I think if we look at it from the travel perspective, I think we will— and, you know, Cindy, you're talking about inspiration, right? And I think travelers will set intent and then kind of, you know, on what kind of trip or roughly where or something like that, and then AI will orchestrate the seamless, the end-to-end journey, right? Probably not in 5 years, but maybe in 10 years. And there must be a world where travelers don't have to worry about whether their fare bundles on the 2 airlines they're looking at match, or whether they can book a seat or whatever. That'll all be taken care of. You know, this is probably utopia and will never exist, but, you know, let's give it a shot.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Hopefully it does. Hopefully it does. Michael, to you.

Michael Clarke:I mean, I think I touched on this on my last response in terms of, you know, as, you know, end-to-end, a seamless end-to-end, door-to-door experience. And, you know, who knows? I mean, you know, I'm old enough to remember paper tickets, and we are in the e-ticket era, but who knows in 10 years, would there even be a need for e-tickets?

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Or biometrics, maybe.

Michael Clarke:Exactly. Maybe that's where we are, but I think it's all about experience, be it your own experience or someone else's experience, aka an influencer. Travelers are making decisions about experience and not solely about price. That's the fundamental change I see today, and it's definitely going to be the same in the future. Cindy?

Cyndi Hui:I think we'll continue to see travel demand increasing. People will want to explore many more parts of the world, not only the popular destinations that are heavily visited today. And I think AI will continue to evolve. So, you know, agentic AI will be the next wave where essentially agents will be working with each other to be able to not only provide information or not only do research, but actually take action and maybe even booking and things like that. So that's a space that there's already, you know, a lot of discussion and a lot of exploration between providers and between, you know, partners as well. And I think, you know, the traveler's experience will improve, but at the same time, they will demand more. That's what I expect.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:So, Luke, do you think it will become more automated or more personalized in the next 5 years?

Luc Lachoix:Look, I think that, well, yes, I think yes, We will address the complexity of the systems, allowing greater automations. We will leverage some of those formidable tools that we have driven by AI and so on. I would not say that we're moving into a fully automated type of robotic approach. I think the human aspect of the airline business has always been very present. It's always been very intensive in human approach as well as in technology. Technology is an enabler to really improve that customer experience. enable the people that are working. We have, for example, some connection centers where we facilitate tight connections for passengers. Of course, we're leveraging technology, automation, and so on, but at the end of the day, there's a human taking another human by the hand to make sure they don't miss their flights, and that will remain.

Shantanu Narendra Gangakhedkar:Absolutely. So I think we have discussed some really interesting aspects here. It's about collaboration, It's a seamless experience, which is what everybody wants, even the passengers as well as the stakeholders in the airline industry, about how you can give the passengers that seamless end-to-end experience while having that personalization aspect of it. Because we talk about AI, digitalization, automation, but still at the back of it, travelers need that personal touch in some way or the other. So thank you so much, all of you, for providing those very valuable insights. I'm sure audience has got a lot of insights to take away with. So thank you so much, everyone, and thank you for that.

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