MAG Commercial Director Ciaran Brannigan at CAPA’s Airlines in Transition 2022 summit

Transcript

Ciaran Brannigan:Delighted that events like this are back, and I think it's a sign that, you know, the industry is recovering and, you know, we are getting back to a level of normal business. But that comes with different challenges than we've faced over the past 2 years where, you know, largely our airports have been, you know, either closed or dealing with very low passenger numbers. What we've seen over the past number of months as markets have reopened and customers have returned to the airports in big numbers is we've seen a huge increase in our traffic at the airports. And that creates short-term challenges because that growth in passenger traffic has outstripped the speed at which we can get people back into the operation and back serving our customers at our airports. So in the short term, that's a major challenge. We are working through it. We're getting people back into the operation. But certainly in the short term, it's a challenge because the passenger traffic and the demand for passenger traffic is outstripping our ability to get people through the security vetting processes, through the training processes, and getting them back working in our airports and serving our customers. But we're confident we have the plan in place that over the next month or 2, we will start to see improvements in those areas. The people are being recruited and they are coming into the business, and hopefully by the time we reach the peak of the summer, you know, we will see more normal experiences in our airports, you know, shorter queue times and so on. It's materialized very quickly. I think back in November we were planning on an increase and some return to normality this summer, and that obviously took a big bump with Omicron, and there was uncertainty as to, you know, whether that would result in, you know, further months of lockdown, you know, or whether it would be quickly recovered. And the speed at which it has recovered, you know, I think has, you know, has surprised everyone. In January as a group, we did less than 15% of our 2019 passenger levels across the group airports. By March, that was up to over 70%, and, you know, will continue to rise as we move through April and May. So dealing with that scale of increase in such a short period of time has created a lot of those challenges and those difficulties that we've seen at the airports in recent weeks. But we have the plan in place. We hope to have people back in the operation in the coming months, and, you know, as I say, start to see improvements in the experience that customers see going through our airports. It does create an opportunity You know, we've seen a lot of airlines retrench and retreat over the last number of years, but, you know, I think at this conference we've also seen a lot of optimism in the future of the industry, you know, no more so than the number of new entrants and new players that are coming into the market. And I think that shows optimism that, you know, ultimately customers want to travel, they want to be connected and to visit friends and families and experience new places. And as you say, from an airport perspective, that gives us a lot of opportunities to engage with these new players in the market, We believe we have a very compelling product across our 3 airports in the UK and can encourage these customers and these new entrants to operate new routes from our airports. It's been a major move, as you say, be it from the ways we work as people and individuals right the way through to what customers expect and interacting much more on mobile and digital platforms. So, I mean, that's an opportunity for us as an airport to reinvent the way in which customers experience the airport. And, you know, we believe we have some exciting plans to tap into that, to make that customer experience better and to engage with our customers, you know, more through those digital platforms. Sustainability is a huge commitment right across the industry. And, you know, MAG are right at the forefront of that in the UK. We're one of the founding members of the Jet Zero Group in the UK with, you know, who want to lead the industry in helping us get to and achieving that target of net zero by 2050. Indeed, as a group, MAG have set their own target that we want to get net zero by 2038, so 12 years ahead of the, ahead of the industry target, and we're working on a number of different aspects to make that come true. We're going to be the first airport in the UK here at Manchester to have a sustainable aviation fuel pipeline coming into the airport and have a target that by 2026, 10% of all fuels used at the airport will be SAF fuels. We're also working with ground handling agents to explore opportunities for electric vehicles and electric vehicles replacing fuel-powered vehicles at the airport. So there are a number of initiatives we have. And as I say, as part of the Jet Zero Group in the UK, we want to be right at the forefront because we realize as an industry we have to deliver on this target and we have to make the industry more sustainable into the future. It's an interesting area for us. As you say, new entrants are coming into the market. In some cases, they're replacing players who fell at the start of the pandemic or slightly before the pandemic. But it's always an interesting area for us to engage with new entrants. It creates opportunities for new markets, new models, you know, for us to tap into. And I think as a sign of the recovery, it's also, you know, it's also a sign of great optimism in our industry that people are willing to invest and start new airlines at this time. And it creates great opportunity for us as an airport. And, you know, it's one of the things we're happy to be here to engage with some of these new players and to to work with them to, to make their plans come to fruition and their new routes come to fruition. Thank you.

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