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Recorded at CAPA Airline Leader Summit World, 11-12 Dec 2025

Partnerships - Airlines working with non aviation businesses

This dynamic session brings together industry leaders to discuss the transformative potential of partnerships between airlines and non-aviation businesses. Featuring insights from Angus McDonald, Co-Founder & CEO of Cover Genius, and Anko van der Werff, CEO of SAS, the discussion will delve into how airlines are leveraging cross-industry collaborations to enhance customer experiences, diversify revenue streams, and drive innovation.

Key topics include:

  • Strategies for building successful partnerships with non-aviation sectors such as insurance, technology, and retail.
  • Real-world examples of impactful collaborations that have reshaped customer engagement and ancillary revenue models.
  • Challenges and opportunities in forging alliances that align with airline goals and customer expectations.
  • Future trends in cross-industry partnerships and their role in the evolving aviation landscape.

Transcript

Rich Maslen:Now we're going to talk about something a little bit different. It was brought up in the last panel about collaboration. We hear a lot about partnerships and collaboration, but we're going to look at something that's perhaps reshaping our industry a little bit. These partnerships now outside of aviation, you know, airlines have partnered for ages. We've had codesharing, we've had interlines. But more and more now we're seeing airlines turn to people outside of the airline sector to support them. We're watching airlines evolve from just being transport brands into lifestyle and retail platforms, and it's not an easy journey, and it's something that a lot of airlines are struggling with. Customers interact with airlines long before they actually board the aircraft. They're still interacting with them long after they've left the aircraft. And there's a lot of pressure to get that right and make sure everything is there We have a lot of disruptions happening outside of our control. We know that here in Lisbon at the moment. How do you solve that? How do you get around that? How do you make it work? So these are things becoming a lot more important now. So this is where partnerships get exciting. And I'm quite excited about this partnership and learning a bit more about it. So you saw Anko earlier on. Obviously, Anko has— I'm not bigging him up here, but he's revolutionized SAS. He's turned the airline into a really relevant brand again. It had lost its way a long way. What he's achieved there in the short time he's been there has been absolutely amazing and changed the airline. And then we, we have Angus from COVID Genius that maybe is a company not a lot of you have heard of, but they are really becoming thought leaders in this industry and being able to sort of change the dynamic and how people are working. So while their main focus is insurance, it's not just going to be about insurance. It's about relationships. It's about working together. It's about partnerships. And it's how airlines can unlock new revenues, reduce costs, and create customer experiences that actually feel modern. And I know that sounds actually amazing, and it seems radical that it can happen, but I truly believe it really can. So please, can I invite Anko and Angus up onto the stage so we can have a little bit of discussion about partnerships outside aviation? Thank you, gentlemen. Cheers, guys.

Angus McDonald:Thank you. No worries.

Anko van der Werff:Anko, thank you for joining us. Thank you.

Angus McDonald:Right, thank you.

Rich Maslen:So not a lot of people might know about the partnerships and everything that's going on, but I think to start with, I think we need to go back a little bit before we actually get into, into how you're working together. So Anko, you know, airlines are famously independent. They like to do things on their own. They like to, you know, anything goes wrong, we deal with it badly quite often because they don't have the expertise. You know, why are partnerships now becoming so important for you at SAS?

Anko van der Werff:Yeah, I think you actually were too polite. I call it the not invented here syndrome. And it's quite typical for airlines actually to suffer from it. And I really don't understand why. I think typically it's because people spend most of their lives in that same one airline and in that same one business. And I think it's detrimental for discovery, for curiosity, actually. I see it everywhere, really. It's been— so partnerships, look, the partnerships, of course, that we've developed over the ages, decades, is first of all airline partnerships, right? SPA, interline, codeshare, and that evolved into joint ventures. For me, I think I was in a lucky position. I started in 2000. I started in KLM, and KLM and Northwest already had this completely seamless— everything was purple, right? KLM was blue, Northwest was red, and we were forced to think purple.

Angus McDonald:Right.

Anko van der Werff:And, and it's been truly one of the things I, I believe in, right? It's again that consolidation piece that we all spoke about this morning. And so here we are, airline not invented here syndrome. Tech is going to get bigger, and there is people that clearly know tech better than we do, at least on the retailing side and on so many of the product side. So it makes all the sense in the world to expand the partnership thinking from just SPA co-chair whatever, joint venture thinking into who can actually contribute and deliver something for us to our customers that is better at it than we are.

Rich Maslen:Gus, you know, it comes an interesting question here because, you know, the airline industry has got a bad name. It's known for a long time of being slow to develop and change. You know, why has an airline become a compelling partner for you? Why would Do you actually want to get involved in an industry where, you know, we're known for struggling and taking forever to make decisions?

Anko van der Werff:Yeah, Gus. Wow. Opening questions.

Angus McDonald:Rich, I'm not sure I agree with the premise. Please don't put those words in my mouth. Look, I think airlines have this incredible consumer base, and consumers trust you as Well, you know, they trust you to deliver. You know, if anyone's on a flight and you take it and you're a nervous flyer and you're thinking, hey, I'm with SAS, you kind of— you've already made— you're committed when you're sitting on that plane. You know that you're taking off and it's got to land. And I think airlines do an incredible job of that whole process. And that trust, I think, is something that's really important. And what we try and do We're actually a partnerships business through and through. So when we work with airlines or digital platforms, you know, we work with the retailers like Amazon or eBay right through to OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia, and of course with airlines. And what we do is we think about the consumer. So if you start with the consumer, what that experience has to be like or you want it to be like, and then we try and work together to try and get them that really great experience.

Anko van der Werff:Yeah.

Angus McDonald:So I get excited about airlines because I love the number of consumers who they touch and who they can actually have impact with. And, and then how do we actually create the next level experience off the back of that?

Rich Maslen:And I guess the key thing here is it's about the collaboration culture and how you change mindsets and develop change. Okay, things are becoming a lot easier with younger workforces coming through that are more open to it. But Anko, how, how do you sort of breed that within SAS to be, this is what we do and how we work?

Anko van der Werff:Yeah, so it always sounds— I mean, your question first of all, but some of my answers as well, it sounds like I'm very critical of some of the people that work for us in particular teams, and it's— I really am not. I'm just— in the answer that I'm going to give you, I'm going to portray a mindset I think that just persists in a lot of call it more legacy airlines. And, and I'm not even going to say which airline this was and where and how and what. But at some point, I brought in someone from, from Ryanair for a couple of months to work on, on ancillary, right? Because as I said this morning also, it's just, it's literally is one of the 5 pillars that I have and that I think constitutes a great airline. And so we mapped everything out and this is what we're going to do and here's these products and here's these touchpoints and here's everything that we want and This is a very senior Ryanair guy who had been there for ages, and after months in the business, someone asks, well, do we actually know that ancillary works for us? And that's just a complete wrong question to ask, right? And that's why I like Gus's answer as well, because we know, and we know that Ryanair, for instance, has taught Europe, Europeans, to want personalization and to want ancillary products. And so if they work for Ryanair and if they work for Amazon, as in, hey, here's actually what you also like and here's a one-click to whatever, right? You bought a rice cooker and here is now a spoon that goes with it, a rice spoon or whatever, right? I just happened to buy a rice cooker 2 weeks ago. And so there's all these add-ons, right? And there it's all logical and normal and all these people buy that on a daily basis, but then all of a sudden when they're in an airline, they don't want to. That's just ridiculous, right? So you really just have to— everyone's a consumer, everyone buys stuff. Here is where the world has evolved to. Here is how they do that on a typical daily basis. Now let's make that work in our business. And by the way, add some margin whilst we're at it, right?

Angus McDonald:Yeah, well, I, I mean, I think, Anko, you're touching on the personalization aspect there, but The consumers are more likely to buy something if it's personalized. And so that creates that revenue opportunity, and clearly you can make some money out of that exercise, and that's an important part. But they're buying it because firstly they want it. And I think if you— if an airline limits itself to just selling a flight ticket, which is kind of where it was, why can't you sell headphones for your flight?

Anko van der Werff:Exactly.

Angus McDonald:Why can't you have a personalized bundle of products? It might be an Uber voucher. to and from. Like, how do you, how do you personalize that experience so that it's something that the consumer goes, oh, actually, wow, that was a really seamless— I've got everything I need for my flight. I mean, maybe melatonin, melatonin powder, you know, pills or something. We could, we could work on that already.

Anko van der Werff:Yeah, let's, let's actually claim that.

Angus McDonald:Yeah, let's claim that.

Rich Maslen:Okay, all right, okay, we're taking a commission on that. Okay, so it's quite clear, you know, there's so many opportunities and, and so many things collaborations will work. And I think, you know, it might be good to now see how the two of you are collaborating. We can see quite clearly on stage how the two of you collaborate. You know, you can see why this partnership works. You know, the two of you bounce off each other amazingly. I just, you know, what problem was SAS trying to solve that made you think, I need to find an answer to this? And did you go to Cover Genius, or did Cover Genius come to you?

Anko van der Werff:The last bit I actually don't know anymore. I don't know who called first, Gus.

Rich Maslen:Who called who?

Angus McDonald:Look, yeah, I'm not sure we even know because we've been working with SAS for a few years, you know, but what we're excited about is being able to take, you know, a relatively traditional travel insurance kind of relationship and now expand that across all sorts of other benefits.

Rich Maslen:But what makes SAS a good airline to have that as the platform?

Angus McDonald:Well, I think what, you know, Anko's done an incredible job of reinventing SAS, as you said in his intro, Rich. And I think as we start— as SAS now goes through its premiumization, bringing in business class, thinking about reinvigorating the loyalty program, how do you then create different benefits for those different customer sets? That was really interesting for us. Like, we all of a sudden, we had a lot more to work with around Okay, what do you do with the loyalty program? How do you deal with points? Can you pay claims in points? Can you create different tiers of customers and give them different benefits? And all of that driven, I think, by, you know, for those of you who heard Anko this morning talking about NPS as being really important. So all being driven from that consumer lens really made it exciting for us to be able to say, okay, well, if that's the objective, then how do we come up with some great collaborations around that.

Rich Maslen:Okay, so, you know, SAS now, you know, it's not just airline. You said before you're now SAS Holidays and various other concepts and coming through there. How does the COVID Genius product work across so many multiple platforms without— you know, we all know when it comes to getting insurance, there's about 45 pages of small print that we had to read through and everything else. If you're doing it for the airline, for hotels and everything, how does that work? And how have you got one system that can bring that together?

Angus McDonald:Well, yeah, I mean, so we have a single API. It's global. So we work with customers everywhere. We work with platforms, you know, like Amazon and all these sort of guys. So retailers— Klarna is a partner of ours, Revolut as well. So digital banks, airlines. What that really allows us to do is to have different solutions. And so we bring that to these sorts of partnerships. And I think what you then see is something that's kind of— we heard the word imagination previously. It gives you that ability to imagine a different consumer experience.

Rich Maslen:And Anko, I know Cover Genius is not the only partnership. You've got various others. And I heard you speaking even recently very candidly about some of the partnerships you have and the value of them. You know, it's an important part of you moving forward. You've changed the airline dramatically. You know, have you been able to find partners in the right areas for you, or are there still areas that you think there's missing gaps in the market?

Anko van der Werff:No, I think we're very happy with the partners we're having, and indeed there's, there's, there's many. And there's many— what I like here is it's almost infinite, right, the possibilities and the, and the products, because there's many products that do not exist yet None of us know actually that we want those products right now, and yet maybe in half a year, year, 2 years, whenever, through the technology of COVID Genius, for instance— and you heard me speak about Adyen, the Dutch payment platform company— if you combine those things, and if our backend is set up to work with COVID Genius and with Adyen, for instance, whatever product will be thought of in the future, You've got the basis there. We've got the base right there, and it's so creative, right? It's so beautiful. I mean, we did in Latin America installment payments. It was way before Klarna ever got big, and we were doing this with all these different banks in South America. It's beautiful products because you can price them differently, and again, it's complete personalization, right? So when you walk away mentally, I think, which I've done probably about, well, a bit more than a decade ago, When you walk away from ancillary and in a way shoving it down and opting out, shoving it down one's throat and whatever, and you make it personalized and make it around the democratization and the personalization of products, yeah, it's just infinite. And that's what I, that's what I like.

Rich Maslen:Yeah. And Anko, I think, you know, people might get a bit surprised. You know, you talk about SAS becoming like a fintech-enabled lifestyle brand, you know, Should airlines just stick to flying planes? And that's what people think now.

Anko van der Werff:We fly planes, but also don't think we should diminish ourselves to just flying planes. This morning I spoke with Johan Cruyff, who's a philosopher. Now I'm going to speak about a Dutch— happens to be Dutch— physics professor in the 1930s. He came up with the law of the head start— the handicap of a head start. The law of the handicap of a head start. And when you look at aviation, I think we have been at the forefront of all these beautiful things. I mean, in the 1980s, we were distributing fares, ticket sales globally. We had some sort of, right, GDS, World Wide Web, whatever, right? I mean, we were selling tickets in Bangkok, right?

Rich Maslen:Mm-hmm.

Anko van der Werff:And it was the 1980s, before the internet existed, right? And we also had, and many of you would know this, We were the founders— SAS, I think, was American Airlines— but airlines of loyalty programs. Loyalty program is a digital currency. And now all of a sudden, everybody's talking about Bitcoin and everybody else. We had digital currencies 30, 40 years ago. But what did we really do with them? So we had all these very innovative things, and we were able to break through and create value through them. But then through lack of technology or because people just diminished their roles as, well, we're just an airline or whatever, We diminish those parts. One, we are an airline, we fly people, and as we said, we don't cancel, we fly on time, and we give people back their shit, right? And then if you do that on a year-round basis every single day, then you're good. And then you attach yourself or others to you that are better in stuff— chatbots, claims, complaints, payment services, ancillaries, insurance, can be whatever products.

Angus McDonald:Yeah.

Anko van der Werff:And you make that come to life and you're relevant because that is, that's the number one thing where I'm heading, right? The relevancy of all these things combined around an airline make a hell of a lot of sense.

Rich Maslen:The thing is we don't want things to go wrong, but they do go wrong and we have to be prepared for that. And that's where these things are.

Anko van der Werff:Well, that's where, for instance, insurance comes in, right? I mean, and hey, so I understand you mentioned about the loyalty and thing.

Rich Maslen:I understand under this agreement you've got that actually the claims can be paid in EuroBonus points, which is quite an interesting angle there. Is, you know, is that the case? And who, whose idea was that? Was, was that a collaborative decision, or did one of you think, actually, here's something that we can gain loyalty from?

Anko van der Werff:I'm going to claim SAS.

Angus McDonald:Yeah, yeah, you guys definitely.

Anko van der Werff:No idea.

Angus McDonald:Well, I look, I think part of that is going, okay, what's the objective? So SAS's objective was Consumers are engaging more with their platform and with their loyalty program. So why don't we help fund that? Do you know what I mean?

Anko van der Werff:Yeah.

Angus McDonald:And so instead of like having a policy of, okay, well, you can't— we'll cash out. We do a lot of instant payments and have that sort of infrastructure. Being able to tie it back into the loyalty program helps SAS's objective of consumers going back there. That was really what we were trying to solve there. And you can do bonuses as well then. You can say, hey, well, if you take your claim in these points, then we'll give you an extra 50% points or something like that. So yeah, there's some really unique ways you can drive engagement, which was the objective.

Anko van der Werff:Again, digital currency, right? And I don't even care who thought of it first. No, me too. Yeah, as long as it's a good product. And again, if it drives NPS— we've also done something recently with our points where now other stores, physical stores and digital stores that are big in Sweden, just makeup firms or whatever, right? So whatever that's called nowadays, luxury— I don't know what it's called. Cosmetics.

Angus McDonald:Cosmetics.

Anko van der Werff:I clearly don't use them very much. And we're now at checkout, right? And that's what I'm saying, it's the law of the handicap of a head start. We had a head start in the 1980s. We had a digital currency. We could have deployed that digital currency already as of the year year 2000 when the internet was really big and become de facto a digital currency that Bitcoin is today. We didn't as airlines, but now we're going into— well, in certain retailers, we are now allowing people to check out, to pay with their EuroBonus points. And, and, and we can, right? It's just, it's, it's just allowing people options.

Rich Maslen:We talk about personalization quite a lot, you know, and having something that offers— obviously It complicates the model because you've got to offer various different aspects to it. But, you know, how can this work better from a personalization point of view in terms of, you know, solving the solutions for the passengers and giving them what they want?

Anko van der Werff:Well, by realizing that passengers aren't just passengers, but they're people. And those people interact with lots of different brands throughout the day, and so they're used to Amazon, and they're used to giving, for instance, ratings on Uber. All right, so if, if, if you fast forward now 10 years and everybody's used to giving on-the-spot feedback on how was the quality of my driver, well, why wouldn't you then be able to say, well, how was the quality of my crew today, right? And, and just have the same things applied to— we want to know from you how we did today. Right, we're a business and we value your opinions very much. And, and that's what I do in audiences like this as well. We have a couple of times a year where we go out in the 3 capitals of Scandinavia and we go out and we host, host these sessions. And it's beautiful because you really get to listen and learn to, all right, 300 typically of our top clients. What are they, what do they like? That's all great. What are they missing? What kind of products are they missing? And, and then tap that into, okay, well, is— if we can't do it ourselves, is there a partner who can do that, right? Is there installment payments? Well, Adyen can take that on together with Klarna for us. Great, great. Now we've got personalized offers there. Here's, here's other ancillary products. So building the ecosystem around you allows you to do more with the stuff you're having already in-house, such as a digital currency.

Rich Maslen:I guess, you know, you're putting building blocks together. So Angus, from your perspective, You know, are you completely open to— if Anko came to you and says, I want this model sort of changed and linked into another partner, is that part of the collaboration moving forward?

Angus McDonald:Yeah, that's right. So we are a platform, and so we can plug in anything pretty much. And we do everything from, you know, any kind of protection product. But also, you know, as Anko was touching on, what personalization actually means is that You know, the experience is, is individualized. You know, you get something that makes sense for you. So if you know someone is going, going to an airport, and, you know, I use the example of buying headphones, you probably want to protect those headphones. You want to know that it's going to arrive before the flight, and if it's not, you probably want a refund because there's no point having the headphones after the flight, as an example.

Anko van der Werff:Yeah.

Angus McDonald:Or you don't want to have them stolen from your porch or your, you know, front doorstep. So in that case, you want to be able to quickly either get your money back or have another set of headphones sent out before your flight. So there's these kind of experiences that we're trying to protect. So we're trying to protect those. We're also trying to then add other bundles of things that consumers engage with. eSIMs are another example. Lounge access, those kind of things are, I think, increasingly what we're going to see. And so Guys, partners like Anko coming to us saying, hey, we've done these consumer surveys and our customers are actually asking for this. What do you think? We're like, hey, let's go. Let's test that. Can we get that live next month?

Rich Maslen:You know, and things are constantly changing.

Anko van der Werff:Sorry, before you go, Richard, let's have that live next month. Because that's another thing, right? I mean, we know how long this takes with the IT providers that are the backbone of this industry. And that's why we also like dealing with, with guys like this, right? And Adyen and so many others, because it's just— I remember we did in Aeromexico more than 10 years ago now. Well, no, 10 years ago, 2015, early 2015, I think. We implemented one of the first chatbots in the world in Aeromexico. It took 2 weeks for them to integrate it. 2 weeks. Try and ask that to Amadeus, right? Good luck with that.

Rich Maslen:But then, you know, in terms of You know, we talk a lot in this industry. We like to make a lot of noise, but we don't take action. You know, these collaborations are only going to work if you get things moving and get things moving quickly. You know, do you find that there is still roadblocks, Anko, to getting these things?

Anko van der Werff:I just mentioned one. Yeah, we're very, we're very capable of putting up roadblocks everywhere, unfortunately. And yeah, let me not make this into a bashing session.

Rich Maslen:Let's turn it onto something else.

Anko van der Werff:Yeah, let's go positive again, right?

Rich Maslen:So, Anko, you've said earlier on as well with SAS now, it's losing its independence. It's moving in towards with Air France and KLM. You've built all these partnerships with people. Where do they stand now when you joined SkyTeam? You're a very different airline now. The control over SAS is a decision now that perhaps Ben will be making at Air France-KLM. You know, where do these contracts go now? You know?

Anko van der Werff:Yeah, I think, I think they have to prove themselves, right? And, and that's also what I really believe in. I mean, make them compete, right? If Air France-KLM has a different solution and SAS has a different solution, well, may the best guy win. I believe that we have built incredible partnerships that add a lot of value, and I think it would be very unwise— and knowing Ben, he is very wise— So that will not be a rushed decision into taking one or the other overnight, right? It will be a matter of scale. It will be potentially a matter of us integrating stuff that Air France-KLM have today, or the other way around. And yeah, in the end, I mean, scaling things up— I don't recall if Frédéric Cahan is here. Frédéric will know better than I do. But I think— so our loyalty program is about 8.5 million. I think Flying Blue must have 24 or whatever million, 22, 24. So together we're a 30 million people program. Well, that's also interesting again, right? And through that scale, so different deals that you can build on, and that certainly also people like Cover Genius and others will want to tap into.

Rich Maslen:Now obviously, Gus, you know, Cover Genius, you're involved in using technology, using AI. We are, you know, mesmerized now by the opportunities with AI, especially with agnostic AI. You know, you're proving that. You've deployed it now. You're showing that it is working. You know, from a passenger perspective, what can we expect to see moving forward from AI development?

Angus McDonald:Well, I think, you know, I was talking to Olivia from QE.com last night. I know they've deployed AI across their business, which sounds really impressive. A lot of people have started in that customer service spot, and I think that's kind of where you've seen massive progress around how do you service your customers, how do you sell them upgrades, all of that. What we're really focused on though is that personalization area. So how do we get the AI to actually recommend the right bundles? And what does that bundle actually look like of things? And how do you present that bundle? Is it all itemized? How does it look? How does the merchandising look? And so from a consumer experience, we're really interested in that. I think in the future, consumers are going to have agents, which are probably going to do this themselves.

Rich Maslen:Yeah.

Angus McDonald:So how do we then help our partners like SAS build an agentic AI experience that links in with other agents, whether it's a ChatGPT agent or a Claude one or whatever? And so we're working with a number of partners like Stripe and others in the US to kind of really create purchasing experiences through those kind of LLM platforms. And it's kind of that knowledge that I think we can really help bring to the airline industry more broadly about how do you then create an agentic experience? How do you engage with those platforms, but how do you actually have your own one as well so that customers can still go to the brand that they love and trust, which is the airline brand?

Rich Maslen:And, Gus, and, you know, insurance is always a difficult issue. You know, there's always People really struggle in terms of returns on that. You know, I— if my flight gets cancelled, I'm rebooked straight away. You know, I've had a few cancellations recently within— before I've even got off the, you know, the previous plane.

Anko van der Werff:You should fly SAS more.

Rich Maslen:I've been rebooked. My train is delayed, I've already got a refund for the ticket. You know, can we get to a stage that, you know, we don't need to make an insurance claim because the system's already doing it for us?

Angus McDonald:Yeah, I mean, and that's— there's already programs like that we've done. We have a delay pay program here in Europe where you get instant payments just by the data from knowing that the flight you're on is delayed. So they're called parametric covers, and they've kind of been in the industry for a little while. I think what you then see with AI is just all of that being turbocharged.

Rich Maslen:So claim experiences, I think, will And Anko, you said earlier on we don't use it enough. How can we use it more, and where would you see it being used more?

Anko van der Werff:Yeah, that's a great question. I'm really not smart enough to have the answer, but I'm always struck. So I was— I'm on the alumni board of the business school that I was on decades ago, and I was at the board meeting there in the United States, And it's just incredible. I really do find a couple of things about the United States incredible. Not everything, certainly. But one of them is there is just much more focus on tech as solutions to just shit in daily life, or whatever it may be. And they use apps and they use tech.

Angus McDonald:Yeah.

Anko van der Werff:Really in a way that certainly I don't, and I actually don't see anyone around me using it. So look, just, just applying and deploying a different mindset again. And, and I, yeah, I'm fascinated by it. I mean, we just, just, just that alone would, would drive, I think, a different, different usage of lots of stuff. And then I'm going to give the same answer that I gave you 10 minutes ago, which is the beauty of all of this is that we don't know what's coming. And we don't know what kind of new products— I mean, look at Flightradar24, right? Flightradar24, amazing product, Swedish company. Incredibly, they've created a category that no one actually knew existed and that actually no one knew that they needed.

Rich Maslen:Yeah, yeah, right. Now we're all obsessed with it.

Anko van der Werff:And now we're all obsessed with it, right? It's a beautiful product. And so, and no one knew that actually, oh, I really want to know where my flight is, whether, or whether the aircraft that's going to be my flight in 6 6 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours from now is actually right.

Rich Maslen:But it gives you a great insight for travel.

Anko van der Werff:It's great insight, right? And so they created something. And so, right, I'm calling them out as a— here's a product that no one knew existed, and now all of a sudden it's massive. And that will happen to us. But if you have the ecosystem ready, then you can take that on.

Rich Maslen:Okay, we're out of time now, but I would like to just ask one last question, just with quick answers. If there's one misconception about airline and tech partnerships you wish you could eliminate forever, what would it be?

Angus McDonald:So, Angus? That the tech company's selling. Yeah, I would love to change that conception because I, you know, I think you can't use the word partnership if someone's selling and, you know, and selling a product for a price and all that sort of stuff. So I think you need to have the, like, the targets kind of being mutually, you know, beneficial for both parties. And I think that's got to be right.

Anko van der Werff:Anko? Yeah, so, so I'm trying to be polite here, but they're not all archaic.

Rich Maslen:Okay, so as you've seen here, and as you can quite clearly see on stage, best partnerships are based on trust. And I think we can see that with you both. Transparency, and you've both got a shared ambition, and I think they create good cornerstones of partnerships moving forward. I think hopefully, obviously there's lots of issues with people flying home, so flights are cancelled. Hopefully insurance will be paid out on people on their flights. You know, if not, you know where Gus is. I'm sure they're gonna be sorted out. And Anko, I really hope you get back to your board meeting tomorrow and everything, the issues you've had. So yeah, thank you everyone.

Angus McDonald:Have a round of applause for the panel.

Rich Maslen:It's been great talking to these two and everything.

Angus McDonald:Thanks a lot.

Rich Maslen:Thank you very much.

Anko van der Werff:Thanks.

Rich Maslen:Cheers. Thanks a lot.

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