Riyadh Air, CEO, Tony Douglas at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit - Airlines in Transition 2024

Transcript

Tony Douglas:It's an absolute privilege to be involved in a big startup. And you're right, it's one of the biggest startups in modern history. And the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia really needs this because we're not connected anywhere near well enough and what our citizens need. But actually, second highest Googled destination for tourism last year. And of course, the next question most people ask is, how do I get there? And the answer today, of course, is not as easy as it should be. So that's the kind of use case, if you like, for Riyadh Air. But of course, the gift is we don't have a legacy. You know, the systems that we're all very familiar with that have been around for decades for good reason. Aren't necessarily the starting points that we have to use unless we believe that they're completely relevant. And of course, I think we've got lucky that there's like a digital inflection point at the moment. There's a lot of technologies that are no longer bleeding edge. They're tried and tested. They're the kind of things we use in everyday life that we can adopt and adapt into commercial aviation for a first time. So it's an opportunity too good to miss. And what I'd like to describe is our purpose statement as a business, and it reads like this: we're a digital business that enables travel. And for us, that was actually quite profound because the flip side of that is, is not to be confused with a conventional airline. Now, digital businesses are normally quite happy with the concept of version 1.0, version 2.0, and they've got a true north. We think we've got that true north, and we want to make sure we launch with an incredible version 1.0. We don't want to do this selfishly as a Riyadh Air, you know, protected, IP'd, etc. You know, what we'd like to do is collaborate, and indeed we're already collaborating. I might come back to that in a moment with many other airlines. Lines as a bit of a pathfinder. Again, because we don't have a legacy, we're not cutting over from previous systems or protocols. And I think we can share because we're here to serve the traveling public. We're here to be a digital business that enables travel. And the more airlines, if they feel it's appropriate, who want to use some of the things that we'll be revealing, then I think that's for them to choose, embrace as well. At the end of the day, we're here to serve people. And when we listen to what they're after, particularly our population, average age 29, highest iOS usage per capita in the world, they're telling us, why is it not more like Amazon Web Services? Why is it not more like Spotify or Uber or all the things for a 29-year-old is part of an everyday lifestyle experience. If you're going in using edifact through a traditional PSS and GDS product, we all know how clunky some of those things can be for good reason. And there's an opportunity for us just to push this out as a 1.0, which of course will mean then it'll be a 2.0, and that's the exciting journey we're on. So we want to make sure we get the maximum network connectivity around the world. And, you know, you may have seen we've already established a collaboration with Turkish Airlines because they've got an incredible global network. Of course, our KSA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, sister company Saudia. But there's been a whole bunch of big global airlines who are very interested in getting better access to the Kingdom. We're in dialogue with a number of them because we want to make sure that North America, the Far East, as well as our region, have got a kind of collaboration with Riyadh Air. So on an RX ticket, we can give better through connectivity. And of course, for their guests traveling the other way, the destination of Riyadh is fascinating. Last week, we celebrated 100 million tourists for 2023. 100 million. I think this is quite extraordinary. So the demand is for sure there, but how you get there is what we want to make sure we make a lot easier. So for us, it all comes back to the brand. The brand is Riyadh, and there's 3 pillars to that brand. One, a digital native I've referred to a little bit already. The second one is to be able to provide an absolutely obsessional attention to detail when it comes to guest experience. But the third pillar is to be an environmental thought leader. And as you rightly say, you can't not do that. But we want to build it in from day one as a foundation. So even breaking news this week, you know, we've signed up to the United Nations Sustainability Initiative where the sustainability goals, all 17 of them, We are making the commitment that we're going to try and embody all of them. And that's quite unusual. You get people who'll take 6 or 8 of them. We're going to try and embody all of them to the best of our ability. We'll publish our first aviation report, annual report, this year. So this is a year of readiness. We're not even in operation till next year, but we'll publish our sustainability report. And the reason for that, again, is setting out true north. We can't not do it. The industry can't not do it. All of the answers aren't available to any of us yet. And this is human endeavor. It's probably the biggest challenge the industry's seen, certainly from what I can remember. We'll need to play the jack, the queen, the king, the ace, the joker, and throw a double 6. But we'll get there. I think there's some incredible airlines, certainly within our region and elsewhere in the world. You know, the level we need to be at is Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, etc. It goes without question. The Kingdom deserves it. The Kingdom demands it. The bar is high. But for me, there's an element as well. It's the hospitality business, personal touch. Human interaction. But what we also want to bring back to it is some glamour, some grace, some beauty, some charm. So you may have heard me say about that great movie Catch Me If You Can, DiCaprio, when he walks through the airport back to the great days of Pan Am and TWA, people stop and look because in those days it was fashionable, it was aspirational, people got really excited about aviation. That excitement, I think, is something as that kind of almost kind of visceral dimension that if we can bring an element of that back to it as well, that's what Riyadh Air will be all about.

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