Star Alliance, CEO, Jeffrey Goh at the CAPA Asia Aviation Summit 2022

Transcript

Jeffrey Goh:I think globally we would expect that air travel to recover sometime in late '23, second quarter of 2023. But for Asia-Pacific, because it's been lagging other parts of the world, it may take a little bit more to get back to pre-crisis levels of say, 2019. You know, we've heard all the conversations about China, Northeast Asia being slow in opening up. And unless they come back, we probably will see more lagging in terms of the Asia-Pacific market recovering. So I think it's more geographic, Asia-Pacific lagging behind. But globally, we are probably on the way to recovery. And by the end of '23, we should be back to 2019 levels. Generally speaking, the crisis have, I think, brought forward the realization for many airports and airlines about the importance of more technology, more automation, and a more seamless experience for customers through digitalization so that they have a more— better control of their own seamless experience, right? Various pilots and case studies have shown that as you introduce technology for customers' experience and journey, efficiencies have been obtained. No, of course there will be problems when technology doesn't work. But if you look at, for example, how biometrics has been used for boarding aircraft, for clearing security. There have been significant achievements in terms of efficiencies, but also better customer experience. The control of the experience is in the customer's hand. I think airports and airlines and industry generally should embrace the need for innovation in technology for customers' experience. When Star Alliance started, we were targeting the high-value international travelers, and primarily, of course, that turned out to be business travelers. But of course, there were non-business travelers who are high-value international travelers. But coming out of this COVID crisis, we recognize that market trends have changed, that we now have a new segment of travelers called the bleisure travelers. And so we need to recognize the change in the market segments and we need to pivot towards that and not simply focus on the high-value international travelers, but also those that are equally important for us given the change in socioeconomic environment.

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