Swiss International Airlines, Chief Commercial Officer, Tamur Goudarzi Pour, at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit 2023

Transcript

Tamur Goudarzi Pour:Yeah, of course it has been a roller coaster for all of us, and after a near-death experience, what's a better wake-up call than a situation like that where you come out stronger? And we have come out stronger as Swiss. We made 456 million Swiss francs profit. Profit last year, so that's a 10.4% EBIT margin. That is really great, and that gives us again now, of course, the leverage to plan for the future, to design growth and a path forward that we believe is going to be very, very profitable and exciting for Swiss International Airlines. I think at the moment everybody's focused still on the next summer, so we're not out of the woods yet. So we need to prepare for this summer. We cannot disappoint The customers, again, I'm always saying, last year we disappointed thousands of passengers, but we also brought millions to their destination safe and sound. So I think what is really focused now is the next summer. But yes, indeed, we are also planning for the time beyond. And Swiss has just launched an initiative, a program which we call Swiss Senses. It's a holistic customer experience program. It's basically appealing to all senses. What you see, what you smell, what you taste, etc. And really, this is a program that's holistically dealing with sensory elements of in-flight, but also ground experience, the whole journey. And an important element of it will be our new cabin. So we will also bring a complete refurbished intercontinental cabin, a new first class, a new business class, a new premium economy class that we have already launched. and also a new economy class. So you will see all seats on all long-haul aircraft of Swiss being refurbished, and we will be the only airline in the world that will have a first class on all long-haul aircraft. And with that, I think we clearly position Swiss as the leading premium carrier in Europe. Of course, the hardware is an important element, and our first class, if you take that example, will of course have that exclusive cabin. It will have the largest screen in the industry. It will have all the amenities. We will have seat heating and seat cooling. But these are all elements, of course, that you see in the competition framework. We need to go beyond. So we definitely will also go upwards with our hospitality program, where the question is, how are you actually dealing with the customer on eye level? How can you train your staff, on really hospitality that is able to profile a passenger in the way to address it, to address them in the right way, like premium customers require it. So to come into a real conversation, to take that example, but also all the other elements of scent, a new scent, of sound, of human-centric lighting, where you actually reduce with the way you use the lights jet lag. All this together is a holistic customer experience program. It's a customer experience, experience that I think will stand out in the industry. Of course, we have also a very steep target. We want to be, of course, also be net zero by 2050. We will halve our CO2 footprint by 2030, and SAF will play an important role there. We will be the first airline in the world that will fly solar fuel next year, and this is actually power-to-liquid technology where you make— and this sounds a bit like alchemy, but it's possible— where you make SAF out of sun and air. And this is something where we of course need scalability in the future, but this technological leadership I think is something we have. Also, we just launched the Sharkskin. You have maybe seen it. It's actually a foil that is wrapped around the 777s, and with that we are reducing CO2 footprint also on the hardware. Many, many other projects. So we have a tough target as well. And I think we are, as Swiss, actually technologically leading there even. And we're very happy to see next year the first solar flight in the industry. Thank you.

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