The rise and rise of the luxury traveller

Transcript

Rich Maslen:Hi everyone, that was a very good, interesting insight there into what's happening here in the Greek market with Aegean. I remember when a former magazine I used to work for, our first ever issue had a picture of one of the Aegean planes from a long time ago. I think I'm showing my age a little bit there. And that fits nicely to talk about how the industry's changed. Over the years. It's a constantly evolving market. We have to be adapting. Airlines have to look at things very differently and have to be on the ball in terms of what's, what's happening constantly. And one trend that we've seen most recently is the rise of the luxury traveler. Post-COVID, there was a clear change in passenger habits, a real look at people wanting more luxury, people wanting to to spend money on travel and really looking to have that really great experience. And airlines have had to adapt to that, and that trend has carried on. We are still seeing today quite a strong premium demand. So what we're gonna do in this session here, we'll sort of define what premium is and how airlines see premium demand. And this is not just about passengers at the front of the plane that are constantly talked about as being the need for premium travel.

Paul Verhagen:Yeah.

Rich Maslen:airlines, and also look at how we have to personalize our service now to meet this demand. The caveat that we have to that now is we are becoming— there's a lot more factors happening in the industry now that are beginning to influence people, and we're hearing more that while people want experiences, maybe they, they are not willing now to spend so much on travel, but maybe to enjoy experiences in destinations stay in better hotels, eat at better restaurants. So it'll be over the next 35, 40 minutes, we'll try and explore some of those with the panelists I have here. I'm not going to introduce them. You can see on stage who they are. So to start with, we've got 2 full-service European airlines here with Swiss and SAS. So starting with them, Heike, from the Swiss perspective, how are you seeing premium trends changing and moving forward, are we still expecting to see growth in strong demand for luxury travel?

Heike Birlenbach:Well, certainly we see quite a change in the marketplace, and that already since quite a few years. And talking about the exclusivity or the premium segment, there's certainly higher demand that we definitely see. So we realize that customers are willing to spend money in order to get comfort. So therefore, it's important for us, specifically being in the premium segment and being positioned there, to really make sure that we respond to those needs. What's also changing, that the kind of travelers that are opting for premium classes, for example, first class, business class, or also premium economy class, those ones are changing. So it's not necessarily the corporate segment, but it's the private sector. So there are people privately, leisurely traveling, and they're willing to spend money in order to get to have a nice experience. And their experience in fact starts already long before they enter the aircraft, and that's why we believe we have to cater for the whole experience of those customers right from the beginning, even when they start booking, all the way through once they get to the airport. The airport experience is getting more important. Lounge experiences for customers play an important role— what is offered there, how do they get to their plane, and all these convenience around it is important, and of course, it has to be consistent. So therefore, that's an area where we are definitely investing, and we believe with having 4 classes on all our aircraft, also in the future, we are just about to retrofit our aircraft and get new aircraft in. So we believe we will be well positioned to respond to those customer needs.

Rich Maslen:So we'll perhaps go through the customer journey a little bit later on in the discussion, but But Paul, how are you looking at SAS in terms of, you know, there's been a lot of change at the airline over the last couple of years with the new management change of Alliance Group, new owners. You know, how has that affected how you're looking at passengers and what innovations are you looking at currently now to be able to develop?

Paul Verhagen:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the theme of this conference is airlines in transition, and I think if there's one airline that has been and continues to be in transition, it is SAS, right? You alluded to change of management, but right beyond that, and more importantly than that, we went through a restructuring as a result of that new ownership, new alliance, new partners, and a new positioning, right? We're positioning ourselves clearly more as a premium airline as a result of, right, we see that rising demand not just from the corporate traveler but also from the premium leisure traveler. So We're having a few big bets there. One, we're investing heavily in lounges, either upgrading the lounges that we have, adding new ones, or adding additional ones, or building completely new ones, such as the one that we will be building at the Copenhagen Airport. A few months ago, we announced, which is of course also linked with this, Starlink getting on board our entire fleet to have 5-star connectivity end-to-end. But the biggest bet, which actually might sound a bit, yeah, foolish is not the word, but obvious to many other airlines, is that we are reintroducing European business class, right? We got rid of business class in Europe roughly 12 years ago. We then, until now, had a product, or have a product, that is, yeah, a bit difficult to explain and hence a bit difficult to sell, because I think we're the only airline, the only network carrier, that doesn't have a real business class in its European flighting, but that— but obviously doesn't have a full economy cabin either. So that in-between product, that is going to disappear. As of the 1st of October, we will reintroduce European business class, so of course with the food and beverage, with the middle seat guaranteed free, with the cabin divider, etc., etc., which again from other airlines might sound obvious, but for a carrier that comes from Scandinavia where everybody's supposed to be equal, etc., that was quite a thing to do. But hey, these are all those bets because we see definitely that the demand for premium is there.

Rich Maslen:Okay, now coming on to something quite different. Tero, you're behind a 2-year-old startup that is sort of living off the growth in luxury travel. serving the Maldives market, serving markets across Asia and Middle East and Europe. You know, what trend did you see to really start growing the airline? And I know when we spoke in Abu Dhabi just before the launch of the airline, and I was sort of questioning you quite a lot of, you know, how would this model work? How safeguard can you have moving forward to changes in the industry? We're 2 years on, you're growing, you're adding more aircraft. So perhaps you can just give us an overview of that experience that it's been for the past 2 years.

Tero Taskila:Well, as a startup, you always have difficulties, and especially in the current environment, for us it's more the ability to grow, getting access to the fleet, rather than the market not being there. So in that sense, it is quite a good environment to be in, that the market is there. We just need to find a way of catering to that market. Obviously, we have done mistakes in the beginning. We have stumbled on successes as well, which we didn't realize that those could be successes. So a typical startup journey in that sense. Now, yeah, when we had a chat in Abu Dhabi, you were not the only one. So most of the people basically said, could this work? Can you be purely luxury leisure airline? No one has done before. Many have tried to be on a corporate travel full premium and failed. So we believe that the model works. So on the first year, we carried more than 10,000 passengers, which could be classified as premium/first. This year we are carrying 24,000. Next year we are predicting 46,000. So that's quite a significant number of passengers just going to the Maldives on the highest level of the sort of spend. Our customers are spending in the Maldives roughly $10,000 USD per person. So as a contribution to the nation as well, and the tourism of the Maldives is quite significant. Now, 20% of our revenue comes from charters, 80% come from the scheduled traffic. And we rely on the scheduled traffic to build the consistency, build the market. But then at the same time, the charter traffic allows us to test new things.

Heike Birlenbach:Yeah.

Tero Taskila:So if you look at the luxury trends where there is a lot of emphasis on wellness, high-quality food, having tailored experiences, that's what we do on the charter side. So you have your customized pillows with your name embroidered, concierge services, we go through the FBOs, etc. Many of those things we can't do in the current sort of infrastructure at the airports. just because the regulations are not there. So the other regular reinvivals, you can't use FBOs in Europe, for example, for the scheduled services. So the scheduled services are getting the same cabin, the same food, but less tailored experience, but then at the same time affordable pricing, which then allows them to spend more money on the experiences they like and at the destination. So it's been a journey. We have been on that for 2 years. What we are seeing now is that the Maldives as a market can be for us a 28-aircraft, 30-aircraft operation in its mature state. But we are looking at the other AOCs as well. We are keen on doing a new AOC in the Middle East. We are also looking on the other side of the Atlantic from the European point of view to look at the AOCs to cater to premium luxury in there as well.

Rich Maslen:Okay, so it's quite wider opportunities for growth moving forward. Andrew, coming across to you from, you know, you've got airlines here that have the focus on, you know, giving the passenger the experience on the service.

Tero Taskila:Yeah.

Rich Maslen:Beyond offering that little bit more by working in terms of spend in the destination, which is very important to the Maldives. You've got the whole holiday package there at British Airways Holidays. So for you, you know, the spend covers the hotels, it covers experiences there as well. You know, how are you catering now to changing conditions in the market?

Andrew Flintham:So I mean, I think I'm the odd one out, aren't I, when we kind of go along the line. I'm a holiday company that's part of an integrated airline group. So yeah, I mean, British Airways Holidays, we take 1.1 million people on holiday, and in the last 10 years we've grown 22 times fold. So an absolutely huge exponential growth throughout that period. And a good chunk of that has been exactly this subject matter. It's been the rise of luxury premium traveler, however you want to describe it. You know, and we're at the end of— we're selling the holiday experience. Clearly, the flight is a really significant part of it, and I suppose we'll come on to how it integrates through the whole journey. But I think when you look at it and say, you know, we have 10,000 hotels which we deliberately select. We select for quality. We have 600 destinations that we operate to in 100 countries. So part of that growth is about attracting that premium customer. It's also attracting other customers, but that premium customer has been a real driver. And when I look at— I mean, when you look and ask people to name what you'd classify as kind of a premium destination, clearly something like the Maldives will come up quite quickly, Dubai will come up quite quickly, a preponderance of kind of—

Tero Taskila:Dubai.

Andrew Flintham:5-star luxury hotel accommodation. But actually, from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic now, we have seen the preponderance of, say, 5-star being the biggest proportion of our program in some destinations that frankly you wouldn't expect. They're everywhere. So the Costa del Sol, the Algarve. So I think this concept of luxury being very niche is actually not true. You know, the fact that we have a a European business class product that flies everywhere, we are filling those seats with, with premium leisure holidays customers. So I think that's a real driver. I think the other big driver is, is kind of the way that the loyalty programs encourage people to actually partake of those holidays.

Rich Maslen:And obviously you're linked to one of the biggest loyalty programs there is with Avios. So are you seeing that being the currency of Avios being used more and more For, for among travelers?

Andrew Flintham:Yeah, I think that, I think they, I think what the loyalty program does and what the British Airways Club does is almost give an access and give a currency and a value to the products that we're, that we're selling in terms of British Airways holidays. So 80% of our customers will be in the British Airways Club. You might not think that's particularly surprising, but then when you then look, when those customers obviously fly with British Airways, they earn Avios, they earn tier points for, for for getting to the elite status, but actually they now do that with holidays. So actually when they purchase their holidays, they're generating Avios, but they're generating tier points as well. So they're guaranteeing that they can keep that traveling status. But I think the really powerful thing is that now increasingly the customers are redeeming those Avios. So those Avios that they might have earned on a co-brand credit card, they might have earned just on their shopping, on their fuel, and all of those things that they're earning every day, They can then redeem on our holiday. And in effect, one of the big uplifts that we see is people uplifting rooms, uplifting destinations, uplifting accommodation. And it's all driven by the fact that they feel like they're getting something for free because they're redeeming their Avios against it. So it's a really powerful ecosystem to deliver, I guess, a premium offering at maybe a price that's lower than people think.

Rich Maslen:Okay, we are just— we are going to accept questions via Slido, so if you have any questions to say, please upload them and we will try and come on to them.

Paul Verhagen:Yeah, go on. Yeah, no, I was just going to add to what was said here. It's exactly for these reasons, and a few additional specific maybe to SAS that I will come to in a second, that we have actually also decided as SAS to build our SAS Holiday product that will launch, yeah, Q4 this year somewhere. Yeah, for all the reasons mentioned, we know it's a high-margin business, In our specific case, it also helps to offset some of our seasonality. And what we also intend to do with this is, because we're of course not going to offer SAS Holidays packages just from Scandinavia to the world, but also for the world to discover Scandinavia through SAS Holidays. So it also helps there to get more of that balance between point of sale contribution. And we definitely foresee that there will be a large portion of premium under that SES Holidays product, because for example, already today without having that product, we see a huge interest, which is a very high-yielding premium interest, of for example Asia to travel to the Northern Lights, right, in Northern Scandinavia. If we can offer that under the SES brand, umbrella package, then hey, we're just expanding further our customer offering.

Rich Maslen:And Heike, we've mentioned, and there's been talk of lounges. Now, quite often when you're traveling, it's quite easy to blur the quality. You know, you're diluting sometimes the offer that you have for business passengers by allowing more luxury economy travelers into lounges. You know, many lounges I've traveled through, there's actually more quiet space outside the lounge than actually is in the lounge now. So, you know, you're getting to a stage that it's actually proving difficult to support these markets. How do you find the balance to be able to ensure that you, by focusing on luxury travelers, you're not actually impacting your business class passengers that are the life and the blood of the airline?

Heike Birlenbach:Well, in terms of the restrictions that we have at airports, of course, that is true. In that case, we have to prioritize at first our hubs, for example, Hub Zurich. So make sure that we have the experience on the ground there and expand that to the max in terms of lounge space, experience in there, food and beverage offering, and so on, but also then getting customers then with the limousine to the aircraft. So when we talk about our top-tier customers or first class, of course, you have more levers to do so at your own hubs in collaboration with the airports there, because there's usually a rather strategic partnership than somewhere else. Outside of the hubs of the Lufthansa Group, we always look at opportunities that we have either for own lounges or even for partner lounges. And there the Star Alliance topic that here we heard the discussion before comes in place, because that's quite convenient for us, because there we share space and have joint opportunities there as well.

Rich Maslen:Okay, we're going to try and do something a little bit different now to look at the whole travel experience and meeting the needs of luxury travelers. So we've got 2 full-service airlines here. We've got a holiday airline and a luxury airline. So we're just going to have a bit of a discussion, maybe a bit of a battle between you to explain why air passengers should be using your service. So what we're going to do is we're going to set up a couple of personas. So the first one is a businessman taking his wife and kids away for a luxury holiday in the Maldives. Why should he be flying with British Airways Holidays, Andrew? Why are you the choice? What can you offer them that TUI couldn't offer?

Andrew Flintham:So I just want to check whether it gets back to my team at BA that we've just described them as a holiday airline. Slightly concerned about that. So I guess if the kind of characteristics of the people you're talking about, I know that both, maybe both of those people are Gold Card members in the British Airways Club. So they're going to turn up at Heathrow, they're going to check in in their own dedicated section in the first-class wing, they're going to go through their own dedicated security, and they're going to go straight through to either the First Lounge or the Concorde Lounge. So they're going to be looked after. They're going to get on board one of our first or our Club Suite aircraft. And in the meantime, in the past, they've booked from an amazing array of the highest quality hotels that they can have in the Maldives. They've got a team behind the scenes that have created that for them, that are managing their booking. If they have any issues, they're managing it for them. They have an amazing holiday. We know for the fact that 90% of the customers, when we survey them, say they want to travel with us again. after the holiday. And then hopefully the return journey is equally as enjoyable. I don't think a return journey from a holiday is ever quite equally as enjoyable, but we bring them back. So that combination of the breadth, the resilience, and the operation that we can deliver in terms of bringing all of those elements together, I think, is an amazing strength for us at British Airways Holidays.

Rich Maslen:Tero, what can you do better?

Tero Taskila:Well, as a sort of— let's sort of play the discussion what one would have in the— if you're planning a special holiday or anniversary or honeymoon for that matter, and then you sort of as a sort of a breadwinner who collects the points in the family and you're saying, okay, why don't we use British Airways because I can use my points and we get an upgrade and everything else. You automatically on that sort of discussion sound very cheap for your future spouse.

Heike Birlenbach:Yeah.

Tero Taskila:And they say, no, let's go for the experience. Let's do something special. This is a special holiday. This is a special anniversary. So what better for that one is to fly with the private jet like an experience? You board with 44 people in the exclusive environment. Even if you travel in first class, you still don't travel with 400 other people. You have that sort of an exclusive experience. You have much more tailored experience on board with the high-quality cabin, which is basically designed in Italy with the poltrona leather, Ferrari seats, everything sort of tactile environment like in a high-end restaurant. Combined with the— I would say that we have the best cabin crew in the world. At least getting to be our cabin crew is harder than getting into Harvard. So if that's a sort of a measurement of the quality, that's quite high up in there. So there are a lot of these elements which differentiate us from in the experience. But of course, everyone has their own taste. One thing, of course, what we experience, what we get feedback as well from many of the people who travel with the existing premium carriers, is that if you travel with your family, you tend to be— if you travel in premium cabin, you're isolated. So think about the first-class suites which you have now on narrowbodies and widebodies. You travel alone. Your better half is on the other side of the aisle on their own cabin, and you're very isolated for that journey of 10, 11 hours. And you go to knock each other's door and say, okay, can we have a chat or can we do something? Whereas with us, it's sort of like a private jet experience. You're dining, wining together, having fun. You have— you can either use your own content on your— with your iPad, or we provide you the latest iPad Pro or Apple Vision Pro with the wireless headsets. So it's a completely different experience, and that's what people want. You have a special holiday, it's a special experience. It's not what you do every single day.

Rich Maslen:Andrew, right to reply?

Andrew Flintham:I mean, I know this isn't part of your script, but actually I think there's elements that I absolutely agree with. I mean, I think the reality here is the term a premium or a luxury traveler is a very broad term, and I think absolutely, as as Tara says about the, a certain type of customer wanting a certain experience, that's absolutely a way to go. There is also, that is clearly quite an incredibly exclusive experience within a very exclusive set in the first place. So I think it's at the absolute pinnacle of those services. I think what I'm describing is probably a much broader and maybe more attainable for people that want to enjoy a luxury holiday, but maybe aren't quite of the absolute wealth that some of the customers over there are.

Rich Maslen:And Tero, would you agree with that?

Tero Taskila:Yeah, of course it is. And we have— we never want to be the biggest and cater for everyone. So we are sort of tailoring that to those people who are looking for that special experience. And I'm asked oftentimes that the— okay, who is your biggest competition? And we believe that there is— everyone has a competition, but there is no one like us. So we don't really see that competition as such. There are people who like BMWs, there are people who like Mercedes, and that's just a fact of life. Or they want to have a Maserati. So it's a different thing, and we are one of those brands with a unique experience, and people will find us in the sort of overall sort of market of the luxury demand.

Rich Maslen:I quite like that outcome because I think it then comes down to me to decide which is the better offer. So if you can give me 2 weeks in the Maldives each of you, then I'll make my own verdict and let you know. So now moving to a second persona. So we've got a regular corporate traveler traveling on business between Copenhagen and Vienna. You know, frequency is important, being able to change a flight is important, price isn't overly a major issue, but they want comfort and they want to be able to have a reliable journey. So the turn of Heike and Paul to have a little chat. about why I should choose Swiss or why I should choose SAS and why, how you can offer a differential service that can meet the needs of the passenger. So I'll start, I'll let Paul start.

Paul Verhagen:Okay, well, it's pretty easy, Richard. I mean, Copenhagen, Geneva, you said Vienna, but I guess you're referring to Geneva.

Rich Maslen:So, yeah, I mean Geneva, sorry.

Paul Verhagen:Right, 2-hour flight, corporate business, these people basically carry, or there's 2 things that matter to them, right? Get me there on time and keep me connected, right? On the keep me connected, I alluded to it before, comes October, November this year, we're going to equip our entire fleet with Starlink, right? For free. So best service out there, connect gate to gate for free. One. Two, get me there on time. I don't know if you've seen it, but a few hours ago, Cirium came out with their punctuality statistics for the month of April, and guess who is the world's— not Europe's— the world's most punctual airline? I'll give you 2 hints: it starts with an S, and it's not Swiss. The most punctual airline in the world is SAS, and that punctuality and that connectivity, that is what on a 2-hour flight matters.

Heike Birlenbach:Heike? Well, certainly those are the basics. Be punctual and really make sure that whatever a customer expects is already— is also delivered. Yes, punctuality is important, and congratulations to you for being the first one there. But we are also aiming for being really punctual. We put a lot of efforts into that in order to have that kind of trust-building issue as well to the customer. We also started to have wireless connectivity on all of our continental flights. We already have it intercont, but also continental with free chat for everybody. And we believe for the corporate customer, they want to be treated well on board. We put a lot of effort into hospitality trainings, about 50,000 sessions in the year '25, to make sure that our colleagues on board have a good idea about whether somebody wants to be approached or not, or being left in peace so that they can work or concentrate on whatever they would like to do. So, the experience on board, the flight attendants, also important. Of course, we have the free seat next to somebody and the flexibility is built in. And moreover, I believe also for corporate travelers, important is the digital experience. all the time, so be always aware of what's happening. Where's my aircraft coming from? Is it being on time? What about my luggage? Is there anything happening? So they want to stay connected to us, and that way you can only do by digital means. And here we also invested in the last 2 years tremendously in order to make sure that customers stay connected all the time and get the appropriate information.

Rich Maslen:Both good selling points there. Paul, have you got anything more?

Paul Verhagen:Yeah, no, maybe too, because there's one more thing, right? And Heike said it to a certain extent as well, of course, because I think many airlines do it. But what we also do for the top tiers of our loyalty program, which can be or cannot be corporate travelers, but most of them are, that recognition, right? Diamond and above, make sure that on all customer touchpoints you know who they are, what their needs are, what has happened to them in the past, what is their preferred whatever, right? If they maybe miss their connection, make sure you have a car waiting at the gate so you can drive them directly to their connecting flight. All the things that you only have for a very exclusive set of premium, premium, or actually I should say top-tier, top-tier customers. I think that will, that will also keep them very, very loyal.

Heike Birlenbach:Let me just add to that because I believe it's quite an important aspect, the loyalty programs and also the loyalty development, what you're doing there. I personally also believe that it's quite important to build on those ones as these customers that are very closely linked to us, the top-tier programs, they're not only linked throughout the flight when they're there, they're always linked to us. And we make the experience that we invite them quite often to take part in certain analysis, give us their input when we do develop certain programs. They get possibilities behind the scenes that we show them around the technical hangar or the kitchen of our caterer and things like that. They want to stay engaged. They feel like being part of the family, being part of the company, which is— it's a present for us that they stay so closely to us and so connected. And we really have to make sure that we build on those aspects in the loyalty field.

Rich Maslen:I think it's quite a balanced view there, and I think up until recently when SAS was still part of Star, I could have flown one way on SWISS and another way on SAS. Obviously now with different alliances, it's a bit more complicated, but I think it goes to show that there is an opportunity for anybody out there to provide the product because what is required by passengers very much differs from one passenger to another. And you have to be very aware that it is a very different offer that's needed. And there's space for everyone in the market to their individual passenger that has that belief. We've got a few questions there, so I'd like to bring some of these up across to the panel. So SAS, you're bringing back business class. Swiss, you have a first class cabin. Obviously there's been a lot of talk previously in years gone, about 5, 10 years ago, the first class was beginning to disappear. That, that has proved not the case. Do you agree that first class still has a place? Obviously you do at Swiss, but it'd be interesting, SAS, do you know, you've gone for business class, do you believe first class has a place? Or should it be purely available as a sort of for, you know, private jet passengers? It's that, that next stage up. So Paul, maybe get your view on that.

Paul Verhagen:Yeah, no, I— well, they say never say never, but I think here it's safe to say that we will never have a first class. We are not London, we are not Paris, right? We are not Zurich. We have the catchment area that we have. We live in a part of the world where that kind of spending is just not— is frowned upon, right? So no, we don't have the market and we don't foresee that we will ever have the market.

Rich Maslen:And Heike, from, from Swiss?

Heike Birlenbach:Well, for Swiss, we've clearly decided to have first class on all our long-haul aircraft. So no matter where we fly to, we do see a market. And in fact, we see the other development around that people that eventually use a private jet potentially will use first class Swiss in the near future, or they already do right now. And that's where we have to cater for their needs as well, because there are certain specific things that, that are important to them. With the refurbishment of our whole fleet and also the new product, we will have first-class suites. They're very exclusive, and I'm quite confident that we will be able to sell them off to customers around the world.

Rich Maslen:Okay, Tero, one for you. What is the characteristics that distinguish Beyond product from other premium products? in other airlines that fly to the Maldives? I think you touched on that with some of the offers you have, but, you know, they were a lot more on the charter side. So from the scheduled side, you know, what differentiates you?

Tero Taskila:No, I think it's the overall experience. So we have completely— we took the sort of greenfield approach in designing the cabin. So it looks like a private jet rather than being a first class or business class. So you can, like I said, you can dine and wine with your family. Yet have privacy. And it was sort of designed in a way that it has a sort of timeless quality, and also it's a very tactile environment. And we combine that quite intelligently with the different food propositions based on the destination, designed by the luxury resorts of the Maldives in this example, and at the same time collaborating with the, with the likes of Apple on always bringing the latest technology on board Rather than having seatback entertainment, which you are stuck with for 5 years, and you always sort of are comparing the screen sizes with the other players. So we changed that approach. And it is all about the focus being a small one, focusing on you as a person. Our cabin crew remembers you when you travel, and they can address you like humans do. You're not just a number where someone says this looking on your boarding pass, that, okay, you're a frequent traveler, and they didn't—

Paul Verhagen:Yeah.

Tero Taskila:They don't even know you, but they say, okay, welcome back. So it sounds fake, it feels fake, whereas we have more sort of genuine approach. Okay.

Rich Maslen:Airlines interact with passengers only via digital channels before they arrive at the airport. For luxury travelers, does this need to change? End-to-end solutions? Heike, I think that would be a good one for you.

Heike Birlenbach:Yes, well, I wouldn't say it's only digital or it's only human. We believe we need to make sure that we have a very well-connected experience, digital and human, depending on the different customer types and also depending on the timing before they travel. Booking process, certainly more digital, but then throughout the travel there are certain human touchpoints, but that need to be well-connected and synchronized, digital and human ones. And the customer, they feel whether that is connected or not. So that is certainly an area where we have to invest to make sure that there is a good connection, that it's all aligned, and that they always feel taken care of. Also looking into the Generation Z and also the Millennials, of course, there's a higher aim for digital solutions. They don't really want to call somebody in the service center. So we need to make sure that everything has been offered also by digital means. And by the way, those kind of people are also the premium travelers in the future. In the next few years, they will count for about 1/3 of all our care— of all our customers in the premium classes. So therefore, we have to make sure that we have good responses for those kind of travelers, digital and human.

Rich Maslen:And Andrew, I'm going to come to you on here. Obviously, you've highlighted some changes in markets and where you're seeing the premium demand. So is the interest in premium product fragile or not? When economic situations start to decline and passengers start to cut expenses for premium product first, are you beginning to see that now over the last couple of months looking ahead into forward bookings? Are we, you know, revised GDP forecast where we're expecting you know, a fall in GDP across the world that has a massive knock-on effect to air travel. You know, are you starting to see that?

Andrew Flintham:I mean, I can only speak clearly from the kind of the leisure, exactly what we're talking about, the kind of leisure destinations, the holiday destinations. Simply no. Actually, the mix of those premium cabins is going up and is growing stronger than the economy cabin. So I think when people are having, and I think it's the materiality versus it, experiential thing. When people have a holiday, they absolutely value it so highly that they will put that ahead of so many other things. And I think it just gets lumped into that absolute— they're going to have a special event, a special occasion, and that's part of it. So that's absolutely holding up in all the circumstances.

Rich Maslen:Heike, you're agreeing with that?

Heike Birlenbach:I absolutely agree with that. And that's a nice thing in our industry right now. What we can see is really there is a willingness to pay for a great experience. So premium classes also, I don't see any downturn so far. It's rather the back of the cabin where we might have to really look into the details and where there's this softening dynamic right now, but not in the premium cabins. And that also gives me quite some confidence in the future. I believe that customers would rather refrain from buying a car in future than spending on a great experience going on holiday and hopefully taking the flight and the plane to go somewhere nice and have a great life experience.

Rich Maslen:We are sort of just out of time, but there's one question there that gets a bit of interest from me. Again, Andrew, to you, can packaged holidays help with demand directionality as well as seasonality?

Andrew Flintham:I mean, I think, I think if you're serving the kind of maximum amounts of different customer needs in a very innovative and fit-for-purpose way, then yes, I think it can serve a multitude of different requirements.

Rich Maslen:Well, I think we've sort of seen here that there's lots happening. There's airlines that are very focused on supporting business travelers and luxury leisure travelers. This is a trend that we may see some changes through the remainder of the year, but right now it's very strong. And I just sort of think it's great to see the commitment that all these airlines have to supporting business needs. So can I have a round of applause for the panelists, please?

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