WestJet board member Alex Cruz at CAPA’s Airlines in Transition 2022 summit

Transcript

Alex Cruz:Well, the future is bright. There's no doubt about it because we are going to recover and people are going to get back to flying and we're going to go to our normal normality, which is never normal, at some point soon. There's no doubt about it, but we still have a while to go. We still, we still have to rebuild teams. We have to rebuild confidence in the sector. We have to sort through a lot of legislative things that are happening COVID-related still in the world. So we have a ways to go, but feeling very confident. And it looks like the numbers for this summer, even though there's a lot of late bookings, there's, there's potentially some good signs. So very encouraged. Riding waves and crises has been clearly something that every— anyone that's been in this industry for more than 10 years, they've had to deal with. This one was quite special when all flights are shut down, when the majority of airplanes around the world are parked. But I think we've learned a great deal and we've learned about the fundamentals, understanding that we must have the lowest possible fixed cost structure. That is a complete no-brainer. It was a no-brainer before, but we know that those that had very high variable costs as a percentage, they've survived much better. So I think there's been a number of fundamental lessons that have been clearly confirmed through the pandemic, and I think all of us will be working very, very hard to make sure that as we come out, we are in an even better shape than where we were before. Clearly, change is very difficult in our industry, but who changes in the world? Those that really need to change. So I suspect that those that didn't have as much state aid have changed more than those that have received a lot of state aid, for example. But I think that ultimately the one party that will drive change will be our clients. our consumers, who are going to be demanding more and more from us in terms of how they engage with us as brands and in terms of what we're able to do to them in the flying experience and beyond. Digital transformation is the single largest unspoken topic in our industry. We all accept that we must recover first. There is no doubt about it. And we all accept that sustainability is now part of our fabric. Everything that we do needs to be looked at and increasingly is being looked at through the lenses of sustainability. Beyond that, we have old technology. We have very demanding customers. Something's going to give. So digital technology transformation, this is the next big topic. I think as usual, some will make it and some will not. Remember, we have had airline startups every year and maybe a set of circumstances over the last 2 years that have made it easier for some. But so long as there is non-airline successful private investors, there will be airline startups because we are a sexy industry. A lot of people want to come in, but not everyone will make it. So they need to do their homework before they start the airline.

Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of CAPA - Centre for Aviation. Our reproduction policy is as follows: you may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to CAPA - Centre for Aviation and link to the original video page. All other use is prohibited. While we aim for 100% accuracy in the transcript, there may be some minor transcribing errors.