- Welcome back.
So passenger numbers are rising this summer.
It's great to see many flights are back,
and many of them are packed.
(upbeat music)
But in the Middle East,
the market dynamic has been very different for the ME3,
which is Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad.
(engine revving)
The Gulf carriers relies on the connecting traffic,
taking passenger from the east to the west,
or west to the east.
But however, if you look at it right now,
not many country in Asia Pacific
has been opened without quarantine.
That large connecting traffic isn't flowing
through to Middle Eastern hubs.
(upbeat music)
- [Shashank] The other big change,
that is coming to the Middle East,
is the concept of the super hub, whether it's viable,
because there's this connotation of the super hub,
being a super spreader in COVID and post pandemic times.
You see the problem is, in a big hub like Dubai or Doha,
lots of people are coming from lots of places
and mixing together.
The UK has a green Amber and red country system.
And from the UK perspective, Dubai flights are banned
and all inbound passengers right now banned
and in their red list, because they're concerned not about
the spread of COVID in Dubai and people departing Dubai,
but actually people from different places mixing together.
Imagine if someone is flying in from India or Brazil
and they're hanging out with the same people,
who might be coming in from Singapore or Hong Kong
or Taiwan, which have really low rates,
they are mixed together in Dubai.
And then they bought different flights.
That's what is concerning to countries like the UK.
Now, if it's a destination, let's say Heathrow,
where people are coming in,
it's easy for the government or for the airport to say,
"Hey, let me just dedicate one terminal
for passenger arriving from red countries."
But it's very hard to implement something like that
in a super hub.
So the whole question of super hubs remaining viable
is up in the air, we don't know the answer.
What compounds the super hub dilemma
is the preference of people to be on nonstop flights,
post pandemic, and avoid an additional connection
and all the additional touch points
that come around with transit so that they can be safer.
Now, it's a completely different matter,
but that they're actually safe or not,
but it makes them feel safer and that's the key.
This will lead to non-stop flights being preferred.
This will lead to long and thin routes.
- So everyone can fuel in the Middle East.
The fierce competition between Emirates and Qatar airways
has been intensified during COVID.
They're on the quest out there to take on the top spot.
Recently,
I went on a world's fully vaccinated flight by Emirates
and also Qatar Airways.
So Emirates was the airline came out with this idea,
was a brilliant marketing concept
of they're selling tickets, hoping to people get vaccinated
and get on the flight, enjoy the flight, good old times,
on the A380, but just a few days before that,
Qatar Airways too come out and on the 6th of April,
they ran the world's first, fully vaccinated flight.
They beat Emirates by a few days.
- [ShashanK] Through the pandemic,
in the last 12 months of COVID,
Qatar Airways has grown tremendously.
In fact, for parts of the last year,
it was the largest international airline.
It has maintained service to existing cities
when others have pulled out
and it has worked with governments
to repatriate their citizens from country A to country B.
- Last year,
they expended the U.S market during the pandemic.
They open Seattle, Toronto, San Francisco.
These are the destination Emirates temporarily suspended.
Qatar airways saw the opportunity came in,
and this summer, the competition really, really heat up.
Emirates is now sending A380 back to key market
like LA and New York,
but Qatar Airways doing double daily,
LA, Chicago, Washington DC, New York to Doha,
a hundred weekly U.S flights between Qatar and the States.
But here's the question everyone's thinking on
the back of their mind, "Are these expansion
commercially viable with Qatar Airways
on their stay on airline?"
Here's what the Qatar Airways group CEO claims.
- You know me for quite some time.
And you know that I'm a very shrewd operator.
I will always take every single opportunity I have
to find revenue for my airline.
And when everybody shut their door,
people still want to travel.
And there we are to serve them.
We carried 3.8 million passengers.
We repatriated them.
When all the airlines left their passengers stranded,
we were there.
We will always go where we feel people need us.
And we will always go where we know there is opportunity.
Frankly, we are a state owned company.
So there is no question of bailout.
Whatever funding we would get is an equity into the company.
And we are the largest long haul carrier,
operating in the world today,
we receive the lowest equity injection of any airline
who have received billions in State aid and subsidy.
(air whooshing)
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(air whooshing)
The biggest assets of Emirates was A380,
but during COVID when the demand evaporated,
there's no passenger to fill the A380,
they became the biggest drag for the airline.
So there are very few market that can support A380 size,
while you don't have the connectivity in your hub.
So a lots of A380 flights are not full or even half full,
they've continued to run the to keep the air frames going
and also keep the crew current.
- I don't think,
and I have been telling this for much before the pandemic.
There is no future for the A380.
It was a wrong aeroplane in the wrong time.
And I think not only that it is inefficient
and some people are still brag that
they're going to start operating and it's going to...
It's a very fine aeroplane.
Let's see how long they will be able to sustain.
- I know it is quite a sad site to see
a lots of A380s parked still,
but aviation is very responsive,
when there's a fuel market online opens,
the connectivity will rebuild
and quickly the A380 might fuel it again.
Emirates do have some advantage.
The advantage is in Dubai.
Dubai has been open since last July
and consistently brought in a lots of OND
to origin and destination traffic.
(air whooshing)
Now, I want to talk about Etihad.
It's been really sad to see the airlines been falling
and downsizing since 2016.
Recently, they announced they will remove A380,
which is the flagship,
which arguably Etihad has the best interior on the A380
across business class, first class, the residents.
(soft upbeat music) - A specially crafted menu,
for you with your name on it.
- Oh my God! It's a customised menu.
(soft upbeat music)
I've never ever on the plane,
you'd see me wearing a bathrobe so I'm comfortable privately
and having breakfast out here
and this is something truly very unique.
I had really fond memories of flying the residents,
not only once or twice, I flew it three times,
including two in all grow from Abu Dhabi to Paris
and Abu Dhabi to Songshan and it has probably,
the world's best commercial product ever in the residence.
And it's really sad to see with the A380 removal,
these fabulous products are gone and history now.
Etihad also announced
they will remove the entire triple seventh fleet,
which came as a very surprise,
which also means that the first class
is now only remaining a handful of 787.
So even the Etihad CEO has came back numerous times to say,
"Now the carrier is a midsize carrier.
They're no longer the mega sized carrier."
So what's on the cart for Etihad?
There are some good news,
the A350 1000
is coming to induct into Etihad's fleet very soon.
Currently, these were already built,
but they were stored in France
and soon they will be joining Etihad's fleets
and there will be a small section
of first-class available as well.
(upbeat music)
Okay. There is one airline,
technically not from the Middle East,
but I think this airline will do very, very well,
if not already during the COVID and also out of the COVID
and that is Turkish airlines.
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So Turkish airlines had never stopped flying.
They had a mid size fleets
and they have more destination to anybody.
So their market is very diversified.
If the long haul market doesn't work,
they have the regional market.
The U.S COVID restriction did not apply to Turkey.
The U.S COVID entry restriction applied it to the UK,
Ireland and the whole Songshan 26 States.
So there are lots of people went to Turkey,
staying there for 14 days before going to the states.
So Turkish airlines has absolutely benefit
from some of the COVID restrictions
imposed by other countries.
Also the fact that Turkey did not have a COVID restriction
for foreigners to enter
that also helped Turkish airline
to promote Turkey as a destination.
So the other area that they did very well
is their cargo division.
I recently had a tour in their cargo hub.
I can see seven levels of stuck a warehouse here.
- Yeah. 14 metres.
And we are carrying 4,000 pounds of cargo,
every day on average.
And we have 6,000 wrecking positions for wooden pallets
in just this warehouse.
We have other warehouse in Istanbul airport.
- 4,000 tonnes? - Yeah.
- Wow. (upbeat music crescendos)
I was told this is out here in Lamborghini,
like a four wheel kind of car.
I'm not really a car guy.
I'm an aeroplane guy,
but still very cool to see these fast cars here.
Well, interesting. I see these are flowers.
They came from south America and the spring from UIO
that's Quito, and they're going to Dubai.
So they're transiting Istanbul here, right?
So what's happening with this process?
- The breakdown was completed
and we are going to put them into the room,
specialised rooms, and then make the build up.
- Okay, so now I understand, is when the aeroplane arrived,
you bring the cargo here, you break them down,
and then because they are going to different destination,
then you store them on the rack once the after breakdown.
And then when the next flight ready,
you build them up again, send them on to the planes.
(upbeat music)
- So Turkish airlines went through,
quite a painful cost cutting programme,
including a lots of salary sacrificing,
but on the upside of that is they vowed to keep,
all the staff in the company with no layoffs.
- As long as the crisis is ongoing, no layoffs.
And we'll keep everyone in the company.
We will stand no one behind us.
So all the staff will be together, but we made some trims,
but a sliding scale and our staff accepted it
and they supported it.
We're all together working for the same goal.
In the post pandemic process, when the number's going up,
when the passengers would like to travel much more,
they will be much more ready to give the best services.
I think that companies will be much more luckier than
the companies who make lots of layoffs in their company.
- So this gives Turkish airlines is a big advantage,
as they have readily available staff,
which a lot of other airlines in the world
are struggling to found staff
to cope with the increasing demand
as most established furloughs.
It is always interesting to see how the market dynamic react
among the ME3, the Middle East three carriers competition,
and to see the latest luxury product,
to see the latest creativity out of the box
thinking COVID has really accelerated that competition.
And I will be here sharing more news and development
when they comes.
(upbeat music)