AviaDev Weekly News Podcast

My guest today is Gavin Eccles, management consultant and professor, with over 25 years of experience in both aviation tourism, having previously worked as CCO at SATA Azores Airlines for 3 years and also as an advisor to the board of Portugal Tourist Board. With Gavin we discussed his perspective on how tourism will look like in the “post covid” world, how Portugal may start to recover using the power of domestic travel. Very recently Gavin visited India for an aviation event so he explained how enormous potential this market has and how is it different to China which is also market that Gavin is very familiar with. In the end Gavin also shares his advice to European destinations how to be ready for these tourists once the recovery will start to happen.

With Jo we discussed today different approaches towards the support for the airline sector, namely we touched UK, Finland and Norway. We also mentioned the 737MAX saga and when it is expected to end. Last but not least, we stressed the enormous importance of aviation that brings people home from various parts of the world and provide inevitable infrastructure for transport of medical supplies. Jo also shared some specific and pretty rare stories in this aspect.

At AviaDev we are very much aware that the situation with Covid19 outbreak is very serious and our thoughts are with all of those who are in the front line of the fight with the virus. However, we always try to be positive and that´s also what we did today with Max Oldorf. He shared with us the first signs of recovery from China and his thoughts on why he thinks that again, aviation industry will come back stronger than ever before.

Mateusz is aviation enthusiast from Poland who is now based in US, Texas where he works for Iberia. We discussed what´s the mood in the US regarding coronavirus outbreak, obviously the measures there are not drastic as we can see in Europe. At the same time president Trump already banned European to come to the US, so we discussed also that with Mateusz and in the end I challenged Mateusz to find something positive on what appears to be almost an apocalypse. And he did find a couple of things.

My guest today is the one and only John Grant from Midas Aviation, the engine behind aviadev consult, who was also the very first guest on this podcast. It was enormously hard week for the industry. Flybe, the largest European regional airline entered administration and IATA predicted massive losses for the airlines as the shadow of covid 19 outbreak continues to spread across the globe. But as John says, we´ve seen this before. Such massive turbulences are actually nothing new for the industry. John also shared his thoughts on what he would do with London runway capacity if he were the UK transport secretary and what Wizz Air must look at with its new Abu Dhabi adventure.

I don´t think there was a week recently without Hans commenting and explaining aviation related topics in one of the Scandinavian media. Therefore I´m really grateful to have such an aviation heavyweight on our podcast. Topics we discuss with Hans today: Updates on impact of Coronavirus Outbreak on aviation industry with focus now in Europe Lufthansa very interested in 45% stake in TAP Air Portugal Quick report on struggling aviation market in Scandinavia How is Norwegian doing At the very end I´m adding a little light of positivity. Let´s be optimistic.

This is our 14th episode and it´s a special episode dedicated to sustainable aviation. And for this topic we can´t have anyone better than Dirk Singer, Communications director and head of sustainability at SimpliFlying.com who follows this topic very closely and he also writes about it a lot. Specifically, we´ll discuss Delta´s announcement about going carbon neutral, Ryanair´s not so ambitious targets and a very interesting initiative of regional aircraft manufacturer ATR. Here are the links to articles and websites mentioned in the episode: https://simpliflying.com/2020/sustainability-is-about-culture-as-much-as-it-is-about-numbers/ https://simpliflying.com/2020/tobacco-yesterday-oil-today-aviation-tomorrow/ https://www.atr-intolife.com/ https://www.atmosfair.de/en/

SimpleFlying is media partner of AviaDev and their editor Jo Bailey shared her thoughts on today´s episode why AirItaly went bust, she also shared a couple of very interesting aviation stories linked to the storm Sabine (or Ciara, however you prefer to call it), we discussed latest updated on coronavirus outbreak and the heavy impact it has especially on Chinese carriers and we also touched aviation superstar from US David Neeleman as he introduced his newest airline baby Breeze. Photo credit: BriYYZ via Wikimedia Commons

With Max we talked a bit more about Africa related stuff today, namely we discussed how SAA are trying to save the loss-making national carrier, and we compared this case a little bit with similar story we have in Europe, Max also shared his thoughts on the plans of Qatar Airways to buy a stake in another airline (this time it should be RwandAir) and we touched Wizz Air´s withdrawal from Europe´s 2nd busiest airport at Frankfurt.

My guest today is Antonio Pascale, distribution manager at Easyjet and passionate aviation enthusiast. Topics we touched today are: 10,000 flights cancelled in 6 days – commercial aspect of the coronavirus outbreak, how the heck it is possible to add flights to busiest single runway airport at London Gatwick, like Wizz Air did last week, successful test flights of B777X and can the new plane bring Boeing back on track after one of the worst years in company´s history and last but not least Easyjet´s partner Wright electric started to develop electric plane with 186 seats. Quote of the week is from FAA´s spokeperson Lynn Lunsford and it includes a positive message regarding re-certification of 737MAX.

My guest today is Chloe Greenbank, editor at Regional Gateway the only industry media portfolio dedicated exclusively to airports serving regional, business and low-fare routes. Regional Gateway is also a media partner of AviaDev. We announced the partnership just last week so obviously it´s great to have Chloe on the podcast today. Here are the topics we covered: All eyes on World Economic Forum in Davos Lubeck airport launches a regional airline Ethiopian Airlines plan to build a mega airport in Addis    Wizz Air launching 4 new routes from St. Petersburg PGL (Polish Aviation Group) selected as strategic investor for Condor

My guest today is Joanna Bailey, editor at SimpleFlying, the world’s largest aviation news website in terms of visitors. Simple flying is a media partner of AviaDev, we just love working with these guys that´s why I´m really excited to have Jo on the podcast today. Here are the topics we covered: Flybe, saved by UK government for this time, but does it have what it takes to succeed in the long run? Ernest airlines losing AOC, Wizz Air already taking their routes between Albania and Italy. 2019 was a recording breaking year for Delta, one of the largest airlines in the world. Royal Air Maroc joining the OneWorld alliance. How airlines managed to cut 50% of CO emissions since 1990.

Mateusz is a Pole, employee of Iberia currently based in Texas but having lived also in Beijing, Madrid he considers himself a global citizen. And an avgeek/aviation enthusiast, too. Naturally major part of our discussion was about LOT Polish Airlines, their developments in 2019 and Mateusz commented also their future. We also touched how the flight shame movement is perceived in US and what Boeing´s new CEO´s major tasks are. This time the quote of the week is from Robin Hayes, CEO of JetBlue who commented their announcement towards carbon neutrality: “We reduce .where we can and offset where we can’t.”

Welcome back everyone to the AviaDev Weekly News Podcast, this is the episode no. 7. This is the last episode of 2019 and Max Oldorf, CCO of CH aviation was my guest. We did a quick recap of last week (incl. suspension of the 737 Max production at Boeing, exciting developments in Armenia and European airports celebrating milestones) and we also shared our top 3 aviation events of the whole year.

Today Professor Wolfgang Thome, Publisher at ATC News (https://atcnews.org/) was my guest. Wolfgang is based in Uganda and has been writing articles about African aviation for some time, that´s why I asked him to join me on AviaDev Weekly News podcast today, when we have a special episode on Africa. We´ve talked about South African Airways and their fight for survival, we´ve also touched another national airlines of Africa, we´ve commented new Qatar Airways stake in Bugesera airport in Rwanda and we´ve also mentioned Wizz Air´s new airline to be set up in Abu Dhabi which can potentially create some opportunities for Africa.

Antonio works for Easyjet as a distribution manager and as the name suggests, he is Italian so I was very curious to hear his opinion on what´s going on with Alitalia. In addition to that we also discussed Lufthansa´ s plan for new long haul brand, Transavia´s exciting development at Montpellier and Brussels airport, we talked a bit about Easyjet and their self help initiatives and we couldn´t skip recent Wizz Air´s call on legacy carriers to ban business class on short haul flights.

In today´s episode with Deirdre from MIDAS Aviation we analysed the A380 retiring process, Alitalia´s recurring troubles, Shangai being closer to Europe after last week and new Volotea base in Lyon. In the end of the episode we bring you a quote of the week by Matthew Wood from Norwegian, explaining why they´ve decided to cut intercontinental routes from Scandinavia. Enjoy the episode

In today´s episode with Max we analysed the Boeing – Airbus competition for the world´s most popular aircraft, we briefly discussed what happened at the Dubai Air Show, we touched Aurigny´s financial troubles and we talked quite a lot about Easyjet, its commitment to become world´s first carbon neutral major airline, their partnership with airbus and their half year´s results. Author of the quote of the week is Alexandre De Juniac, president of IATA and it brought us again to the topic of sustainability of aviation and all the good things flying have been providing the mankind with for decades.

In today´s episode we used Hans and his excellent local knowledge and we did a deep dive into the flight shame movement and its already massive consequences on passenger traffic in Sweden. We also discussed all things Norwegian, Wizz Air´s exceptional half year´s results and the plan of AirFrance to boost the profit. In the end of the episode we bring you a very juicy quote of the week from Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi, also commented by Hans. 

Welcome to the episode number one of our new podcast show which is called AviaDev Weekly News Podcast. Every week we bring an industry expert on and we´ll discuss with him/or her hot news which resonated in the world of aviation during the respective week. John Grant, partner at MIDAS Aviation, one of the world´s leading aviation consultancy brands, was our first guest. In today´s episode we discussed with John the following: IAG taking over Air Europa New airline forming up on Iceland Ryanair´s half year´s results Easyjet purchasing Thomas Cook slots at Gatwick and Bristol In addition, at the end of the episode we bring you the quote of the week, also commented by John.