AviaDev Insight Europe

Today I had the opportunity to talk to Matteo Bonechi, CEO of a new Italian airline EGO Airways. It´s exciting times for the whole team there as they are getting ready to launch their operations in a couple of days, on the 30th March 2021. With Matteo we discussed their strategy, business model, fleet, and plans for growth.

Launching a new airline is enormously complex task in any period of time, but now in the middle of pandemic I can not even imagine how difficult it must be. But Matteo seems to be very enthusiastic and if there´s something we need right now it is enthusiasm, positivity and new fresh energy.

This is a recording of a brand new format we introduced at AviaDev: SkyHeroes. SkyHeroes is the aviation talkshow where 3 of industry experts share their open opinions on hot aviation topics in a light way, sometimes controversial, sometimes not completely politically correct, sometimes funny. But if we can still laugh, even in these difficult times, it means we are still alive, right?

This time our experts were John Grant, Sean Mendis and Max Oldorf and the topics we were discussing included:

1. The return of 737 MAX
2. European Court decided that state aid to AirFrance and SAS was not discriminatory
3. New airlines on the rise in Africa
4. Turkish Airlines taking the leading position on the global market

It was a fascinating discussion. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

This is a recording of a live interview Juraj Toth did with Dirk Singer on 23 February 2021.

Dirk works as a Research Director at Simpliflying. He produces daily newsletter with updates on how aviation, travel and tourism are responding to the ongoing pandemic, what measures are here to stay, how travel will look like in the part vaccinated world and other related topics. Dirk is one of the very few people out there following the implications of the pandemic on air travel very closely from the very beginning.

In the interview guys discussed everything from vaccination, to testing and digital health passports and how all of this will reflect on the way summer 2021 will look for airports, airlines, destinations and general public.

If you haven´t done it yet, you can subscribe here to receive newsletter from Dirk with daily updates on air travel in a part vaccinated world.

This is a recording of a brand new format we introduced at AviaDev: SkyHeroes. SkyHeroes is the aviation talkshow where 3 of industry experts share their open opinions on hot aviation topics in a light way, sometimes controversial, sometimes not completely politically correct, sometimes funny. But if we can still laugh, even in these difficult times, it means we are still alive, right?

This time our experts were John Grant, Hans Jorgen Elnaes and Max Oldorf and the topics we were discussing included:

New strategy for Norwegian Emirates and Etihad one of the first airlines in the world to trial IATA Travel Pass Wizz Air finally launching its Abu Dhabi adventure

Government support for the airports

It was a fascinating discussion. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

My guest today is René Armas Maés, Regional Partner Latin America at MIDAS Aviation.

Recently the team at MIDAS have created an online course titled Tourism Restart and Recovery Plan. As René explained in the interview, the course is aimed at those working in governments, official tourism boards and associations, tourism businesses and other key players in the tourism eco-system. It provides the tools and essential guidance to understand the opportunities and challenges the tourism industry is facing, and explains how to execute a comprehensive tourism recovery plan.

And here comes a very interesting thing: MIDAS Aviation is providing a 25% discount code on the online course to all the AviaDev community. Just click here, register your details and type in the code in the next step. Oh, and what´s the code? I mention it at the very end of the episode :)

Charlotte Hardenbol works as a Head of Programs and Solutions at the Dutch company SkyNRG, the pioneer and global leader for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) solutions with a mission to make SAF the new global standard.

In the interview Charlotte explained how important the support of the Refuel EU initiative was in setting up a new Alcohol to Jet facility on which SkyNRG cooperates with US company Lanzatech and their daughter company Lanzajet.

Charlotte also introduced new exciting initiative called BOARD NOW which is a way of SkyNRG inviting everybody to join the movement of scaling up the SAF production and make it widely available.

We´re starting new year of AviaDev Insight Europe Podcast with a former member of the AviaDev team Ged Brown. Ged runs his own business, Low Season Traveller, in something what´s possibly the worst time ever to start a new business in this sector. While talking to Ged I was thinking about a famous quote attributed to Winston Churchill, which goes like this: "Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

The energy and passion which is still in Ged´s voice despite all the negative storm himself, his business and the whole sector has been through is impressive and very contagious indeed.

Enjoy the episode about the travel industry, the key takeaways from the horrible year 2020 and some rays of hope for better future.

In this year´s last episode I spoke to my boss and friend, CEO & Founder of AviaDev, Jon Howell. We discussed the main reasons AviaDev as a business survived this devastating year, what were the hardest challenges to overcome and what we have learned, what were the highlights of the year for us, some personal silver linings and what we expect 2021 will bring.

Thank you everyone for your support, for listening to the podcast and we shall see you in 2021, which can only be better.

After 11,5 years of working for Budapest Airport, most of that time as a CCO, Kam Jandu has left Budapest on 15 December 2020. But couple of days prior to that I got the chance to talk to him and also to ask him some very interesting questions submitted in advance by members of our community.

The interview is really great and Kam shared lots of his wisdom, great experience and also one little secret: he once made a pizza for Whitney Houston!

My guest today is Kevin Cullinane, Head of Communications at Cork Airport. Despite enormous negative impact of the pandemic on the whole aviation sector in Ireland, Kevin still sees a silver lining. Government´s strict position on protecting the health of the nation paid its dividends as Ireland has one of the lowest infection rates in Europe. Recently government also recognized the massive challenges the sector has to face. Kevin shared with us how they plan to invest those EUR 22M they will receive from the state next year. Most importantly, despite the ongoing pandemic, Cork Airport still supports the economy of this open and global city with vital connectivity to strategically important destinations, demonstrating the crucial role regional airports play and will play in the economic recovery.

As mentioned at the end of the episode, let me invite you to our online events, we have 3 of them ready for you before Christmas.

Firstly, tomorrow, on Friday 11th December at 10:00 UTC we will be recording a live podcast episode with Kam Jandu who´s been working at Budapest Airport as a CCO for 11 years and after that time and many successes he is leaving now. Free registration here.

Then on the 16th December at 12:00 UTC we bring you a completely new fromat: an aviation talkshow named AviaDev SkyHeroes where 3 industry experts will be discussing live the hot news from the world of aviation, in a light and funny way. Those 3 experts are:

John Grant, Partner, MIDAS Aviation Hans Jorgen Elnaes, Independent Aviation Analyst Max Oldorf, CCO & founder, CH-aviation

Free registration here.

Finally, on the 21st December at 4pm UTC my colleague Mike Robinson and myself we´ll be doing a Christmas edition of AviaDev Aviation Quiz. This special edition will be sponsored by Embraer so the 3 best avgeeks will win presents directly from Embraer. Free registration here.