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.

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

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:

1. All eyes on World Economic Forum in Davos
2. Lubeck airport launches a regional airline
3. Ethiopian Airlines plan to build a mega airport in Addis   
4. Wizz Air launching 4 new routes from St. Petersburg
5. 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."