July 5, 2021 • 37 mins
A sea change is occurring within the air travel industry. From last minute bookings to reduced business travel and new efficiencies aligned to sustainability targets, new travel patterns are emerging. Which of these will remain permanent beyond the pandemic and how will the industry rebuild better? In this 10th and final episode of Season 2, YS Chi speaks with Jeremy Bowen, CEO of Cirium, who shares his thoughts and insights on how this resilient air travel industry can come back stronger, greener and more efficient.
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YS Chi (00:00):
The Unique Contributions podcast is brought to you by
RELX. Find out more about us byvisiting RELX.com
Jeremy Bowen (00:10):
We've got a lot of people within the industry that
say that once you get the jetfuel, the aviation fuel in your
blood, it never leaves you. I'veseen people leave the industry,
try something and then come backin. And I get it.
YS Chi (00:41):
Hello, and welcome to our second series of unique
contributions, a RELX podcast.
I'm YS Chi and I'll be exploringwith my guests some of the big
issues that matter to society,how they're making a difference,
and what brought them to wherethey are today. Today, I'm
excited to be joined by JezBowen, who is the CEO of Cirium.
As you may know, Cirium is adata and analytics leader in the
(01:02):
travel and aviation industries.
It handles 300 terabytes ofaviation analytics, covering
everything from airlineschedules and routes to aircraft
configuration and passengernumbers. It goes without saying
that the industry has recentlyexperienced very turbulent
times. Looking beyond thepandemic, I'll be asking Jez
(01:24):
what is the future of air traveland what does the road to
recovery look like? Jez, thanksfor joining me today. It's great
to have you. I know this lastyear has been quite the roller
coaster. How have things beenfor you during the past few
months?
Jeremy Bowen (01:39):
Hi YS and delighted to join. I think all
things considered, it's beenokay. I've got used to working
from home. I have been used totravelling a lot, very much like
yourself with work and now thatI don't have to commute three
hours into London City everyday, the commute has very much
changed. I think we've all gotused to it. My kids are slightly
(02:02):
older than most. I've got a 17year old and a 12 year old. So I
haven't had to endure the homeschooling that a lot of our
colleagues have. I thinkrelatively it has been okay, I'm
missing the interaction of theoffice. But I think we've all
got used to it now that workingfrom home.
YS Chi (02:17):
Well Jez, don't get too used to it. Because we do need
that interaction, don't we?
Jeremy Bowen (02:21):
I completely and utterly agree. Ironically, I've
been in the office this week acouple of days. And there's a
couple of people in and it's somuch different communicating
with people face to face than itis on the screen as it's been
for the last 15 months. So I domiss it.
YS Chi (02:36):
Yes, I think we're gonna have a hybrid world soon.
Jeremy Bowen (02:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that will work. Iknow lots of people are itching
to get back in the office. Wejust need to make sure that
everyone feels safe, everyonefeels comfortable. But I think
we are missing that humaninteraction and that creativity
and spark that it does withinthe teams.
YS Chi (02:55):
So, you became CEO of Cirium in 2019, April to be
precise, when it was announced.
A short year before the pandemichit and then lived through the
most trying times, perhaps theaviation and travel industries
have ever seen. Now that can'tbe easy. I remember a quote
during the announcement and yousaid, it's a privilege to lead
the company at this moment inits evolution. I'm sure you had
(03:19):
no idea what you really werefacing. So, how have you found
it?
Jeremy Bowen (03:26):
That is an understatement YS. It's
certainly been a steep learningcurve. It's my first CEO role.
The word that's used within theindustry and it's been used a
lot is unprecedented. The crisisand the challenge has been
unprecedented. I think now, towhere we are, we've got green
shoots in the industry. It'sgoing to take time, but things
(03:47):
are starting to recover. Westarted to see the schedules
fill again. But I think back towhat we inherited 12 months ago,
or 13 months ago when the worldstopped. The industry literally
went into meltdown. We'd neverfaced it before. Our clients had
never faced it before. Ouremployees and associates haven't
(04:09):
faced it before. So when welooked at our teams, they had to
cope with working from home.
They also had to cope withobviously being concerned about
health and their loved ones. Andalso opening the papers every
day or seeing on the news everyday of mass furloughs and mass
redundancies all the way acrossaviation. Genuinely people in
Cirium of our 500 employees wereworried about their futures and
(04:32):
worried about what we'd be doingas a business. So as a new CEO,
we had to very quickly put inplace a communication plan. We
communicated openly. Wecommunicated often. We spoke to
a lot of people in all differentforms of mediums, town halls,
video updates, just really toallay everyone's concerns. To
(04:53):
just very focus on on threepriorities and that first
priority was that our employeesand their families are the
number one importance. That'sthe most important thing. Look
after yourself and look afteryour family members. The second
one was looking after ourclients. The aviation industry
is very insular. Everyone relieson each other to be successful.
(05:15):
We wouldn't have a business ifthe airlines and the travel
sector didn't exist. Theindustry has been through this
before, they have been throughchallenging times before, and
they look after each other. Soour second priority was to make
sure we look after our clients.
We did, very much reached out.
Some of them were going throughfinancial distress. And that
third part was taking theopportunity to rebuild better.
(05:37):
It sounds a little bit of acliche, but we had the
opportunity to continueinvesting in Cirium. There's a
phrase within the UK when thefactory shut down, called
'retooling the factory.' Wespent the time to retool Cirium.
To build that better so thatwhen the market comes back,
we're better positioned to beable to help those clients
(05:57):
rebuild and return to normal. Soit was a challenging topic. I
wasn't expecting it when I firstpicked up the role of the job
that was for sure.
YS Chi (06:08):
Yeah. We're going to get to the industry a little later.
But if you would let us learn alittle more about you Jez. So
you're currently obviouslyliving in UK in the outskirts of
London. But I know you alsostarted living and working down
somewhere on the opposite end,in New Zealand and Australia.
What were you doing down there?
Jeremy Bowen (06:29):
Yeah, that's a good question. My early career
YS, in fact my first role and Istayed with them for almost 15
years was with Dun & Bradstreet.
The global data analyticscompany. I've spent 11 years in
the UK. I joined straight out ofcollege, customer service,
sales, senior sales, salesmanagement. I was following that
sales path and had theopportunity to move out to
(06:52):
Sydney, Australia and manage asales team. It was before my
wife and I had kids so we jumpedat the opportunity. What we
thought we'd do for two years.
We headed down and literallyflew on my 30th birthday and
then thought we'd come back twoyears later. We ended up
spending five years in Australiaand New Zealand. After 18
(07:13):
months, I had the opportunity tobecome the general manager of
Dun & Bradstreet, New Zealand.
YS Chi (07:17):
Oh, that was quick.
Jeremy Bowen (07:19):
Yeah, it was.
Everyone looks at their careerand there's a defining moment
when they grow up and they startto kind of understand how it all
fits together. That was my time.
I had never visited the country.
I had 50 staff, two offices. Myboss was four hours away and on
an aircraft. She was aninspirational CEO, she was very
(07:39):
much an external CEO. She'squite a thought leader and a
business leader within the highprofile, within Australia now.
YS Chi (07:49):
I love the fact that you say she.
Jeremy Bowen (07:51):
Yes, she was she was inspirational. She said, I
trust you. That's why I've givenyou the job. If you need me ring
me, if not I'm going to leaveyou to it. I had a fantastic 18
months, we worked with a reallygreat team. Even now I look back
at that 18 months. I've neverworked with a group who was so
'can do' in their attitude,nothing fazed them and we had a
(08:11):
good time growing the business.
We then as a global or as acombined Australia and New
Zealand leadership team, we dida management buyout from the DB
Corporation on the Australia NewZealand operations. So it was my
first experience of workingunder private equity. Then I was
asked to come back to Australia,this time to Melbourne to head
up our debt recovery business.
(08:34):
It was the largest part of ourbusiness. We put 200 people in
call centres, collectingconsumer debt seven days a week.
Very entrepreneurial, good fun.
I learned a massive amount. Sowe ended up staying five years
and then my wife fell pregnant.
We suddenly realised we were along way from home and so my
(08:54):
first daughter was born in inMelbourne, and then we headed
back after a great time away.
YS Chi (09:00):
You then actually left D&B right? Then you had some
other roles but then eventuallywe found you, or you found us.
Jeremy Bowen (09:09):
Yeah, I took a decision YS. The only business
I'd worked for was Dun &Bradstreet. I had loved my time
there, I still look back veryfondly. But the business had
gone through lots of changes andhaving spent five years away and
almost like the shackles beingoff because we'd acquired the
business and we would taking itinto a different direction. I
(09:29):
chose not to want to try and goback to D&B in the UK. I did a
couple of things outside of dataand then an ex colleague was
working for RELX and knew that abusiness called Bankers Almanac,
which was part of the RELXbusinesses, was looking for a
head of sales. So I interviewedand got the job and that's when
I came on board.
YS Chi (09:49):
Knowing the right people.
Jeremy Bowen (09:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
It was interesting. It was verymuch part of RELX and LexisNexis
Business Solution's digitaltransformation. I joined a
business which was about an hourSouth of London. It was in the
south of England. It was quite aquiet business, steady growth
quite small. But it was when thedigital transformation was going
(10:14):
on and RELX were busy disposingof all the magazine titles, all
of the the advertising. They hadthe small core of subscription
paid for data businesses, ofwhich Bankers Almanac was one.
During the interview process, Iremember the senior chap that
interviewed me said to me, hesaid Jez, we think this brand
(10:35):
can do so much more, we want youto take it for a spin. As a new
head of sales, that's just whatyou want to hear. The shackles
are off and we could really goand grow it and really try some
new things. And we did. We weredoing well after a couple of
years to the point where RELXnoticed and thought it would be
a good idea to bring Accuity whowere very much our competitor in
(11:00):
the market at the time, into theRELX family. We merged the two
businesses together and I spentthe next six years running sales
for EMEA, Asia Pacific in thecombined entity. So that's
that's kind of how I joined intoRELX. Three years ago I was
asked to come into Cirium or itsforerunner FlightGlobal. I
(11:21):
originally came in as head ofsales. We'd grown by lots of
acquisitions and the brief thatwe had was to integrate those
acquisitions from a salesperspective. So we unified the
offerings, unified the disparatesales groups we'd required. Did
that, and then two years ago, asyou said at the start of the
podcast, I was very lucky enoughto be offered the role to step
(11:45):
up and become CEO under the newCirium brand. Two years later,
here we are.
YS Chi (11:52):
You've done several different verticals, yet you
stayed very focused on thecustomer side. Now, I've also
heard you mentioned a few timesthat you think you may have the
best job in RELX. I don't knowabout that. I think I do. But at
least I get to host podcasts,right? Anyway, what makes you
say that?
Jeremy Bowen (12:12):
YS, I think you might definitely have one of the
best jobs at RELX. I have saidit a few times, it's funny how
you picked up on that. I spentmy entire career within data and
analytics. Firstly at Dun &Bradstreet and then particularly
within Accuity. And it'sstrange. I love the Accuity
world, that anti moneylaundering, know your customer.
(12:34):
When I talk to my friends, andif you're having dinner with
people. When I talk about it,unless you're in that space,
their eyes glaze over. When Italk about aviation and what
we're doing, every person thatyou talk to is touched by
aviation. Virtually everyonetravels, everyone's been on an
aircraft, everyone goes onholiday. They go to see
(12:56):
relatives, they expect the freshfruit and flowers to be in the
supermarket, they know that getsdelivered by aircraft. It's a
huge ecosystem. Everybody wantsto know what's happening.
Everyone wants to know ifthey're going to be able to
travel with the pandemic. And soit's very tangible. I love it.
It's a world that...we've got alot of people within the
(13:17):
industry that they say that onceyou get the jet fuel, the
aviation fuel in your blood, itnever leaves you. I've seen
people leave the industry, trysomething and then come back in.
And I get it. I'm three yearsin. I'm not quite as
enthusiastic as some of thepeople in the team who really,
really live and breatheaviation. But I can completely
(13:39):
understand it and I'm gettingthere. I have got the best job.
YS Chi (13:42):
Yeah, I think that this industry of airline or travel by
air has some sort of anattachment to all of our lives
that we we fantasise or we thinkwe really know well, somehow.
That's what kind of makes it sospecial right. As you said, it's
very tangible. But at the sametime, we're actually far further
(14:06):
removed from it from the actualoperating principles of it.
Let's get into your businessside then.
Jeremy Bowen (14:19):
Okay.
YS Chi (14:20):
You've already highlighted the global pandemic
has absolutely tackled thetravel and aviation industry in
the hardest way. Most of theworld was unable to travel for
over a year now. Would you beable to explain to our
listeners, what Cirium actuallydoes and what are the services
(14:45):
it provides within this enormousecosystem?
Jeremy Bowen (14:48):
Sure. We have a mission within Cirium and that's
to accelerate our industriesdigital transformation. If I
park that for a second, when Isay that to people from outside
of the aviation industry, when Italk to friends and colleagues
in different companies, theysometimes look at me and they
give me a strange expression.
They say, accelerating yourindustries digital
(15:10):
transformation, that's somethingfrom the early 2000s. But what
they don't realise is aviationand that whole ecosystem is
relatively slow to adopt thatthat digital transformation.
Their data has been held inlegacy silos. They've been
beholden to large mainframeoperating systems. You sometimes
have departments, particularlyairlines that don't communicate
(15:32):
as effectively between eachother as they could do. So we
need to free up that data fromthose silos and be able to get
it to people in a more easilyconsumable format. That's what
we do. We are taking in millionsand millions of pieces of
information every single dayfrom thousands of sources across
the across the ecosystem. Webring it into the Cirium Core.
(15:54):
We process it, we clean it, wenormalise it, and then we fuse
it together with all the othersources that are coming in, and
then flow that back out withinsights over the top of it to
be used by the industry. Peoplesee it in many different ways.
We've got one part of ourbusiness that values aircraft,
we're producing real timemonthly valuations on those
(16:17):
aircraft. It's like your car.
When you buy a car, you want toknow everything about it to see
the value of it before you buyit or you sell it. And so that's
going to depend on its age, it'sgoing to depend on the equipment
that's on that car or aircraft.
The usage, where it's flown to,how many hours, how many times
it's taken off and landed. Theconditions that is has flown
(16:37):
through, has it been working inthe Middle East versus working
somewhere else and that fullservice history. All that comes
together, and we bring that aspart of our business to be able
to help value more effectivelyan aircraft. That's one extreme,
which is obviously very industryfocused. How everyone else can
touch it is that we've alltravelled. We've all picked up
friends and relatives from theairport. And typically people
(17:00):
will check to see what time thatflights arriving. They might go
on to Google, they key in theflight number and they say, what
time is it? Oh it's 20 minutesdelayed or it's 18 minutes
delayed. When they'reinteracting with Google or when
they're talking to Alexa, that'sour data. We're bringing in that
data to be able to plot andpredict exactly when that flight
(17:20):
is going to arrive, when it'sgoing to touchdown. So it's one
of the things that we do. Andequally, we've got a lot of
people doing it now. They'regoing online, they're going on
to the internet to book flightsfor now that things are opening
up for the summer holidays andfor trips. When they go online
onto an online travel agent andthey see all the flight and
different options, that's fueledby our data. They'll take the
(17:44):
shedule of all of those aircraftwhere they're due to fly and the
times. That powers those onlinetravel agents, that's our data
as well. So we're touching notjust the aviation sector, but
also a wide part of the generalpublic in what we're actually
doing within Cirium.
YS Chi (18:02):
So the use cases sound almost infinite. Right?
Jeremy Bowen (18:06):
Absolutely.
YS Chi (18:07):
You talk about asset valuation, you talked about
logistics, you talked aboutconvenience, you talked about
safety. You cannot imagine howmuch this can be done,
particularly when you clean upand have sufficient, consistent
data to play with. Do you thinkthe industry is mature now about
(18:27):
knowing what kind of data theyneed to be able to answer the
kind of questions they have torebuild?
Jeremy Bowen (18:33):
I think it's interesting YS. They need to
look at different data sources.
One of the challenges,particularly for an airline,
when you look to see whereyou're going to fly. So your
future schedule, and we're allused to, as I said, going online
and booking and saying, right,in five weeks time I need to
book this flight, its leavingfrom Heathrow to JFK. When they
build their schedules, theirforward looking schedules,
(18:55):
they're typically relying onwhat happened in a prior year.
They take their old schedule,look to see what really happened
and then tweak and upgrade it.
That's completely out of thewindow now, because in 2020
there was no schedule. Nothingwas flying, things were getting
cancelled at the last minute.
You had clients that were takingbookings, very much at the last
minute. So it becomes very verydifficult to plan where you're
(19:18):
going to fly to, how many timesyou're going to fly there, and
what aircraft capacity to put onthose routes. The old ways of
doing things are gone. What theyrealise is now we need to look
outside of that data for freshersources of data to help shape
where they want to take it.
There's a lot of emphasis nowgoing into search. Where are
(19:41):
people looking online thinkingabout booking? There's a lot of
information going on sentiment,what's happening on social
media? What are people talkingabout sporting events? What are
people talking about good beachdestinations? Where are people
getting good reviews on? Thesevast data sets are now being
bought in to help shape wherethey should be booking their
(20:02):
future demand. Businesses likeCirium, we're right at the
forefront of that. It's a seachange within the industry. But
that's something that I thinkwe'll see sheduled ongoing, just
being six, maybe eight weeks inadvance. Rather than the six
months in the 12 months thatthey always were in the past, as
they're able to react quicker towhere people want to go to.
YS Chi (20:23):
Do you believe that the industry will be prepared to be
less predictable that far downthe road and be more fluid, to
kind of reflect the demand fromthe travel passengers? That's a
big change. That's a very bigchange because we used to go
(20:43):
where we were able to go versusexpressing where it is we want
to go?
Jeremy Bowen (20:48):
Yes, it's a huge change YS. Last summer,
particularly within certaincountries as borders were
opening and closing as newvariants of the pandemic were
rising. People, everyone wasworried about booking too far in
advance because they didn't knowwhether that flight would take
place. At one stage in thesummer, the summer in 2020 40%
(21:11):
of bookings were taking placethree days before the flight was
due to take off. That's anincredibly high amount, which
makes it very difficult for anairline to plan anything. That's
why even though sheduled flightswith June, you still saw lots
and lots of cancellations. Aspeople were saying that there's
only four people on an aircraft,we will consolidate it and roll
it into tomorrow's flight or theafternoon flight. Even now with
(21:35):
border closures with quarantinerestrictions changing with fly
lists, green lists, red lists.
You're still seeing peoplewanting to book far in advance,
they're just leaving it a littlebit later than they normally
would do, which means thatairlines need to be more
reactive.
YS Chi (21:50):
But that also has, Jez to do with pricing doesn't it.
By booking well in advance, weused to be able to get better
fare. But if the fare systemchanges, and that there is less
of an advantage of far andbooking, then perhaps we can
have a very different world oftravel. We're we're not
(22:11):
penalised for waiting till, aweek before to book something.
That could be a gigantic change.
Jeremy Bowen (22:19):
It will be. Most airlines have removed their
cancellation and their changefees. They did that and I don't
think we'll start to see thosecoming back for a long time.
People need security that ifthey do make a booking far out,
that they're not going to getpenalised if they need to change
it a couple of times. But theairlines YS are still under a
lot of pressure. We're seeingpassenger numbers starting to
(22:42):
recover. But those passengersare very much leisure. And the
airlines predominantly, the fullservice carriers make their
money on the business traveller.
It's the traveller that willtend to book at the last minute,
maybe change their flight acouple of times, is less price
sensitive, will often fly in amore premium cabin. That's the
traveller they've still got totrack back. That's the one
(23:04):
that's not going to come backfor a while. So I think you're
right, you're going to see stillsome volatility in prices until
it settles itself down.
YS Chi (23:13):
Now, you mentioned that 21 years of industry growth in
passenger traffic was wiped outduring the pandemic. Is it a 21
month recovery? Or is it a 21year recovery or something in
between?
Jeremy Bowen (23:28):
That's a really good question. I don't have my
crystal ball. So my personalview, and what we're kind of
seeing around the places, thatleisure travel is going to come
back first. There's lots of pentup demand. People do want to
take vacations, people do wantto see family and friends and
we're already seeing that comingback. But particularly it will
(23:50):
be domestic. So within the US,that markets almost back, within
parts of Asia. The challengesare where you have to cross
border. Europe's still laggingbehind because we've got lots of
closures. Those will be comingback. The challenge I think is,
as I mentioned before is onbusiness travel. The latest
estimates are really, we're notgoing to start to see recoveries
(24:13):
back to 2019 levels until2024/2025. That depends not just
on the traveller themselvesbeing able to go to these
locations and budgets withincorporates, but also whether
that world of work has changedforever. There's lots going on
about, talking about how peoplehave become used to the Zoom
(24:35):
meetings and the Teams meetingsand do they need to have so many
internal meetings with everyoneflying in. It's a slow recovery,
it will come back I think, butit's going to be a lot slower
than leisure travel and it'sgoing to take a number of years.
YS Chi (24:51):
I think you might be very much on the ball with that
prediction because there'sanother aspect we're going to
touch on in a few minutes, whichis about the environment impact.
But what you're hearing ispeople saying, I don't need to
hop on a plane because I don'tneed to do the face to face. I
(25:11):
would rather jump on a Zoom orTeams calls. So I think on the
business you might be absolutelyright about this. Although I
think we know that in thebusiness world, as soon as one
competitor has an advantage byhaving flown and done a face to
face, then everybody's going tojustify being back on the plane
(25:32):
to do face to face.
Jeremy Bowen (25:34):
Yes YS, you're right. We think it's going to
come back in three phases.
You're absolutely right. Clientmeetings, relationship meetings,
partner meetings, will come backfirst. Those ones that are
important for those businessrelationships, that'll happen
first. Second, will be thoseinternal meetings where people
have to go and see overseasteams or overseas subsidiaries
because they haven't seen themfor a while, that will come
(25:57):
second. The last thing that willcome back will be those internal
meetings where 20 or 30 peoplefly to a neutral destination and
meet for a day. That we thinkwill come back last. Those ones
where you'll probably seecompanies start to say, look, we
used to get together four timesa year, let's do two times a
year and the other two meetingswill be on Zoom or Teams.
(26:18):
They'll still be there. But wethink that will be the part that
comes back last in terms of thevolume of those meetings.
YS Chi (26:27):
And it has so much implication not just financially
but on our society's way ofinteracting with each other. The
amount of time that I have, youknow how much I flew. The amount
of time I could not be with myfamily or friends or my local
community, because of thebusiness travel that I had to
(26:48):
do. Suddenly all those thingsare now better balanced.
Jeremy Bowen (26:51):
Absolutely.
Absolutey nail on the head.
YS Chi (26:54):
Yeah, I'm very interested to see how the travel
industry will change in thatregard. And particularly, as it
affects others that you say,partnered with you. From
lodging, to restoration, toleisure travel of tourism, and
so on and so forth. There's justso much tied to movement
(27:16):
industry.
Jeremy Bowen (27:17):
Absolutely. It's a huge ecosystem YS, your'e right.
It will recover. I strongly,strongly think it will recover,
parts of it will come backquicker. And parts of it will
come back in a different way.
But it will bounce back. It's avery, very resilient industry.
YS Chi (27:31):
Yeah. I like your positivism because we need that.
I think I really do believe thaton the data side, company like
Cirium is really making itpossible by use of data, smarter
use of data to do better when werebuild. But the other side of
the picture Jez is the impactthat we've always had and the
(27:51):
concern we have aroundenvironment. And whether or not,
airline disseminates so muchcarbon footprint. When we
rebuild this, Jez do you see theindustry being able to build it
better in terms of environmentfootprint?
Jeremy Bowen (28:12):
YS that's a great question. The short answer, and
then I'll expand on it is yes. Ithink the interview will build
back greener. Pre pandemc, sustainability was probab
y number one on most CEOs to doist. Obviously, the pandem
c has completely taken that oer. But now we're seeing it c
(28:32):
me back. You've got a lot of goernment bailouts that have been
iven to airlines around thworld that come with sustainab
lity criteria and sustainablity clauses. You're seeing bi
commitments from the airlineso be carbon neutral by x date. Y
u're seeing investment in biofues. Not fully taken off yet but s
(28:53):
bstantial, not talking aboutit, literally running engi
es on sustainable biouels. That's all happening at th
moment. One of the key thingstouched on earlier, we've
ot 30% of the world's fleet sill parked. Those ones that are
still parked, they tend tbe the older aircraft, whi
h means they tend to be less fueefficient, they might be havin
(29:14):
four engines as opposedo two. We'll probably see the
ights of those gas guzzling aircaft to never return again.
e've seen the the Airbus A380,which is a beautiful aircraft. L
ts of airlines have startedto retire it. The majority of t
em are still parked, they'renot flying. Some of those
will never return to service, thy'll be broken down for spares
There'll be retired. Even withritish Airways, the classic 7
(29:38):
7. British Airways have retirethat fleet. They're just n
t fuel efficient now. And the oes that they're bringing out of
service, the new aircraft that tey're ordering are so much bet
er than those other ones. Well never see a big chunk of t
at 30% fly again. That's fromn airline's perspective. So the
are obviously signing up todate, they are trying to run the
(30:00):
e programmes. I think the key ting is going to be around the
raveller though. So it's allery well that the airline's get
ing themselves ready. Busineses around the world are lookin
at their own carbon footprin, they're looking at their own
ustainability footprint. Ana huge chunk that burns thro
gh their percentage pernnum is on corporate airfares, c
(30:22):
rporate air travel. We mastart to see things like rest
icting how much carbon individals can emit. They're going to
want to know what flight is emiting, what carbon per seat.
've already seen incentives fopeople trading down in terms
of the class of travel, so themight be trying business and th
(30:43):
y're getting paid cash incentivs for taking a more fuel eff
cient seat. And I think we'regetting the industry, wer
pushing to have their stafffly direct from point A to poi
t B, as opposed to flying and tansiting through another
irport and taking another fligt. That's where you've got a
lot of preferred airlines forompanies, you've got lots
(31:07):
f corporate deals, and sayng this company, primary f
ies with this airline. If thateans you have to transit through
two legs, I think we'll starto see that change, and the pus
for companies to encourage theiemployees to not fly with that
airline. But to fly with onthat goes direct from point A t
point B. It's a big huge isse. If it's not number one ag
(31:27):
in on a CEOs to do list, it'scertainly climbing the list
retty quickly.
YS Chi (31:44):
Wow, fascinating. So if I can ask you a more
lighthearted question, I havetwo of them. One is, tell us who
the winners are going to be whenthe industry comes back? What
are the characteristics of thewinners? That's the first
question.
Jeremy Bowen (32:00):
The characteristics of the winners.
That's a really hard question.
We've already seen that the lowcost carriers have bounced back
first. Particularly within theirdomestic markets. There's a
number of US airlines thathadn't created all their money
from a lot of their money fromoverseas travel from long haul.
Those people that were moreregional, and that were more
domestic have bounced backreally strong. And we're seeing
(32:22):
them growing. The same withinparts of Asia. I think those
people, those airlines that havea lot of their money tied up in
transatlantic, and from northernhemisphere to southern
hemisphere, they're struggling.
They have still got lots of cashburn. At the height of the
pandemic in 2021, one of thelarge US Airlines was burning
(32:45):
$100 million every day. Now,we've started to see
announcements now say thatpeople have stopped that. People
are now cash positive. Theystopped the tide. But their
money really isn't going tostart coming profitable again
until we can really open upglobal travel, not just
domestic.
YS Chi (33:03):
The second lighthearted question is, what is the future
of travel loyalty points thathas, as you know, driven a lot
of traffic individually and forcompanies, as you said,
preferred airline deals. What'sthe future?
Jeremy Bowen (33:18):
Wow, what's the future. They'll definitely stay.
For an airline, particularly thefull service carriers that have
these programmes. It's such alucrative part of their business
YS.
YS Chi (33:31):
It is cash, isn't it?
Jeremy Bowen (33:33):
It's massive, absolutely massive. They're
selling them to the hotelchains, to the credit card
companies. It's given them amassive amount of cash injection
during a pandemic when they'veneeded it. I've seen before that
they've raised funds on the backof their loyalty programme. So
they're incredibly valuable tothe airlines. To the
(33:53):
individuals, the last thing thatan airline is going to do is to
push one of their loyaltravellers onto a brand new
airline. You've already seenextensions of points, people
say, look, don't worry, you'renot going to lose them, we want
you to stay. I think if anairline started taking them
away, it gives those loyaltravellers a chance to go well,
(34:14):
why don't I try someone else?
That's the last thing they need.
So I think you'll see them for along, long time to come.
YS Chi (34:20):
Yes, when I was flying, there were three guilts. One is
a guilt to my body and the wearand tear it does. The other was
to the family and friends that Ileave behind. And the third was
my environment, input, impact.
You've addressed all of thoseand given me hopes that there
will be less of it, buthopefully smarter ones ahead.
(34:42):
Jez, you talked about two veryimportant principles, about
safety and about communicationwhen it came to pandemic. It
seems to apply to the industryyou work in. When I'm born again
as a business man I want to bein your shoes, I want to be in
the airline industry.
Jeremy Bowen (35:06):
It's a great industry, it's been through
immense trouble and it's stillfighting its way through. But as
I said before, it's incrediblyresilient. You've got some
amazing people that havededicated their life to
aviation, and it will bounceback and it will come back
stronger, it will come backcleaner. We'll learn from the
pandemic and it will be a lotmore effective and efficient
when it bounces back.
YS Chi (35:27):
The fact is that you're sitting on so much data that can
be helpful to everybody. I hopethat you continue to collect
valuable data, find someconsistent way to make better
business decisions, and behelpful to the entire industry.
I admire your personal journeyalso, to get to where you are
(35:50):
today as a CEO of Cirium and Iwish you and your family well.
Thank you so much Jez.
Jeremy Bowen (35:57):
Thank you YS, pleasure to talk.
YS Chi (35:59):
Well, we've come to an end of our second series of
RELX's Unique Contributions. Inthis series, I've interviewed 10
people from differentbackgrounds, based in different
continents, confrontingdifferent challenges. These have
ranged from advancing socialjustice, inclusion, transparency
and integrity in science,innovation in exhibitions,
(36:21):
advances in machine learning anddeep learning in the legal
industry, to corporateresponsibility, feeding the
world, and the future of airtravel. But all my guests have
one thing in common. That is theauthentic drive for doing good
things that benefits society.
It's perhaps John Pham, theeditor in chief of Cell, who
(36:42):
summed it up best when he said,looking back, I like to say that
we did good things to helppeople. That in essence, is how
we at RELX look at our uniquecontributions. Thank you again
for listening and until our nextseries, goodbye for now.
The Unique Contributions podcast is brought to you by
RELX. Find out more about us byvisiting RELX.com
Jeremy Bowen (00:10):
We've got a lot of people within the industry that
say that once you get the jetfuel, the aviation fuel in your
blood, it never leaves you. I'veseen people leave the industry,
try something and then come backin. And I get it.
YS Chi (00:41):
Hello, and welcome to our second series of unique
contributions, a RELX podcast.
I'm YS Chi and I'll be exploringwith my guests some of the big
issues that matter to society,how they're making a difference,
and what brought them to wherethey are today. Today, I'm
excited to be joined by JezBowen, who is the CEO of Cirium.
As you may know, Cirium is adata and analytics leader in the
(01:02):
travel and aviation industries.
It handles 300 terabytes ofaviation analytics, covering
everything from airlineschedules and routes to aircraft
configuration and passengernumbers. It goes without saying
that the industry has recentlyexperienced very turbulent
times. Looking beyond thepandemic, I'll be asking Jez
(01:24):
what is the future of air traveland what does the road to
recovery look like? Jez, thanksfor joining me today. It's great
to have you. I know this lastyear has been quite the roller
coaster. How have things beenfor you during the past few
months?
Jeremy Bowen (01:39):
Hi YS and delighted to join. I think all
things considered, it's beenokay. I've got used to working
from home. I have been used totravelling a lot, very much like
yourself with work and now thatI don't have to commute three
hours into London City everyday, the commute has very much
changed. I think we've all gotused to it. My kids are slightly
(02:02):
older than most. I've got a 17year old and a 12 year old. So I
haven't had to endure the homeschooling that a lot of our
colleagues have. I thinkrelatively it has been okay, I'm
missing the interaction of theoffice. But I think we've all
got used to it now that workingfrom home.
YS Chi (02:17):
Well Jez, don't get too used to it. Because we do need
that interaction, don't we?
Jeremy Bowen (02:21):
I completely and utterly agree. Ironically, I've
been in the office this week acouple of days. And there's a
couple of people in and it's somuch different communicating
with people face to face than itis on the screen as it's been
for the last 15 months. So I domiss it.
YS Chi (02:36):
Yes, I think we're gonna have a hybrid world soon.
Jeremy Bowen (02:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that will work. Iknow lots of people are itching
to get back in the office. Wejust need to make sure that
everyone feels safe, everyonefeels comfortable. But I think
we are missing that humaninteraction and that creativity
and spark that it does withinthe teams.
YS Chi (02:55):
So, you became CEO of Cirium in 2019, April to be
precise, when it was announced.
A short year before the pandemichit and then lived through the
most trying times, perhaps theaviation and travel industries
have ever seen. Now that can'tbe easy. I remember a quote
during the announcement and yousaid, it's a privilege to lead
the company at this moment inits evolution. I'm sure you had
(03:19):
no idea what you really werefacing. So, how have you found
it?
Jeremy Bowen (03:26):
That is an understatement YS. It's
certainly been a steep learningcurve. It's my first CEO role.
The word that's used within theindustry and it's been used a
lot is unprecedented. The crisisand the challenge has been
unprecedented. I think now, towhere we are, we've got green
shoots in the industry. It'sgoing to take time, but things
(03:47):
are starting to recover. Westarted to see the schedules
fill again. But I think back towhat we inherited 12 months ago,
or 13 months ago when the worldstopped. The industry literally
went into meltdown. We'd neverfaced it before. Our clients had
never faced it before. Ouremployees and associates haven't
(04:09):
faced it before. So when welooked at our teams, they had to
cope with working from home.
They also had to cope withobviously being concerned about
health and their loved ones. Andalso opening the papers every
day or seeing on the news everyday of mass furloughs and mass
redundancies all the way acrossaviation. Genuinely people in
Cirium of our 500 employees wereworried about their futures and
(04:32):
worried about what we'd be doingas a business. So as a new CEO,
we had to very quickly put inplace a communication plan. We
communicated openly. Wecommunicated often. We spoke to
a lot of people in all differentforms of mediums, town halls,
video updates, just really toallay everyone's concerns. To
(04:53):
just very focus on on threepriorities and that first
priority was that our employeesand their families are the
number one importance. That'sthe most important thing. Look
after yourself and look afteryour family members. The second
one was looking after ourclients. The aviation industry
is very insular. Everyone relieson each other to be successful.
(05:15):
We wouldn't have a business ifthe airlines and the travel
sector didn't exist. Theindustry has been through this
before, they have been throughchallenging times before, and
they look after each other. Soour second priority was to make
sure we look after our clients.
We did, very much reached out.
Some of them were going throughfinancial distress. And that
third part was taking theopportunity to rebuild better.
(05:37):
It sounds a little bit of acliche, but we had the
opportunity to continueinvesting in Cirium. There's a
phrase within the UK when thefactory shut down, called
'retooling the factory.' Wespent the time to retool Cirium.
To build that better so thatwhen the market comes back,
we're better positioned to beable to help those clients
(05:57):
rebuild and return to normal. Soit was a challenging topic. I
wasn't expecting it when I firstpicked up the role of the job
that was for sure.
YS Chi (06:08):
Yeah. We're going to get to the industry a little later.
But if you would let us learn alittle more about you Jez. So
you're currently obviouslyliving in UK in the outskirts of
London. But I know you alsostarted living and working down
somewhere on the opposite end,in New Zealand and Australia.
What were you doing down there?
Jeremy Bowen (06:29):
Yeah, that's a good question. My early career
YS, in fact my first role and Istayed with them for almost 15
years was with Dun & Bradstreet.
The global data analyticscompany. I've spent 11 years in
the UK. I joined straight out ofcollege, customer service,
sales, senior sales, salesmanagement. I was following that
sales path and had theopportunity to move out to
(06:52):
Sydney, Australia and manage asales team. It was before my
wife and I had kids so we jumpedat the opportunity. What we
thought we'd do for two years.
We headed down and literallyflew on my 30th birthday and
then thought we'd come back twoyears later. We ended up
spending five years in Australiaand New Zealand. After 18
(07:13):
months, I had the opportunity tobecome the general manager of
Dun & Bradstreet, New Zealand.
YS Chi (07:17):
Oh, that was quick.
Jeremy Bowen (07:19):
Yeah, it was.
Everyone looks at their careerand there's a defining moment
when they grow up and they startto kind of understand how it all
fits together. That was my time.
I had never visited the country.
I had 50 staff, two offices. Myboss was four hours away and on
an aircraft. She was aninspirational CEO, she was very
(07:39):
much an external CEO. She'squite a thought leader and a
business leader within the highprofile, within Australia now.
YS Chi (07:49):
I love the fact that you say she.
Jeremy Bowen (07:51):
Yes, she was she was inspirational. She said, I
trust you. That's why I've givenyou the job. If you need me ring
me, if not I'm going to leaveyou to it. I had a fantastic 18
months, we worked with a reallygreat team. Even now I look back
at that 18 months. I've neverworked with a group who was so
'can do' in their attitude,nothing fazed them and we had a
(08:11):
good time growing the business.
We then as a global or as acombined Australia and New
Zealand leadership team, we dida management buyout from the DB
Corporation on the Australia NewZealand operations. So it was my
first experience of workingunder private equity. Then I was
asked to come back to Australia,this time to Melbourne to head
up our debt recovery business.
(08:34):
It was the largest part of ourbusiness. We put 200 people in
call centres, collectingconsumer debt seven days a week.
Very entrepreneurial, good fun.
I learned a massive amount. Sowe ended up staying five years
and then my wife fell pregnant.
We suddenly realised we were along way from home and so my
(08:54):
first daughter was born in inMelbourne, and then we headed
back after a great time away.
YS Chi (09:00):
You then actually left D&B right? Then you had some
other roles but then eventuallywe found you, or you found us.
Jeremy Bowen (09:09):
Yeah, I took a decision YS. The only business
I'd worked for was Dun &Bradstreet. I had loved my time
there, I still look back veryfondly. But the business had
gone through lots of changes andhaving spent five years away and
almost like the shackles beingoff because we'd acquired the
business and we would taking itinto a different direction. I
(09:29):
chose not to want to try and goback to D&B in the UK. I did a
couple of things outside of dataand then an ex colleague was
working for RELX and knew that abusiness called Bankers Almanac,
which was part of the RELXbusinesses, was looking for a
head of sales. So I interviewedand got the job and that's when
I came on board.
YS Chi (09:49):
Knowing the right people.
Jeremy Bowen (09:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
It was interesting. It was verymuch part of RELX and LexisNexis
Business Solution's digitaltransformation. I joined a
business which was about an hourSouth of London. It was in the
south of England. It was quite aquiet business, steady growth
quite small. But it was when thedigital transformation was going
(10:14):
on and RELX were busy disposingof all the magazine titles, all
of the the advertising. They hadthe small core of subscription
paid for data businesses, ofwhich Bankers Almanac was one.
During the interview process, Iremember the senior chap that
interviewed me said to me, hesaid Jez, we think this brand
(10:35):
can do so much more, we want youto take it for a spin. As a new
head of sales, that's just whatyou want to hear. The shackles
are off and we could really goand grow it and really try some
new things. And we did. We weredoing well after a couple of
years to the point where RELXnoticed and thought it would be
a good idea to bring Accuity whowere very much our competitor in
(11:00):
the market at the time, into theRELX family. We merged the two
businesses together and I spentthe next six years running sales
for EMEA, Asia Pacific in thecombined entity. So that's
that's kind of how I joined intoRELX. Three years ago I was
asked to come into Cirium or itsforerunner FlightGlobal. I
(11:21):
originally came in as head ofsales. We'd grown by lots of
acquisitions and the brief thatwe had was to integrate those
acquisitions from a salesperspective. So we unified the
offerings, unified the disparatesales groups we'd required. Did
that, and then two years ago, asyou said at the start of the
podcast, I was very lucky enoughto be offered the role to step
(11:45):
up and become CEO under the newCirium brand. Two years later,
here we are.
YS Chi (11:52):
You've done several different verticals, yet you
stayed very focused on thecustomer side. Now, I've also
heard you mentioned a few timesthat you think you may have the
best job in RELX. I don't knowabout that. I think I do. But at
least I get to host podcasts,right? Anyway, what makes you
say that?
Jeremy Bowen (12:12):
YS, I think you might definitely have one of the
best jobs at RELX. I have saidit a few times, it's funny how
you picked up on that. I spentmy entire career within data and
analytics. Firstly at Dun &Bradstreet and then particularly
within Accuity. And it'sstrange. I love the Accuity
world, that anti moneylaundering, know your customer.
(12:34):
When I talk to my friends, andif you're having dinner with
people. When I talk about it,unless you're in that space,
their eyes glaze over. When Italk about aviation and what
we're doing, every person thatyou talk to is touched by
aviation. Virtually everyonetravels, everyone's been on an
aircraft, everyone goes onholiday. They go to see
(12:56):
relatives, they expect the freshfruit and flowers to be in the
supermarket, they know that getsdelivered by aircraft. It's a
huge ecosystem. Everybody wantsto know what's happening.
Everyone wants to know ifthey're going to be able to
travel with the pandemic. And soit's very tangible. I love it.
It's a world that...we've got alot of people within the
(13:17):
industry that they say that onceyou get the jet fuel, the
aviation fuel in your blood, itnever leaves you. I've seen
people leave the industry, trysomething and then come back in.
And I get it. I'm three yearsin. I'm not quite as
enthusiastic as some of thepeople in the team who really,
really live and breatheaviation. But I can completely
(13:39):
understand it and I'm gettingthere. I have got the best job.
YS Chi (13:42):
Yeah, I think that this industry of airline or travel by
air has some sort of anattachment to all of our lives
that we we fantasise or we thinkwe really know well, somehow.
That's what kind of makes it sospecial right. As you said, it's
very tangible. But at the sametime, we're actually far further
(14:06):
removed from it from the actualoperating principles of it.
Let's get into your businessside then.
Jeremy Bowen (14:19):
Okay.
YS Chi (14:20):
You've already highlighted the global pandemic
has absolutely tackled thetravel and aviation industry in
the hardest way. Most of theworld was unable to travel for
over a year now. Would you beable to explain to our
listeners, what Cirium actuallydoes and what are the services
(14:45):
it provides within this enormousecosystem?
Jeremy Bowen (14:48):
Sure. We have a mission within Cirium and that's
to accelerate our industriesdigital transformation. If I
park that for a second, when Isay that to people from outside
of the aviation industry, when Italk to friends and colleagues
in different companies, theysometimes look at me and they
give me a strange expression.
They say, accelerating yourindustries digital
(15:10):
transformation, that's somethingfrom the early 2000s. But what
they don't realise is aviationand that whole ecosystem is
relatively slow to adopt thatthat digital transformation.
Their data has been held inlegacy silos. They've been
beholden to large mainframeoperating systems. You sometimes
have departments, particularlyairlines that don't communicate
(15:32):
as effectively between eachother as they could do. So we
need to free up that data fromthose silos and be able to get
it to people in a more easilyconsumable format. That's what
we do. We are taking in millionsand millions of pieces of
information every single dayfrom thousands of sources across
the across the ecosystem. Webring it into the Cirium Core.
(15:54):
We process it, we clean it, wenormalise it, and then we fuse
it together with all the othersources that are coming in, and
then flow that back out withinsights over the top of it to
be used by the industry. Peoplesee it in many different ways.
We've got one part of ourbusiness that values aircraft,
we're producing real timemonthly valuations on those
(16:17):
aircraft. It's like your car.
When you buy a car, you want toknow everything about it to see
the value of it before you buyit or you sell it. And so that's
going to depend on its age, it'sgoing to depend on the equipment
that's on that car or aircraft.
The usage, where it's flown to,how many hours, how many times
it's taken off and landed. Theconditions that is has flown
(16:37):
through, has it been working inthe Middle East versus working
somewhere else and that fullservice history. All that comes
together, and we bring that aspart of our business to be able
to help value more effectivelyan aircraft. That's one extreme,
which is obviously very industryfocused. How everyone else can
touch it is that we've alltravelled. We've all picked up
friends and relatives from theairport. And typically people
(17:00):
will check to see what time thatflights arriving. They might go
on to Google, they key in theflight number and they say, what
time is it? Oh it's 20 minutesdelayed or it's 18 minutes
delayed. When they'reinteracting with Google or when
they're talking to Alexa, that'sour data. We're bringing in that
data to be able to plot andpredict exactly when that flight
(17:20):
is going to arrive, when it'sgoing to touchdown. So it's one
of the things that we do. Andequally, we've got a lot of
people doing it now. They'regoing online, they're going on
to the internet to book flightsfor now that things are opening
up for the summer holidays andfor trips. When they go online
onto an online travel agent andthey see all the flight and
different options, that's fueledby our data. They'll take the
(17:44):
shedule of all of those aircraftwhere they're due to fly and the
times. That powers those onlinetravel agents, that's our data
as well. So we're touching notjust the aviation sector, but
also a wide part of the generalpublic in what we're actually
doing within Cirium.
YS Chi (18:02):
So the use cases sound almost infinite. Right?
Jeremy Bowen (18:06):
Absolutely.
YS Chi (18:07):
You talk about asset valuation, you talked about
logistics, you talked aboutconvenience, you talked about
safety. You cannot imagine howmuch this can be done,
particularly when you clean upand have sufficient, consistent
data to play with. Do you thinkthe industry is mature now about
(18:27):
knowing what kind of data theyneed to be able to answer the
kind of questions they have torebuild?
Jeremy Bowen (18:33):
I think it's interesting YS. They need to
look at different data sources.
One of the challenges,particularly for an airline,
when you look to see whereyou're going to fly. So your
future schedule, and we're allused to, as I said, going online
and booking and saying, right,in five weeks time I need to
book this flight, its leavingfrom Heathrow to JFK. When they
build their schedules, theirforward looking schedules,
(18:55):
they're typically relying onwhat happened in a prior year.
They take their old schedule,look to see what really happened
and then tweak and upgrade it.
That's completely out of thewindow now, because in 2020
there was no schedule. Nothingwas flying, things were getting
cancelled at the last minute.
You had clients that were takingbookings, very much at the last
minute. So it becomes very verydifficult to plan where you're
(19:18):
going to fly to, how many timesyou're going to fly there, and
what aircraft capacity to put onthose routes. The old ways of
doing things are gone. What theyrealise is now we need to look
outside of that data for freshersources of data to help shape
where they want to take it.
There's a lot of emphasis nowgoing into search. Where are
(19:41):
people looking online thinkingabout booking? There's a lot of
information going on sentiment,what's happening on social
media? What are people talkingabout sporting events? What are
people talking about good beachdestinations? Where are people
getting good reviews on? Thesevast data sets are now being
bought in to help shape wherethey should be booking their
(20:02):
future demand. Businesses likeCirium, we're right at the
forefront of that. It's a seachange within the industry. But
that's something that I thinkwe'll see sheduled ongoing, just
being six, maybe eight weeks inadvance. Rather than the six
months in the 12 months thatthey always were in the past, as
they're able to react quicker towhere people want to go to.
YS Chi (20:23):
Do you believe that the industry will be prepared to be
less predictable that far downthe road and be more fluid, to
kind of reflect the demand fromthe travel passengers? That's a
big change. That's a very bigchange because we used to go
(20:43):
where we were able to go versusexpressing where it is we want
to go?
Jeremy Bowen (20:48):
Yes, it's a huge change YS. Last summer,
particularly within certaincountries as borders were
opening and closing as newvariants of the pandemic were
rising. People, everyone wasworried about booking too far in
advance because they didn't knowwhether that flight would take
place. At one stage in thesummer, the summer in 2020 40%
(21:11):
of bookings were taking placethree days before the flight was
due to take off. That's anincredibly high amount, which
makes it very difficult for anairline to plan anything. That's
why even though sheduled flightswith June, you still saw lots
and lots of cancellations. Aspeople were saying that there's
only four people on an aircraft,we will consolidate it and roll
it into tomorrow's flight or theafternoon flight. Even now with
(21:35):
border closures with quarantinerestrictions changing with fly
lists, green lists, red lists.
You're still seeing peoplewanting to book far in advance,
they're just leaving it a littlebit later than they normally
would do, which means thatairlines need to be more
reactive.
YS Chi (21:50):
But that also has, Jez to do with pricing doesn't it.
By booking well in advance, weused to be able to get better
fare. But if the fare systemchanges, and that there is less
of an advantage of far andbooking, then perhaps we can
have a very different world oftravel. We're we're not
(22:11):
penalised for waiting till, aweek before to book something.
That could be a gigantic change.
Jeremy Bowen (22:19):
It will be. Most airlines have removed their
cancellation and their changefees. They did that and I don't
think we'll start to see thosecoming back for a long time.
People need security that ifthey do make a booking far out,
that they're not going to getpenalised if they need to change
it a couple of times. But theairlines YS are still under a
lot of pressure. We're seeingpassenger numbers starting to
(22:42):
recover. But those passengersare very much leisure. And the
airlines predominantly, the fullservice carriers make their
money on the business traveller.
It's the traveller that willtend to book at the last minute,
maybe change their flight acouple of times, is less price
sensitive, will often fly in amore premium cabin. That's the
traveller they've still got totrack back. That's the one
(23:04):
that's not going to come backfor a while. So I think you're
right, you're going to see stillsome volatility in prices until
it settles itself down.
YS Chi (23:13):
Now, you mentioned that 21 years of industry growth in
passenger traffic was wiped outduring the pandemic. Is it a 21
month recovery? Or is it a 21year recovery or something in
between?
Jeremy Bowen (23:28):
That's a really good question. I don't have my
crystal ball. So my personalview, and what we're kind of
seeing around the places, thatleisure travel is going to come
back first. There's lots of pentup demand. People do want to
take vacations, people do wantto see family and friends and
we're already seeing that comingback. But particularly it will
(23:50):
be domestic. So within the US,that markets almost back, within
parts of Asia. The challengesare where you have to cross
border. Europe's still laggingbehind because we've got lots of
closures. Those will be comingback. The challenge I think is,
as I mentioned before is onbusiness travel. The latest
estimates are really, we're notgoing to start to see recoveries
(24:13):
back to 2019 levels until2024/2025. That depends not just
on the traveller themselvesbeing able to go to these
locations and budgets withincorporates, but also whether
that world of work has changedforever. There's lots going on
about, talking about how peoplehave become used to the Zoom
(24:35):
meetings and the Teams meetingsand do they need to have so many
internal meetings with everyoneflying in. It's a slow recovery,
it will come back I think, butit's going to be a lot slower
than leisure travel and it'sgoing to take a number of years.
YS Chi (24:51):
I think you might be very much on the ball with that
prediction because there'sanother aspect we're going to
touch on in a few minutes, whichis about the environment impact.
But what you're hearing ispeople saying, I don't need to
hop on a plane because I don'tneed to do the face to face. I
(25:11):
would rather jump on a Zoom orTeams calls. So I think on the
business you might be absolutelyright about this. Although I
think we know that in thebusiness world, as soon as one
competitor has an advantage byhaving flown and done a face to
face, then everybody's going tojustify being back on the plane
(25:32):
to do face to face.
Jeremy Bowen (25:34):
Yes YS, you're right. We think it's going to
come back in three phases.
You're absolutely right. Clientmeetings, relationship meetings,
partner meetings, will come backfirst. Those ones that are
important for those businessrelationships, that'll happen
first. Second, will be thoseinternal meetings where people
have to go and see overseasteams or overseas subsidiaries
because they haven't seen themfor a while, that will come
(25:57):
second. The last thing that willcome back will be those internal
meetings where 20 or 30 peoplefly to a neutral destination and
meet for a day. That we thinkwill come back last. Those ones
where you'll probably seecompanies start to say, look, we
used to get together four timesa year, let's do two times a
year and the other two meetingswill be on Zoom or Teams.
(26:18):
They'll still be there. But wethink that will be the part that
comes back last in terms of thevolume of those meetings.
YS Chi (26:27):
And it has so much implication not just financially
but on our society's way ofinteracting with each other. The
amount of time that I have, youknow how much I flew. The amount
of time I could not be with myfamily or friends or my local
community, because of thebusiness travel that I had to
(26:48):
do. Suddenly all those thingsare now better balanced.
Jeremy Bowen (26:51):
Absolutely.
Absolutey nail on the head.
YS Chi (26:54):
Yeah, I'm very interested to see how the travel
industry will change in thatregard. And particularly, as it
affects others that you say,partnered with you. From
lodging, to restoration, toleisure travel of tourism, and
so on and so forth. There's justso much tied to movement
(27:16):
industry.
Jeremy Bowen (27:17):
Absolutely. It's a huge ecosystem YS, your'e right.
It will recover. I strongly,strongly think it will recover,
parts of it will come backquicker. And parts of it will
come back in a different way.
But it will bounce back. It's avery, very resilient industry.
YS Chi (27:31):
Yeah. I like your positivism because we need that.
I think I really do believe thaton the data side, company like
Cirium is really making itpossible by use of data, smarter
use of data to do better when werebuild. But the other side of
the picture Jez is the impactthat we've always had and the
(27:51):
concern we have aroundenvironment. And whether or not,
airline disseminates so muchcarbon footprint. When we
rebuild this, Jez do you see theindustry being able to build it
better in terms of environmentfootprint?
Jeremy Bowen (28:12):
YS that's a great question. The short answer, and
then I'll expand on it is yes. Ithink the interview will build
back greener. Pre pandemc, sustainability was probab
y number one on most CEOs to doist. Obviously, the pandem
c has completely taken that oer. But now we're seeing it c
(28:32):
me back. You've got a lot of goernment bailouts that have been
iven to airlines around thworld that come with sustainab
lity criteria and sustainablity clauses. You're seeing bi
commitments from the airlineso be carbon neutral by x date. Y
u're seeing investment in biofues. Not fully taken off yet but s
(28:53):
bstantial, not talking aboutit, literally running engi
es on sustainable biouels. That's all happening at th
moment. One of the key thingstouched on earlier, we've
ot 30% of the world's fleet sill parked. Those ones that are
still parked, they tend tbe the older aircraft, whi
h means they tend to be less fueefficient, they might be havin
(29:14):
four engines as opposedo two. We'll probably see the
ights of those gas guzzling aircaft to never return again.
e've seen the the Airbus A380,which is a beautiful aircraft. L
ts of airlines have startedto retire it. The majority of t
em are still parked, they'renot flying. Some of those
will never return to service, thy'll be broken down for spares
There'll be retired. Even withritish Airways, the classic 7
(29:38):
7. British Airways have retirethat fleet. They're just n
t fuel efficient now. And the oes that they're bringing out of
service, the new aircraft that tey're ordering are so much bet
er than those other ones. Well never see a big chunk of t
at 30% fly again. That's fromn airline's perspective. So the
are obviously signing up todate, they are trying to run the
(30:00):
e programmes. I think the key ting is going to be around the
raveller though. So it's allery well that the airline's get
ing themselves ready. Busineses around the world are lookin
at their own carbon footprin, they're looking at their own
ustainability footprint. Ana huge chunk that burns thro
gh their percentage pernnum is on corporate airfares, c
(30:22):
rporate air travel. We mastart to see things like rest
icting how much carbon individals can emit. They're going to
want to know what flight is emiting, what carbon per seat.
've already seen incentives fopeople trading down in terms
of the class of travel, so themight be trying business and th
(30:43):
y're getting paid cash incentivs for taking a more fuel eff
cient seat. And I think we'regetting the industry, wer
pushing to have their stafffly direct from point A to poi
t B, as opposed to flying and tansiting through another
irport and taking another fligt. That's where you've got a
lot of preferred airlines forompanies, you've got lots
(31:07):
f corporate deals, and sayng this company, primary f
ies with this airline. If thateans you have to transit through
two legs, I think we'll starto see that change, and the pus
for companies to encourage theiemployees to not fly with that
airline. But to fly with onthat goes direct from point A t
point B. It's a big huge isse. If it's not number one ag
(31:27):
in on a CEOs to do list, it'scertainly climbing the list
retty quickly.
YS Chi (31:44):
Wow, fascinating. So if I can ask you a more
lighthearted question, I havetwo of them. One is, tell us who
the winners are going to be whenthe industry comes back? What
are the characteristics of thewinners? That's the first
question.
Jeremy Bowen (32:00):
The characteristics of the winners.
That's a really hard question.
We've already seen that the lowcost carriers have bounced back
first. Particularly within theirdomestic markets. There's a
number of US airlines thathadn't created all their money
from a lot of their money fromoverseas travel from long haul.
Those people that were moreregional, and that were more
domestic have bounced backreally strong. And we're seeing
(32:22):
them growing. The same withinparts of Asia. I think those
people, those airlines that havea lot of their money tied up in
transatlantic, and from northernhemisphere to southern
hemisphere, they're struggling.
They have still got lots of cashburn. At the height of the
pandemic in 2021, one of thelarge US Airlines was burning
(32:45):
$100 million every day. Now,we've started to see
announcements now say thatpeople have stopped that. People
are now cash positive. Theystopped the tide. But their
money really isn't going tostart coming profitable again
until we can really open upglobal travel, not just
domestic.
YS Chi (33:03):
The second lighthearted question is, what is the future
of travel loyalty points thathas, as you know, driven a lot
of traffic individually and forcompanies, as you said,
preferred airline deals. What'sthe future?
Jeremy Bowen (33:18):
Wow, what's the future. They'll definitely stay.
For an airline, particularly thefull service carriers that have
these programmes. It's such alucrative part of their business
YS.
YS Chi (33:31):
It is cash, isn't it?
Jeremy Bowen (33:33):
It's massive, absolutely massive. They're
selling them to the hotelchains, to the credit card
companies. It's given them amassive amount of cash injection
during a pandemic when they'veneeded it. I've seen before that
they've raised funds on the backof their loyalty programme. So
they're incredibly valuable tothe airlines. To the
(33:53):
individuals, the last thing thatan airline is going to do is to
push one of their loyaltravellers onto a brand new
airline. You've already seenextensions of points, people
say, look, don't worry, you'renot going to lose them, we want
you to stay. I think if anairline started taking them
away, it gives those loyaltravellers a chance to go well,
(34:14):
why don't I try someone else?
That's the last thing they need.
So I think you'll see them for along, long time to come.
YS Chi (34:20):
Yes, when I was flying, there were three guilts. One is
a guilt to my body and the wearand tear it does. The other was
to the family and friends that Ileave behind. And the third was
my environment, input, impact.
You've addressed all of thoseand given me hopes that there
will be less of it, buthopefully smarter ones ahead.
(34:42):
Jez, you talked about two veryimportant principles, about
safety and about communicationwhen it came to pandemic. It
seems to apply to the industryyou work in. When I'm born again
as a business man I want to bein your shoes, I want to be in
the airline industry.
Jeremy Bowen (35:06):
It's a great industry, it's been through
immense trouble and it's stillfighting its way through. But as
I said before, it's incrediblyresilient. You've got some
amazing people that havededicated their life to
aviation, and it will bounceback and it will come back
stronger, it will come backcleaner. We'll learn from the
pandemic and it will be a lotmore effective and efficient
when it bounces back.
YS Chi (35:27):
The fact is that you're sitting on so much data that can
be helpful to everybody. I hopethat you continue to collect
valuable data, find someconsistent way to make better
business decisions, and behelpful to the entire industry.
I admire your personal journeyalso, to get to where you are
(35:50):
today as a CEO of Cirium and Iwish you and your family well.
Thank you so much Jez.
Jeremy Bowen (35:57):
Thank you YS, pleasure to talk.
YS Chi (35:59):
Well, we've come to an end of our second series of
RELX's Unique Contributions. Inthis series, I've interviewed 10
people from differentbackgrounds, based in different
continents, confrontingdifferent challenges. These have
ranged from advancing socialjustice, inclusion, transparency
and integrity in science,innovation in exhibitions,
(36:21):
advances in machine learning anddeep learning in the legal
industry, to corporateresponsibility, feeding the
world, and the future of airtravel. But all my guests have
one thing in common. That is theauthentic drive for doing good
things that benefits society.
It's perhaps John Pham, theeditor in chief of Cell, who
(36:42):
summed it up best when he said,looking back, I like to say that
we did good things to helppeople. That in essence, is how
we at RELX look at our uniquecontributions. Thank you again
for listening and until our nextseries, goodbye for now.
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