Customers will remember us as the airline they can trust

The question is, of course, why? While the business has no doubt vacuumed up extra seats and market share from their rivals, it can’t, surely, be financially sound to plough on? As Scruby, one of aviation’s nice guys, hints, the “mission” is being taken with a view to the long term. And it surely can’t hurt either that the state of Qatar has now built invaluable good-will among passengers and governments worldwide.

Tom, you’ve had an extraordinary career working all around the world. Tell me about your experience to date?

I started just over 20 years ago with British Airways in their London head office, where I spent five years — then moved to Australia. I was looking after revenue and pricing under the BA and Qantas joint venture. I joined LATAM Airlines in Hong Kong, looking after the Asia-Pacific regional business. And then my last job was with American Airlines, where I was looking after Hong Kong, south-east Asia, south China, and the most recently Japan and Korea. It’s predominantly been in the commercial side of the business. So always around sales, marketing, PR, and working very closely with the travel trade to fill those aircraft from those respective markets.

What attracted you to this position at Qatar?

Under the One World Alliance, I’ve been watching them for quite some time. They’re a very forward-thinking airline making a lot of steps in aviation ahead of many of their competitors. Their growth over the last few years has been tremendous, and it’s because they’re absolutely obsessed by the customer.

Aviation is a notoriously boom-and-bust industry, but how does what we’re now seeing with coronavirus compare with other events in the past and what you’ve had to deal with before?

I’ve been through a few different events and ups and downs over the years. But there’s no comparison. This is like a black swan event in the aviation industry. I think the important thing to notice from a Qatar Airways’ perspective is how we react to this. The airline has never stopped flying. We’re very much focused on getting people home, and the response from the trade in Australia and customers around the world has been very positive. My team’s personally been working with embassies, the corporate community and anyone trying to get home to their relatives for essential travel requirements. They’ve welcomed us with open arms.

Qatar has now made a real name for itself by continuing to fly as much as it could during the crisis. And, in some cases, actually increasing services. Can you talk me through the scale of this operation?

We’re on a mission to take people home if I could summarise it in one sentence. This is on a massive global scale. So, we’ve flown more than 1.8 million people home since the start of COVID-19 pandemic across 50 million kilometres, plus more than 220 charters and counting. There’s been a huge amount of freighters flying around, too. In fact, cargo set a new record operating 180 flights in one single day, so it is a huge amount of operational requirements, which we’ve put into action.

We gave away 100,000 free tickets to medical professionals around the world in every country. And then locally, and certainly from my team’s perspective, we’ve had a really clear and flexible booking policy. So, I think we’ve made all the right steps during the crisis to support all nations around the world to get them home during these very strange times.

Obviously, with everything that’s been going on, Qatar’s share of the market has increased quite considerably as a result of all of this. So international traffic has more than tripled compared to its nearest competitor in April. IATA figures show that our operations account for just over 17 per cent of all international passengers.

In Australia, you’ve now become the biggest international carrier by a long way. I think you’ve gone from 3 per cent to 45 per cent and that dwarfs your rivals in terms of market share. What kind of percentage capacity are you offering now compared with before the crisis?

So, in the early stages, we were offering a lot more capacity to get people out. Very few airlines operated throughout the pandemic. And we expanded our flights. We added 48,000 seats to the market to help stranded Australians get home and included daily services to Brisbane, double day services to Perth, double daily services in Melbourne and triple daily services in Sydney. Recently, we had exceptional approval to extend that Brisbane service. At the moment, we’re offering 21 passenger flights per week. So those initial flights were additional flights. And, right now, we are offering three flights to Brisbane, four to Perth per week and daily flights from Melbourne and Sydney on the Airbus A350-1000.

What’s the biggest challenge in continuing to fly?

My staff locally in Australia have been very dedicated to the cause. I’ll tell you a story: I arrived in Australia on 11 May, and I was put into my quarantine hotel for two weeks. I opened my laptop on my first day not knowing what to expect because obviously, airlines around the world had stood down all their operations. But I was hit from that moment, when I opened that laptop, with a flurry of work and activity from staff on an absolute mission to help stranded passengers get where they needed to go.

But it requires a huge amount of orchestration between local embassies, local customers and our head office who have been working extremely hard day and night. I’ve mentioned charters, but charters weren’t necessarily a massive part of our business in normal operations. Now we’re flying 220 per year.

Why continue to fly? Qatar has been very honest and effectively said, “Look, this is financially going to be difficult. There might be redundancies in the future. We might be a different airline when we come out of this.” So why are you the only ones to keep going?

I think it came down to getting requests from various governments around the world to get passengers and customers where they needed to go. It evolved into our mission. And that’s why we’ve continued to fly. We’ve stuck to this mission. We’re all very proud of that mission. I think it shows the resilience is built into the DNA of Qatar Airways more than any other airline I’ve seen in my career.

Off the back of this has been a massive promotional campaign as well to Take People Home. Go on social media, and many customers are very grateful, very thankful. What are the benefits you think you’re going to get off the back of this?

The market share, as you mentioned, is 45 per cent of international travellers to and from Australia during April. So, it’s made us the biggest international carrier in this country. We’re reinforcing our reputation I believe throughout this COVID-19 period as the most reliable airline. Passengers who are flying home with Qatar Airways will remember us to be the airline that they can trust. That will factor into the future decision making and our continual growth.

How much of the decision to fly is to promote the airline and how much of it is also to promote the state of Qatar as well? Where does that balance lie?

Well, the clear priority is the global pandemic situation. Promoting Doha has obviously taken a back seat at the moment with countries worldwide in lockdown. I think right now there’s not a need to promote the destination. Well, I think we’ve built our reputation as an airline that can be trusted. And we demonstrated that so far.

Interestingly, we talk about increased market share, but I imagine there’s an awful lot of passengers who have flown with Qatar for the very first time. Do you have numbers or any kind of insight into how many first-time customers you’ve had so far?

I can’t say exactly how many for the first time… but since February, Qatar has repatriated over 100,000 people back to Australia; while flying over 140,000 passengers out of Australia to be reunited with their families. I expect many of these would have flown with us before.

A lot of government-backed repatriation flights seem to be drying up now. And we seem to be going back to a traditional commercial model. How is this new stage of the pandemic changing?

Yeah. So, you said two months ago, we were one of the very few operating and that’s where we added those 48,000 seats. There is an element right now of our capacity being at the right level to meet demand. I’m particularly proud to be able to operate into Brisbane. We received exceptional approval to run short-term services into the city and into Queensland. And we began just recently a more permanent service with three flights a week into Brisbane. So, you know, it’s an evolving situation.

How do you see things changing maybe in another few months? Because a lot of people have now got home and are being dissuaded from getting on international flights.

Entry restrictions around the world are the biggest impediments to many people resuming travel. So as the entry restrictions begin to ease, we expect demand to increase gradually. People will want to travel again. They will want to experience the world and their friends and family as well as businesses restarting. The restrictions have made people realise how precious the ability to travel is. So, we anticipate supply will closely match demand as airlines start to build back up. So, you know, it is evolving, it is changing still. And we were there to support as those restrictions do ease.

How confident are passengers to get on a plane? In Australia, we’ve seen domestic aviation slowly start to spring back into life, but in countries that have been harder hit, with higher death tolls, it might be different.

We’ve been taking all measures possible to ensure the safety of staff, crew and passengers during this time. We apply very, very high standards of cleanliness for our aircraft, strict biosecurity screening for the crew, disinfected aircraft, thoroughly advanced air filter systems and best-in-class cleaning standards in Doha. As you know, our cabin crew are required to wear fully disposable, full-body protective gear over their uniforms, comprising of PPE suits, safety glasses and a mask.

Maybe a little bit of a prediction: where do you think your airline is going to be in five years’ time?

Well, we’ve seen a lot of attention in recent months, so this all means that eyes are on us to perform moving forward. My top priority is working to maintain our position. You know, that winning position that we talked about continues to develop the best airline experience we possibly can. Not just now, but for the next five years and down the track. We want to be the biggest carrier, with the biggest network. We’re continually now working to gradually rebuild the Qatar Airways network in line with passenger demand as those expected relaxations happen. Currently, we’re flying to 40 destinations with 230 flights per week. By the end of June, we plan to expand that network to 75 destinations. We also announced plans to resume flights to destination this week such as Berlin, Dar-es-Salaam, New York, Tunisia, Venice etc. So, you know, I’m really, really excited to be leading the team down here this year and into the next five years.

Finally, what brought you to Australia? What attracted you here initially?

Well, I’m a dual still citizen, so I’m Australian and I’m British. So, my heart lies in two countries. I came, I know this market, I know the trade very well down here, and it’s a fantastic market. There are some brilliant agents, and it’s a very, very dynamic market. I’m just super excited to be back in Australia.