Генерални директор ЈетСмарт Аирлине-а о успонима и падовима ЦОВИД-а

Лори Рансон:

Do you think governments are being receptive to working together, to restart, to maybe uniting and finding ways to lift restrictions for inter-regional travel? Do they seem willing to work together? Are they receptive in that regard?

Естуардо Ортиз:

I think the governments are in a difficult position because they have to deal with the economy and have to do with the health. And right now, health has been priority. So, I’m hoping that, again, vaccination programs go forward. Then we’ll see a lot more openness and liberty for people to travel.

Лори Рансон:

Right. I think also, maybe just broader, if you could just share some biggest opportunities and the lessons you’ve learned from this whole crisis, that you’ll use going forward, whether it’s balance sheet management, cash operations. Share what you think are the most important things that you need to be equipped with going forward. Because, not to be pessimistic, we don’t know if another pandemic is going to hit the industry.

Естуардо Ортиз:

That’s a great question. I think, the key is mindset, honestly. There’s very little you can do to change what the conditions you’re in and actually very little to predict it. So having the right mindset from CAPA everybody in the company, it’s very important. The mindset to be able, basically to adapt quickly, to be agile, to implement with quality and speed. The other learning thing I think is that, we know we’re in the right business. We are in the ULCC and we have seen the benefits of it. Cost continues to be number one and they will continue to do so. In the recovery, there’s going to be also economic recovery. Not only recovery and restrictions in the pandemic and people are going to be sensitive to price, both companies and people. So, costs and price continue, probably more important after the pandemic. But most have learned that we need to make some adjustments, the pandemic has confirmed things that we knew were important like costs. But it also has, accelerated other things like digitalization. We’re working hard on that as well. We want to be digital leaders in the region. We’re not, right now and we want to be, and we were born in digital companies since they won, but it’s just sometimes they thought some things like time and we want to make sure that, we make an important step in that regard. So 2022, 2023, we can be leading this in the region. And there are other things I believe, that are highlighted like sustainability. We launched a sustainability program during the pandemic, in the company that encompasses not only environment, but social and economic sustainability. I think the pandemic has shown us the importance of the role we have as an industry and as a company. Now on this regards, flexibility, I think is the other thing that comes to mind. We were not for example, managing the cargo business before the pandemic.

And we have seen, full revenue in the world moving up from 12% to 36% of our cargo business. In our markets here, Garner was minus 90% in some markets and passengers and minus 15% only, in cargo. So we embarked ourselves. We set up a team, which we had set up many actually in the year called smart work sales and certified both airlines and cargo. It took time, because we wanted to do it. You will see style, lower complexity, lowest cost possible, and we’ll commence commercialization. And this… Month of April. So there’s also new things that you need to do. Managing trotters has been something we never did before, but now it’s important. So I think again, mindset, flexibility, and agility, to make sure you continue to be consistent with you are. But also, adapting to the market and taking new opportunities and new markets. It’s important.

Лори Рансон:

So after the launch of cargo this month, is that something that’s going to be a permanent part of the business for the company or is it something that’s temporary right now to push out the risk of…

Естуардо Ортиз:

We definitely see a strategic value in the business. Of course, we’ll have to go through it, but it has to keep it. E-commerce has exploded in South America because of the pandemic. So that’s only going to help. I also think there’s going to be a, less supply of passenger aircraft operations for the next two years at least. That will reduce as well the amount of bailey availability, they used to be before. So, if you think there’s going to be less supply, more demand, we do think that’s a good place to be. So, it’s going to be something very beneficial. Improve our performance, in the future years.

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