Aviation & Global Alliances

Prior to the Coronavirus, the aviation world was in an unprecedented peak in Israel and in many places worldwide. Suddenly, new destinations we never dreamt about visiting with a direct flight, joined the Israeli’s traditional destination basket. Direct flights to Seychelles, made it one of the “hottest” destinations specifically during the Corona time. Foreign airlines like Air Seychelles, Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines, were not here in the past and rose in the past two years on Ben-Gurion’s flight board. In fact, in the past few years, each of us became kind of a small travel agent. Booking, Trip Advisor, Airbnb and more – are all promoters we know, who tried to answer the crazy demand to travel and discover new places. Strangely, the aviation industry didn’t have a technology leap like other industries. For example, for years plain tickets were priced based on their demand in the previous year. This policy is a relatively old method for our days where machine learning tools are widely used. During the days of the Corona, for example, the repayment tasks for passengers became a particularly complicated task all over the world, not just in Israel, because the technology used by many companies is still stuck behind. This is not my critique, but that of Alex Cruz, the former CEO of British Airways, who was recently appointed a consultant and board member at the start-up-Fetcher, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to optimize the price of a chair. Technological advancement that both improves the profitability of the airlines, and serves the desire of the end consumer at a competitive and fair price.If that was not enough, many companies are part of global alliances such as Sky Team, Oneworld and Star Alliance, which on one hand came to protect the companies against the difficult challenges experienced by the industry, and on the other hand also provoked much criticism in antitrust aspects. We will also devote time for this today. Guests: David Sprecher (Shibolet), Robby Nissan (Fetcherr), Charles Johnson (Air Seychelles).