Aviadev Insight Europe

Today's episode is really special. I recorded the interview with Wizz Air CEO József Váradi in Cluj at Aviation Event on 31st March 2022. In a short but very dynamic interview I asked Mr. Váradi about Wizz Air's expectations for the upcoming summer season, their plans for London Gatwick, their ultimate growth plan for 2030 and I also asked him a bit personal questions at the very end. Let me also apologize for a slightly lower sound quality of this interview as it was recorded in Cluj Airport Terminal during a conference, but I still hope you will enjoy my quick chat with one of the most respected industry leaders in the last 2 decades in Europe.  

David Perez is the CEO at Turismo de Tenerife. This episode was recorded on site, in David's office in Santa Cruz. With David we discussed how the tourism industry, so vital for the island, performed in 2021, what’s the focus and the key strategic markets for Tenerife this year, which stereotypes about the destination they plan to tear down and also what’s new about a very interesting project of Canarian Airways, now called Lattitude Hub.

This is probably the most important podcast I've ever done and definitely the most personal one. Even though the topic is not related to aviation directly.  Following the Russian brutal military invasion to Ukraine, like many people in Europe, I got stuck and paralysed by an intensive mixture of feelings. Anger, fear, anxiety, uncertainty, sadness... All of this was of course multiplied by the fact that I live around 80 km from Slovak-Ukrainian border. Also, it just felt wrong to me to go back to do business as usual. I figured out I need to talk to someone. To someone wiser than me. So I reached out to Claus Raasted, as he’s one of the most inspiring people I know. Claus is a coach at McKinsey, a consultant, an expert on innovation, storytelling, communication and many other things, author of 34 books. As kind as Claus is, he very quickly agreed to have a chat with me and I thought that maybe there are people in the AviaDev community that are going through something similar like I am. So we recorded our chat

AviaDev Europe is delighted to announce new partnership with Aviation Event, a German media company that is focused on building bridges between the world of aviation and traditional media. In this episode Juraj Toth speaks with Marcel Riwalsky, the CEO of Aviation Event about the past, present and future of of Aviation Event with the emphasis on the next edition of Aviation Event which is planned to take place directly at the terminal of Cluj Airport in Romania on 31st of March.  For more information visit the website: https://www.aviation-event.de/ Also, we strongly recommend to listen to the very end of this episode as we have a very special gift for our audience from Marcel.

Jonay Lobo is Chief of Network, Revenue Management and Alliances at Binter, a regional airline based in he Canary Islands. With Jonay I discussed their 2021 results, what's their experience been so far with with the new Embraer E2 aircraft, what's their route development strategy for 2022 and beyond and what are Jonay's expectations towards so much needed recovery of aviation and tourism. AviaDev Europe 2022 (30Nov - 2 Dec) will be the only route development event taking place in Europe this autumn. For more information about us and about the event click on our website. 

This is the episode no. 125 of AviaDev Insight Europe Podcast and my guest today is Tony Hallwood. Tony’s been a valued member of AviaDev Europe team since 2019. Then he had a little break caused by the pandemic, but now he is back on the team at full strength and more enthusiastic than ever. We discussed how Tony kept himself busy during the pandemic, what are his thoughts on so much needed recovery in the European aviation and tourism industry, what challenges and opportunities he sees out there ahead of the members of our community, what Tony looks forward to the most to experience in Valencia this November and Tony also shares with me his personal running journey – how he made it from a couch to 5k and beyond, during the worst pandemic of our time.

My guest today is Birgir Jonsson, CEO of Play. I had the pleasure to interview Birgir and one of his rivals Bjoern Torre Larsen, the CEO of Norse Atlantic Airways back in November at the Future Flying Forum. A lot has changed since then: Play has already announced 3 destinations in the US which will be inaugurated in the upcoming months. With Birgir we discussed their approach towards route development, if we can expect any more regional airports in their network and how optimistic he is about the industry recovery in 2022.

When he was 17, Luka Popovic started a blog covering the aviation stories from the region where he lived: former Yugoslavia. Fast forward 14 year and that blog is now his full time job and a passion project at the same time. Meet EX-YU Aviation, the new media partner of AviaDev Europe! In the interview Luka shares his personal aviation journey and a few milestones from the history of EX-YU Aviation.  We also talk about what's going on in the in the aviation market in this region: we covered stories related to Air Serbia, Croatia Airlines and how low cost carriers have changed the game.

This is a special episode, as I´m not talking to any representative of an airports, airline, tourism board or industry association.  Today I´m talking to two extraordinary enthusiastic young gentlemen who are aiming to disrupt the economy class seating in the wide body aircraft. Alejandro Nunez Vicente is the man behind the idea and Luca Zocche is his CCO in the project called Chaise Longue - The Economy Seat of the Future.  We´re discussing all things about their project, what makes it so special, at which stage they are right now and when they expect the actual seat can enter the market. You can follow their journey on the company Linkedin profile, or at their personal profiles: Alejandro, Luca.  

This is a recording of the 6th episode of SkyHeroes from 21 December 2021. SkyHeroes is the aviation talkshow where 3 of industry experts share their open opinions on hot aviation topics in a light way, sometimes controversial, sometimes not completely politically correct, sometimes funny. But if we can still laugh, even in these difficult times, it means we are still alive, right? This time our experts were John Grant, Hans Joergen Elnaes and Max Oldorf and the topics included: 1. Winners of 2021 in European aviation 2. Losers of 2021 in European aviation 3. What the crystal ball says about 2022 Moderated by Juraj Toth, Managing Director at AviaDev Europe

My guest today is Laurent Donceel, senior policy director at Airlines for Europe. With Laurent we discussed all things about aviation´s focus on sustainability. Laurent highlighted his takeaways from the transport day at COP26, we touched on forming of the aviation Climate Ambition Coalition, who´s holding back the Single European Sky and where we are with Destination 2050.

My guest today is Marina Bylinsky, head of sustainability at ACI Europe. ACI Europe is association that groups over 500 airports in 55 countries that facilitate over 90% of commercial air traffic in Europe. In response to the Climate Emergency, in June 2019 ACI Europe´s members committed to achieving Net Zero carbon emissions for operations under their control by 2050, without offsetting. The main topic of today´s conversation with Marina is Airport Carbon Accreditation - the only institutionally-endorsed, global carbon management certification programme for airports, developed at ACI. With Marina we discuss the whole process which the airports that join this initiative go through, how successful the project has been so far and why airports that are not part of it yet should consider joining it.

In the light of the recent events AviaDev team talks to Dirk Singer, Head of Research at Simpliflying who has been covering the implications of the pandemic on the world of travel since the early days. Also today, Dirk is very actively commenting end explaining the current situation on Linkedin and also on Simpliflying corona weekly newsletter. On 25th November we heard the first news about a new variant of covid-19 which was discovered by the scientists in South Africa and later it was named Omicron by WHO. What followed was very quick reaction of the international community to ban the flights from South Africa and other African countries.  With Dirk we are discussing the current situation, what we do know about Omicron on 30 November 2021, how effective the travel bans are and what we can expect in the coming weeks. 

Hans Jørgen Elnæs is an independent aviation analyst based in Oslo with rich experience from the aviation world including work for Ryanair and Qatar Airways.  Hans is also a great friend of AviaDev and one of our SkyHeroes. This time we sat together and discussed some of the hot topics from the world of aviation, including Lufthansa repaying its debt to the German government, which trends could Hans see as a result of the Dubai Airshow, what´s going on in the sky above Scandinavia and much more. You can connect with Hans using his Linkedin profile.

This is a recording of a session from Future Flying Forum 2021 – an online event by Simple Flying and AviaDev that took place on 10-11 November. In this session I had the great pleasure to speak to Shashank Nigam, CEO and founder at Simpliflying. Just a few days ago Shashank and his team introduced the pathway towards the green passenger journey – a material called The Rise of Green Travel which you can download for free at simpliflying.com. In this session Shashank gave us a tour about several exciting steps of a passenger journey from Singapore to San Diego in 2026.  

This is a recording of a session from Future Flying Forum 2021 – an online event by Simple Flying and AviaDev that took place on 10-11 November. In this session I had the great pleasure to interview two CEOs of airlines that are on the path to play a significant role on the transatlantic market. So the title of discussion with Birgir JonssonCEO of Play and Bjorn Tore Larsen, CEO of Norse Atlantic Airways was can low cost long haul ever really work.

This is a recording of the fourth episode of SkyHeroes - the aviation talkshow brought to you by AviaDev where 3 of our industry experts share their open opinions on hot aviation topics in a light way, sometimes controversial, sometimes not completely politically correct, sometimes also funny. But if we can still laugh, even in these difficult times, it means we are still alive, right? This time our experts were John Grant, Hans Joergen Elnaes and Joanna Bailey and the topics we were discussing included: 1. Consolidation on European LCC market and its potential consequences 2. What´s behind Finnair´s expansion in Sweden? 3. How freezing will this winter be for the European airlines, can we expect any casualties?

My guest today was James Pearson, route development analyst at Simple Flying. James has dedicated most of his aviation career to route development so no wonder his name resonates with many members of this community and I´m sure a lot of you, our listeners know James very well, too. So we discussed route development from various angles, what makes James so passionate about it and how he sees its fascinating dynamics to develop in the future.

Juan Gómez works as Insights Expert at ForwardKeys, a long term friends of AviaDev. Together with Juan we took a close look on tourism in Europe during summer 2021, which slowely but surely comes to its end. Juan identified the winners of the summer - those countries and destinations that performed very well and what made them so successful. I also asked Juan about some predictions for the upcoming future: what can we expect in the next 3-5 months, will there be any Christmas markets related travel and which travel trends are here to stay in the long term. 

In today´s episode we discuss with Arran Rice (CEO & Founder at Simple Flying), Joanna Bailey (Managing Editor at SimpleFlying) and Jon Howell (CEO & Founder at AviaDev) new online event: The Future Flying Forum. The event is brought to you by SimpleFlying and powered by AviaDev. Safely strapped into your own comfortable seat, we’ll follow the sun from East to West, touching down along the way to chat with aviation’s leading CEOs. More information and registration is available at futureflyingforum.com.