Dollars thousands in the air travel industry have been left jobless. Qatar airways one of the worlds biggest carriers is no exception the doha based airline was already dealing with restrictions imposed by 4 arab nations as part of their blockade of qatar. Without access to the airspace of its neighbors it had to find new routes and new destinations. And now as it navigates the turbulent skies in the wake of the pandemic how will the airline recover from both the health and political crises. And whats in store for the future of global air travel after the pandemic. The chief executive officer of Qatar Airways akbar a locker talks to al jazeera. Up for a buck or chief a. Officer of Qatar Airways group thank you for talking to aljazeera what are the measures that her ways is taking to ensure the safety of passengers flying in the future in light of the pandemic. Every measures that this required by the w. H. O. And the ministry of Public Health in my country has been complied with as a matter of fact we have even gone over and above what is required we have social distancing we have people with masks gloves senate ties theres actually even at the airport started we head when dependent make just started in china we started to use temperature readers for everybody we have and to do so a robot that does you will be senate a station in the entire building of the International Airport something that no other port had introduced what is important to note is that passenger safety and the safety of our employees and of course my country in general is all is paramount in our mind what will the future of air travel look like for passengers coming into qatar will they be tests that upon arrival will they be tested before they board what are the processes that you are thinking about putting into effect 1st and foremost let me to tell you that air travel is transmission of the. 19 is that at least also the worry should be to the people however when people arrive at the international wanting to enter my country they would have to go through a protocol required by a ministry of Public Health that they would be tested theyd have to wait for the test to come and then they would be put into quarantine for 14 days. This is a practice not only unique to cutter now it has been introduced in many other countries in the world in u. K. In france in germany in switzerland singapore bangkok india everywhere this is the protocol that you need to follow so we are following exactly what we feel is important to see if the general population. Of our country from this infection when will the expats be allowed back into qatar i think as far as i am concerned i think it will happen so on i cannot give it there because i am not the authority that allows people to come in or not to come in due to this very serious pandemic which we have never faced for the last 110 years i think it will happen soon but this entry protocol would have to be followed if you are being tested why would you need to quarantine another 14 days because you could be. Negative today but the virus is still not showing because it is not yet active so you could be positive the next day after you enter the country this is why i will be on the safe side you are required to quarantine for 14 days what about you mentioned social distancing measures when youre flying what does that mean in terms of passengers on a plane 1st and foremost let me to tell you that the safest way to travel social distancing in premium cabin is in Qatar Airways as far as the economic classes concerned social distancing. Will really not be possible in an airplane and if like a lot of regulators are trying to impose it on a commercial flight. It will be a huge. Dent on the operating costs of our airline for example if i start social distancing by keeping 1. 00 seat empty between passengers i will only be carrying 50 percent of the load factor if i do even more aggressive like some countries may require us to do that even keep one door empty behind a passenger which means i will only carry 30 percent of the capacity of the airplane which means that then i would have to put up the ticket price by over 300 percent to cover the cost of my operations so it is very difficult to achieve this you will be given a mask gloves sanitizers at the same time we will also give you a fish shield so you will be completely protected. Travelling on Qatar Airways what is important to not that with all these precautions that we are going to take we also have introduced very minimum crew interaction with the passengers and needless to say we are one of the foremost airlines to let our crew to fly with full p p do it is a little bit uncomfortable to them but it is also to protect my crew and each aircraft is equipped with the help of filters which filters Virus Assembly area and it circulates very often the entire air in the cabin so in every way i still think that travel is the safest. More the travel in the spend them and as long as there is no treatment. Antibiotics or. A vaccine i think this world will keep on being imposed on person just. I want to talk about the financial ramifications of the pandemic on your industry here which it is which you can already see that there is a lot of airlines that are full that lot of airlines have asked for state aid they have asked for subsidies. Exactly airlines that were accusing us which our government was putting equity into the airline now theyre asking for subsidy to them this is a subsidy because they are privately owned airlines asking the government for bailout. So you can see there will be a lot of reduction in capacity there will be a lot of bankruptcies there will be a lot of job losses there will be a lot of pain. To our industry for the foreseeable future we are trying to make the pain. Very little for the thousands of young men and women that have dedicated themselves to making that their what it is today but that it was i mean and it is my duty to make the pain as little as possible of that but im not doing anything other than what Many Airlines have already done arbitrarily we have sustained up to now looking after all of my stuff making sure that there are were looked after that they are provided for we have not done like other airlines have done but eventually. To save my company and the other thousands i have to make a little bit i have to take a little bit of pain. But we will try to reduce that pin as much as possible but we will be better we will do better than what other airlines have done one of your biggest competitors in the middle east Emirates Airlines has just said recently that it will take them at least 3 years to go back to their regular flight schedules to flying to all the destinations they were qatar was was flying to over 170 their summations before the pandemic hit and it is now roughly around 50 how long before you anticipate you will get back to flying to most of the destinations you were flying to before nobody can say the future what that will happen i know that travel is today but of d. N. A. So we will travel people with such as so on as there is so works in order treatment yes it will take longer to get back to the 2019 traffic growth that we were really looking at huge growth in our network and passenger numbers i think that it may take 2 years it may take 4 years. But we will get back and we will be back to the size we were in 21000 by the will of god what i need to one people that. The industry will not be the same because you know like in 2008 when we had the financial collapse all the companies stopped their executives striving for us. After this pandemic and the usefulness of doing conference cause video cause working from home this will reduce business traffic which is really the bread and butter of our industry i hope that the impact will not be as bad as i expect the one thing i can tell you. You will pay more to travel. How much more depends of. How well the recovery is and how much more passengers we can fit in the front of the airplane this all depends of. What their regulations allow me to put on my own plane like i said in the early part of the interview if there are social distancing depends of how the social the sensing is regulated that will be the rate of increase in fs. Lets move on to june of 2073 years ago your neighbors imposed a blockade on qatar how did that change. Qatar Airways Operations you know if you look really what happened from 2017 until now. We grow by nearly 40 percent in fleets. We also grew up nearly that number with this emissions we lost it in the senate. And in the 1st 18 months we added 24. 00 decisions and then we kept on growing the only thing that has slowed us down is the pandemic we recovered and i said this many times and i dont want to keep on repeating something that i have said. It made my country more independent and strong but when you look at it in hindsight what did they achieve. What benefit they got. In what corner they have all put themselves in this is a question i think you should put to them what did they achieve. A very simple question im sure the answer will be that they didnt achieve anything we are still recognised all over the world as a country from home people should learn. How to get out of this massive blockade like i had previously. Never happened since the 2nd world war if you had one thing to say to your neighbors at this point 3 years later what would it be just come and apologize. To our country and get back to business as normal because they are not going to be able to hurt. To things oh a little to progress and to take away our sovereignty and i would love to our. I want to talk about the cargo that you kept going throughout the pandemic. And there was a number of flights that were chartered to take citizens home around the world can you take us through why i thought it was decided to take on that role to take people home during such a very difficult time because you put not only your staff your crew at risk as well but there was a lot of uncertainty about the disease itself and a lot of unknowns but you still decided to go ahead and carry on flying why did you make that decision you always stand with your friends and your person jers and your guest at time of difficulties when theyre under stress this spend them it brought unprecedented stress. On my passengers and our friends so it was the duty of at that it was to be with people when we had good times same way we have to be with people at that times everybody pulled the carpet from under their passengers who were booked with done so it was our duty as we were requested by our friendly countries to help them to get their passengers home safely and this is exactly what we did but i am very proud to say that over the last 3 months but that is is the Largest International Airline Operating with the highest number of air ski which is available seat kilometer us we have traveled in this short period more than 50000000 miles we have carried more than 60000 people back home we have carried 1800000 passengers over the last 3 months to their destinations we have carried 175000 medical equipment and medical supplies to countries which is really equivalent to 1750 cargo flights all in medical equipment and we have operated. Hundreds. Of cargo flights supplying the world with necessities forward medicine general cargo. Fulfilling the supply chain of many industries. So but i was there and we always find a way to do business we will all with try to find ways to keep our airplanes flying but let me tell you that we are the only airline in the world that recognized appreciated and rewarded the medical profession by a 100000 tickets that we distributed to all the countries in the world including countries medical staff of countries who are diverse to restore us so what we try to prove to the world that but that doesnt the white people but brings people together. Why did you decide to do that the campaign that you launched to appreciate the medical profession who have put them serve in the way of harm not knowing what this white house is going to do because in the beginning nobody knew there is more understanding about it now but when it really happened. Medical staff didnt know and you can see how many medical staff died and how many medical staff were effected in all the countries so they really put themselves in the way of danger selflessly without looking after their interests looking at the interest of the people so it was something small that the state of qatar. Is is part of that inc we had to appreciate them in a very generous manner. Can you talk to me about the airports how many International Airport what will traveling through that airport be like in the future what will the experience be like because this crime imagine would be different we are one of the best airports in the world we are the best airport by far in the region and we will make sure that passengers will always have that fantastic experience. When they pass through a 100 International Airport how many airports really is the destination of the self once we do the expansion we should be ready in just 2 years time where you will see that we will take the more dove travel the travel experience to an even higher level. 4 people would want to come 200. 00 international. Earth their most important and most preferred get way. And the benefit of this is because an airline is operating the airport so we know exactly what you like and what you would expect from an airline that is was like the price of tickets on Qatar Airways has always been on the more expensive side and youre saying now that will also increase as a result of this pandemic do you think that that means your revenues will reduce it because it will limit the accessibility to the number of people that can afford to fly with Qatar Airways exactly this is why we will have to put up a ticket prices because we will be carrying less people in an airplane not because we cannot carry more people but because the regulations are imposing on us to carry less passengers so i have to increase the price and you know or so you know when you go to lease a car its your choice you want to lease. Or you want to lease. So when you want to listen 1st you have to peer more for travelling on that for. Your financial portfolio. Has been quite impressive especially since the blockade as well. Theres been a 4800000000. 00 in revenue in 2019 you were also looking at stake in africa as well wander air as well as the group in february you increased your stake in that by 20 to 25 percent and they reported a loss of over 500000000. 00 well that all changed now your diversification your financial investments. First of all the figure you just gave of 4800000000 revenue was wrong i dont know from where you got this figure because we have. Not yet announced our revenue figures we will be doing it once our accounts are what it did do you have a rough estimate i cannot give it to you because you know the effect of the pandemic came in to the 1st 3 months of this year and our Financial Year is from 1st of april to 31st of march so of course we will announce we are very transparent and so we will announce our results when we have finished our audit the 2nd thing i want to inform you is about of investment so how the airline operates is a separate to how our investments will be deployed. We are with our investments for long term we have invested in these 3 major airlines. For strategic reasons and we will continue to to assist them. If they require our assistance law time has filed for chapter 11 and as the court will decide we will be there to support the company as far as i just concern we will also be there to support them. They will. Be asking for if they ask for any assistance from the european governments is a separate story but as a shareholder we will be there with them and so it will be with any other investments that it was has when do you think you are at a position now to forgo any government assistance up to now we have not asked for any government assistance because we are still using our reserves and we are using our financing that we had already put in place the credit lines we have with our bankers but if this continuous for. A longer period then we would go to our own or for an equity injection were not asking for subsidy or aid we are asking for equity because we are a government owned airline as well as being the c. E. O. Of cut her breeze group youre also the secretary general of Qatars National Tourism Council can you speak to us about what are your plans about increasing tourism into the country we have lot of very interesting plans we have a lot of developments that will take place in the tourism field we will raise the quality and standards of tourism facilities in the country but how im going to do it and how im going to attract. This tourist im not prepared to talk about that because i always mention that successful general does not lead the better plans. To everybody. So you believe it is going to be a battle were you not that everybody in this region want to develop tourist one. We want to differentiate ourselves. Differently we dont want. The kind of tourism that some other people target. We want to. Put. In the complete it differently and that is my child. At war and bucker chief executive officer of Qatar Airways group thank you so much for talking to my pleasure. From you the past might sound great if you happen to be a hindu but where does this leave non hindus nasiriyah room became acutely aware of the challenges facing her muslim daughter growing up in increasingly pro hindu surroundings shes written a book about one of the things you can do to protect her from this environment i dont do about india the map and show our neighbors our you know your china. Pakistan and sri lanka site and all the neighbors and then i say what if somebody called you chinese you laugh and say right im an indian im not attorneys what does somebody call the book of daniel laugh and say im not a biker so i kind of meted out to you on that you could read any of the riot so because of course the assumption being that the dots a way that prejudice would play out there take your apartment start new york go through pakistan that is what is happening on an everyday basis. Frank assessments tourism but income stream is dead in the water whats been the result seen perching go up quite significantly and indepth analysis of the days global headlines inside story on al jazeera. As protests rage over Police Brutality and coronavirus grips the nation campaigning on the election trail has been forced to take a back seat will the president ial candidates ever hit the road and so their brand of politics to americans before the votes follow the u. S. Elections on a just what is guess. He has become a major global issue the demand is going straight up and the supply is going straight down turning an essential Natural Resource into a commodity traded for profit just because. Its going to be broached what about the guy that can afford it and that guy still needs water in a new 2 part series aljazeera examines the social financial and Environmental Impact of water privatized sation loads of water on aljazeera. Aljazeera where every. Libyas internationally recognized government prepares new advances against retreating warlord. As his egyptian allies asked for a 6. I am. Im convinced all this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. I am not enough its got a long way to go but this is a start. In washington across the u. S. And in cities around the walt protesters delts races
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