French bee CEO Christine Ourmières-Widener talks about how AI and a new style of plane are helping the Paris discount carrier take off where others have faltered.
know, a tourism destination on a global basis. reporter: other projects include the futuristic city of neom and the developments of resorts on the red sea. high speed rail networks crisscrossing the country. all with the aim of turning a notoriously difficult place to visit into potentially the next tourist hot spot in this region. with the recovery of oil prices to $75 a barrel they have to make sure they don t get complacent and overly reliant on oil again. this is the saudi arabia airline with the tourism authority and the two discount carriers. they wanted to make a statement it s not about oil only in saudi arabia anymore. they want to push to diversify
find a friendly skies, a pilot returning to a terminal to pick up a family after major the like some from boarding. they were on their way from phoenix to tennessee for their father s funeral. an hour and a half the they left little time for them to catch the connecting flight which was by the way the last flight of the date to memphis. when they arrived at the terminal the plane already rolling towards of runway. the pilot decided to turn around. i was just crying. i couldn t believe we were going to miss the flight and we were very fateful. you would have been a hard thing to deal with. very rare someone stops and does something so kind, we need more people like that. gregg: the pilot said he pulled back into the terminal because he could see the family s duster abrasion from an airport window. desperation for the airport window. arthel: if you plan to take to the skies, big airlines are trying to compete with discount
means less safety. i want to bring in cnn money correspondent alison kosik. budget airlines are they safe? keep in mind that low-cost carriers are subject to the same safety standards as the big carriers. the experts at cnn mope nchlt nchltcnn money we talked to say yes, they are safe. as karl mentioned, they do cut corners on convenience. that means you ll get less legroom or you won t get beverage service or you ll be charged for your bags. but experts say they do not skip when it comes to safety. they do pay their crews less that s true but that doesn t mean an unsafe pilot. just possibly a less experienced pilot, although that was not the case in this crash. and the planes themselves they are well taken care of. you still see these, once again, these aircraft carriers having to follow these maintenance guidelines from the faa. so what does their track record look like? the track record in the u.s. is great. european discount carriers as well have strong safety records on par
people still getting on flights right after this one. does low cost mean less safe? the experts that we spoke with at cnn money say they are not less safe. they are safe. budget airlines yes. they cut corners on things like convenience, like your legroom, like getting your drinks charging you for your bag. but experts say they do not cut costs on safety. now, one thing they do do though is pay their crews less than other airlines. that includes pilots. but that doesn t mean the pilot is not safe or it can t fly the plane. it just means that the pilot is simply less experienced. and the planes themselves are well maintained. you know one expert put it this way, saying that safety is really the biggest advertisement for an air carrier. in this particular case this pilot was very experienced. he had ten years experience. so at least initially, investigators aren t concerned about the experience factor in the cockpit. what about the safety records, then of the low-cost carriers? ind