An interview with James Hogan, CEO Etihad

[Foreigner]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/.../Sunday-Interview-Ethiad-CEO-James-Hogan.html

Hogan talks in favour of his equity alliance model rather than a marketing alliance one.

 

[samh004]

It's interesting, I assume that's him on the wing?

Hogan refers to it as the airline world’s first “equity alliance”, and argues this is a far better model than simply joining one of the large airline alliances, such as oneworld , whose members include British Airways, Cathay Pacific and American Airlines.

“I think they’re fractured,” he says of the major alliances.

However,

“People were surprised we’d invest in Air Berlin,” he says of the December 2011 deal which saw the Abu Dhabi airline pay €72.9m to raise its stake from 3pc to 29.9pc. “We saw Air Berlin had huge value with regard to brand and market place presence.

“But 12 months later, one could argue, it wasn’t a bad investment. The business has turned around, it’s profitable.”

So, airline alliances like OneWorld are bad, and his model is good, yet Air Berlin is part of OneWorld and is making the best of both worlds, you could say. I'm sure, what he's been helping them with has turned them around, but I'm not sure you can't have the best of both worlds, while I reckon he's saying you can't.

But he also brings up the group buying power argument, a consortium of airlines going to a manufacturer will always get a better deal than going alone. Probably helps if they all have interoperable specs too, for maintenance and what not. Qantas does that with Jetstar, IAG with BA/Iberia, Emirates on its own

That said, wonder when VA will be ditching Velocity for TopBonus, hahaha!

 

[Foreigner]

With Air Berlin, he's got the best of both worlds, as you say. With its membership of OW, he'd be privy to happenings in OW and he can remain steadfast with his equity alliance pursuit.

 

[samh004]

I assume his implementation of TopBonus between carriers would be similar to AsiaMiles and its relation to the Marco Polo Club? Thus multiple carriers could share a mileage system but elite privileges could still be separated by carrier? That could work very nicely in terms of group buying power

 

[cmon0005]

I think I would rather fly with a proper alliance any day, over some of these half baked 'alliances' (Etihad, VA.etc), I call these types of alliances 'flash card' alliances as generally you have to flash your FF card for the benefits on the partner airline, due to their being no full system integration.

 

[notzac]

I think I would rather fly with a proper alliance any day, over some of these half baked 'alliances' (Etihad, VA.etc), I call these types of alliances 'flash card' alliances as generally you have to flash your FF card for the benefits on the partner airline, due to their being no full system integration.

System integration has very little to do with being part of a major alliance or not - case in point, VA-NZ or VA-DL. Status is automatically recognised by their rez system (though granted it's not that seamless for other partners).

 

[Foreigner]

James Hogan appears to be travelling well. He's announced of Etihad's own flights into HKG.

Etihad Airways to launch flights between Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong

I wonder if there's opportunity for him to reach higher in the industry. He may not be interested in leaving his plum job anyway.

 

[Jousams]

James Hogan appears to be travelling well. He's announced of Etihad's own flights into HKG.

Etihad Airways to launch flights between Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong

I wonder if there's opportunity for him to reach higher in the industry. He may not be interested in leaving his plum job anyway.

What would be a better job?