Etihad’s hub put us on global market

 

Roy Kinnear was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Air Seychelles on July 1, 2015. Kinnear joins Air Seychelles from strategic partner Etihad Airways, where he held the position of Senior Vice President, Revenue Management and Planning, and was responsible for leading the airline’s revenue management, inventory control, pricing, and revenue forecasting. Having gained an honours degree in Economics and Statistics, Kinnear started his career with British Airline, bmi, before moving to Bahrain to become head of Network Revenue Management at Gulf Air from 2002 to 2006. In 2011 Kinnear was appointed to work as SVP Revenue Management and Planning.
In an exclusive interview with the Emirates
Business, Air Seychelles CEO, Roy Kinnear, talks in length the future plans of Air Seychelles, its growth and expansion. Excerpts from the interview.

Ahmed Elfatairy

How important is the GCC market to Air Seychelles, especially the UAE?
The GCC market is very important for Seychelles as a whole for Air Seychelles. In terms of tourism, some 26,600 travellers visited our islands from the GCC region between January and November 2016, with the large majority – 21,800 – hailing from the UAE. The crucial part in this equation is our connectivity to Abu Dhabi and from there, the entire world. Through Etihad’s hub we have unprecedented access to markets across the globe and can feed significant traffic to Seychelles and onwards to other points in our Indian Ocean and regional network, including Mauritius and Madagascar.

What are the contributing factors to the Air Seychelles passenger growth?
There are three key factors which have impacted on the overall growth and passenger numbers – an improved network driving connectivity internationally and regionally, the expanded growth in our domestic operations and access to the network and codeshare connectivity over Abu Dhabi. Furthermore, our growth has been driven by a vast improvement in our products and services, and especially our network. The difference between where we were five years ago and now is like night and day. We have grown our network and increased aircraft utilization, bringing more connectivity options to our guests and making it far easier to travel to Seychelles. At the same time, we have capitalized on our geographic position in the Indian Ocean to connect markets that have significant flows of people like South Africa and India. Seychelles is well-placed as a midpoint between the two and by taking advantage of this fact, through the launch of our Mumbai service, we have been able to capture connecting traffic to Johannesburg, where we fly five times a week. That’s just one snapshot of how we have maximised the opportunities of our network to carry more passengers.

What are the entities that Air Seychelles is working with to reinforce its operations?
We have great relationships with all stakeholders in the tourism chain in Seychelles, from the government and Seychelles Tourism Board to local DMCs and hoteliers. It is by working together that we can reap the full benefits of our air services. Our partners share this vision. On the operations front we have a strong relationship with SCAA for the benefits of ensuring smooth handling of operations at our hub, the Seychelles International Airport.
What is the most important and strategic market for Air Seychelles?
All the markets we fly to have strategic importance for Air Seychelles. Traditionally Europe has always been a major source of inbound tourism and our plans are to strengthen our links thereby launching a twice-weekly Dusseldorf service in March 2017, which will complement our existing service to Paris-CDG. It will increase from three to four weekly flights. At the same time, we are continuing to build on our regional network. In March Air Seychelles will also introduce a new twice-weekly service to Durban, expanding our presence in South Africa. The economic downturns over the past 10 years have highlighted the importance of diversification and at Air Seychelles we are building a strong, robust network that can meet such challenges in the future.

How many daily flights are operated by Air Seychelles to Abu Dhabi? Is there a plan to increase this number?
We operate a daily flight between Seychelles and Abu Dhabi as does our partner Etihad Airways, which Air Seychelles codeshares on. The combined twice-daily service is working well. At this stage we do not have any plans to increase frequencies.

Is Air Seychelles going for new agreements and purchase new aircraft? What about the company’s expansion strategy in the coming period?
Air Seychelles is now gearing up for another exciting growth phase in March 2017, which will be driven by the addition of a second wide-body Airbus A330 into our fleet, expanding it to ten aircraft. This will create the necessary fleet capacity for us to launch a long-haul route to Düsseldorf, increase Paris flights and upgrade regional services currently operated on a narrow-body A320. In addition, we are planning to replace two of our oldest DCH-6 Twin Otter turboprops with new ones in first quarter of 2017. The introduction of these aircraft, which are used for inter-island flights, will give us a fleet of six Twin Otters, the oldest being five years old.

What about the growth rate in cargo services across Air Seychelles?
Our cargo operation has registered huge growth this year. By the end of Q3, the Air Seychelles cargo recorded a year-on-year increase of over 70 percent. What is especially pleasing is that we are seeing record growth both in imports and exports, particularly in the fisheries sector. Seychelles has an abundant supply of marine fish and there is strong demand in Europe and elsewhere for fish such as tuna.
What airlines is Air Seychelles willing to sign codeshare agreements with?
Our ultimate goal is to increase connectivity to Seychelles and provide more travel choice to our guests, and we are always open to working with other like-minded airlines in this pursuit. We currently have active agreements with seven airlines, including fellow EAP members such as Alitalia, Airberlin and Air Serbia, and also South African Airways and Air France, which expand our reach to 77 cities around the world.

What does the partnership with Etihad Airways mean to the Air Seychelles?
Partnership with Etihad Airways brings significant benefits on three fronts. Firstly, enabling procurement and business efficiencies, secondly revenue generation through network connectivity and thirdly skillset development and training of Air Seychelles staff. Without our partnership with Etihad Airways, Air Seychelles would not be where it is today – the leading airline in the Indian Ocean. It has unlocked significant synergies and created opportunities from fleet planning to human development and the modernisation of our IT infrastructure. Our pilots, cabin crew, engineers and graduate managers have access to world-class training in Abu Dhabi, where they pick up best-in-class skills and experience that can be brought back home to Air Seychelles. While in terms of IT, Air Seychelles was able to migrate to the Sabre ticketing and reservations system in 2016, making it the biggest technology upgrade since the airline first took off in 1978.

What is the importance of Air Seychelles for the national economy of the Republic of Seychelles?
Inbound tourism is the lifeblood of the Seychelles economy and, as the national airline, Air Seychelles is in many ways its main engine of growth. In fact, a recent study by Oxford Economics, a UK based consultancy, quantified our huge contribution. According to the report, Air Seychelles have supported 7,800 jobs across the archipelago and contributed US$235 million to the economy in 2016. That’s through both our core operations, spending on fuel and local suppliers, but also the spending of tourists who stay in hotels, go on snorkelling expeditions, sample local restaurants and so on.

What is the estimated proportion of Seychelles citizens that work in the company?
We currently have 778 people at Air Seychelles and the vast majority – 98% – are Seychellois.