Speaker 1: Kata Airways has been named the World's Best Airline betweenty
Speaker 1: twenty five at the.
Speaker 2: Annual World Airline Awards.
Speaker 1: This is the second year in a row that Kata
Speaker 1: has been named the world's best.
Speaker 2: Ellis Taylor, He's our aviation expert.
Speaker 1: He's the Asia Dashboard editor at Syrium, and he joins
Speaker 1: me live on six PR this afternoon.
Speaker 2: Get a Ellis get a early, Good to be with you,
Speaker 2: Good to have you.
Speaker 1: On the show today. Ellis what makes Katar better than
Speaker 1: the rest?
Speaker 3: Well, I think a lot of people really enjoy the
Speaker 3: fact that they've got a very strong business class. The
Speaker 3: Q sweet seats sort of seemed to be a cut
Speaker 3: above the rest. I can't comment personally, I haven't flown them,
Speaker 3: but it's what we've often seen with the Middle Eastern
Speaker 3: carriers is they'll really focus in on the sort of
Speaker 3: this halo product of like a really banging business class seat,
Speaker 3: a great experience in that cabin, and for the rest
Speaker 3: of us who don't travel in business, the feeling is
Speaker 3: that there's a bit of a halo and that some
Speaker 3: of that fairy dust I guess travels down into economy
Speaker 3: class and so forth, So you know, fair play to them.
Speaker 3: They this is an award that they've won consistently. You know,
Speaker 3: everybody I know who's flown on kata sort of has
Speaker 3: been a consistently great experience. So it really seems to
Speaker 3: be that they have struck some good thoughts, which is
Speaker 3: all good until I guess the next person comes along
Speaker 3: and tries to one up them.
Speaker 1: CAT first, Singapore second in the rankings this year, Cathay
Speaker 1: Pacific third, which I'll come to in more details shortly, Emirates,
Speaker 1: and then all nip On Airways rounding out the top five.
Speaker 1: Does that sound about right to you?
Speaker 3: Ellis, Yes, I think so. And you know, I guess
Speaker 3: the standout in that is Cathe Pacific. You know, after
Speaker 3: COVID they were criticized for I guess coming back a
Speaker 3: little bit cautiously and you know, not having things to
Speaker 3: the same level they had pre COVID, But they now
Speaker 3: seem to have gotten above that and begetting I guess
Speaker 3: back into the swing of things. So, you know, Singapore
Speaker 3: Airlines is always a class act, no matter what CA
Speaker 3: and you're in. And obviously you know, very big carrier
Speaker 3: here into WA carries a lot of people to Singapore
Speaker 3: and also well beyond and a lot of tourists coming
Speaker 3: on that. And similarly A and A is a very
Speaker 3: good experience, just good Japanese carrier again flies to Wa
Speaker 3: and provides us a really good connection up to Japan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably a bit of a surprise A and A
Speaker 1: makes the top five because Quanus is number fourteen.
Speaker 2: It was twenty four last year.
Speaker 1: It shows you how much the national carrier is falling
Speaker 1: compared to how it was viewed pre COVID Dellus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, look, let's be fair, skytracks goes
Speaker 3: off of passenger surveys and so generally I think there's
Speaker 3: a bit of bias with surveys where if you've had
Speaker 3: a bad experience you kind of mark everything down harshly,
Speaker 3: and if you've had a good experience, it might be well,
Speaker 3: just good, or a few would go to the excellent
Speaker 3: sort of things. And you know, there's a bit of
Speaker 3: a national sport, isn't there about hating Quatus. But you know,
Speaker 3: again they're a carrier which has been through a lot
Speaker 3: of issues with its lead, with it's getting aircraft back
Speaker 3: up through the air and so forth, and so you
Speaker 3: know they're starting to get better at that. And I
Speaker 3: think you know, in time, well, those improvements will only
Speaker 3: just grow and grow and they'll probably head further up
Speaker 3: that list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think these are always subjective anyway, these poles,
Speaker 1: aren't they lis because people might be using airlines based
Speaker 1: on the fact that they are a partner airline of
Speaker 1: another airline that they win frequent Well when I say
Speaker 1: win that they accumulate frequent fly miles with or it
Speaker 1: might just be there was a good deal on that
Speaker 1: particular route.
Speaker 2: So it's always very subjective.
Speaker 1: The Middle Eastern airlines, the Asian airlines do seem to
Speaker 1: dominate because they seem to be the takeoff points really
Speaker 1: for lots of global destinations.
Speaker 3: Well, that's right, and you know, it's one of these
Speaker 3: things that there is no perfect system. It is always
Speaker 3: going to be sort of subjective. And you know, in
Speaker 3: some ways that's the benefit of awards like skytracks or
Speaker 3: even you know, Google reviews and so on, is at
Speaker 3: least you're getting sort of people's thoughts and opinions as
Speaker 3: opposed to just say data on what the spacing between
Speaker 3: the seats is or you know, what type of trade
Speaker 3: table it is and that kind of a thing. So
Speaker 3: you know, that's not to say they're not helpful, but
Speaker 3: you know, it is also one of those things where
Speaker 3: you know you can't necessarily hold it up to scientific scrutiny.
Speaker 1: If you want to go that way, one double three
Speaker 1: eight eighty two, what's the best airline you have traveled on?
Speaker 1: One double three eight eighty two, what's your favorite airline
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: You're touched on?
Speaker 1: Cathay Are They're going to be doubling their daily services between.
Speaker 2: Hong Kong and Perth from November.
Speaker 1: That's a good shot in the arm for local and
Speaker 1: international tourism. Elis.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, anytime we get one of these big carriers that
Speaker 3: putting more services onto their hub airport, it really is
Speaker 3: a big win. Particularly for going to double daily. Is
Speaker 3: that actually opens up a whole lot of other connections
Speaker 3: that you can get. I mean, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of us would have probably experienced where you go on
Speaker 3: a flight to somewhere and you get a nice easy
Speaker 3: connection one way where it might be sort of you know,
Speaker 3: only an hour or two layer for in the airport,
Speaker 3: and then coming back it might be ten hours, it
Speaker 3: might even be a day. So having two flights today
Speaker 3: really shortens that time, and you know, Conversely, that also
Speaker 3: works for tourists who are coming into WA when it's
Speaker 3: going to be more convenient to do that. It makes
Speaker 3: it a more appealing flight. And for Cafe they've got
Speaker 3: good services into Canada and North America. It's a really
Speaker 3: good connection from Perth, so that's going to be a boom.
Speaker 3: I think both ways.
Speaker 1: The federal government's also going to provide a further thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars to keep REX Airlines of float.
Speaker 2: I see Catherine King, the federal Transport Minister.
Speaker 1: To say today indicating that they're getting closer to finding
Speaker 1: a buyer for the airline, which is your administration less.
Speaker 1: Is this all that the government could do? We can't
Speaker 1: have REX fhalan. It's not just about regional Western Australian flights.
Speaker 1: There's a whole eb of re in the Eastern States
Speaker 1: which will be affected if RIX were to be granted
Speaker 1: for good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, and I think this is actually quite a
Speaker 3: positive story. The other part that goes with it is
Speaker 3: that the administrators have said, look, we've received a number
Speaker 3: of bits of interest and we're whittling them down and
Speaker 3: starting negotiations, but we need to extend the administration and
Speaker 3: so therefore they need to sort of have some additional
Speaker 3: backstop funding I guess, to keep the airline operating whilst
Speaker 3: they go through this, and they're looking to extend that
Speaker 3: out to December. So, you know, I think a few
Speaker 3: months back the government was making sort of big noises
Speaker 3: that look, if nobody comes forward to buy REX, then
Speaker 3: we'll effectively nationalize it. And I think that that's a
Speaker 3: bad idea from a policy perspective, particularly when we do
Speaker 3: have other airlines in different parts of Australia who are
Speaker 3: sort of willing and able to step in. But you know,
Speaker 3: this sort of says that there's enough interest out there
Speaker 3: to keep REX going. And ultimately, i'd imagine that any
Speaker 3: bidder is going to want to grow it now, whether
Speaker 3: that means it grows it as a regional airlines still
Speaker 3: or if they want to throw the dice and go
Speaker 3: back onto mainline routes. You know, that'll be interesting to
Speaker 3: see them. We'll only know once that transaction goes ahead.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the upshot is it looks like we're going
Speaker 3: to have a private REX in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and is Nexus one of those airlines which may
Speaker 1: be looking at purchasing the WA services or being part
Speaker 1: of some sort of conglomerate which may own the airline,
Speaker 1: which may flight out of administration.
Speaker 2: Ellis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been some discussion in particularly the Financial Review
Speaker 3: has sort of mentioned them as being potentially interested. I
Speaker 3: haven't been able to force that myself, but there is
Speaker 3: some sense to that. I mean, it's been on record
Speaker 3: that Nexus has looked at those routes in the past
Speaker 3: in WA, so you know, maybe they could end up
Speaker 3: in there. I mean, really, we are just in some
Speaker 3: ways at the start of a process, and these things
Speaker 3: can become quite convoluted. You know, four bidders can turn
Speaker 3: into one quickly, and sometimes it'll be all four bitters
Speaker 3: going together, and you know it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 3: what emerges. But it's not going to be a quick deal. Really.
Speaker 3: It's going to be towards the end of the year
Speaker 3: is when we'll find out who's going to own it,
Speaker 3: and then probably it will then take another guessing, you know,
Speaker 3: a year or two for a content strategy to kind
Speaker 3: of emerge from that.
Speaker 1: Good on you LUs always appreciate your time and you're
Speaker 1: very good to us.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: No worries, Ollie, enjoy the match.