Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss Talks 'Momentum' in India

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. We are joined now by shy Wis, who is, of course the CEO of Virgin Atlantic.

I see it, Nice to see you guys.

He told us a few weeks ago that there was some softening in the North Atlantic.

What's going on now?

Yeah, I think that it's a common question. I think since taris were announced on the second of April and until the state of execution on April the ninth, we have seen some softening, but it's rebounding a bit. It's hard to determine what the slope of the rebound. Is A premium book right now, yeah, so improving versus the April period premium strong leisure a bit weaker and really concentrated in the United States.

I think a bit of uncertainty. Cloud. Do you say concentrated? What do you mean you mean US traveler is coming into Europe? That's right, Okay.

I think all a related story, or is it? I don't think it is. I think it's literally an uncertainty related story. And travelers like certainty, whether you're a business or at leisure, of whether you're going have to meet.

Family or friends.

You just want to know that things are just going to be as you expected them to be in terms of your savings.

What are you're spending your money on.

It has improved a bit of I think you've heard the theme across a bit of weakness, a bit of softening, I would say, in the yield side of things.

So volumes are.

There, it's a bit of price, but it's improving day by day.

Right now, can you how much room have you got on prices? Fuel helping? How quickly can fuel help? You?

Know? Fuel is very stable at sixty five dollars, The pound is a bit stronger versus the dollar. So all these things in the balance help help airlines. But fundamentally we need strong demand to continue, which we're seeing that emerge after a.

Very strong start of the year. Did you was there any effects off the UK US trade deal?

Did it in any way meaningfully change that degree of uncertain So it's.

Going to be kind on the US UK trade deal. I think actually we're in India more significant is the India UK trade deal. We're now at the fourth largest economy here in India for US at twenty five years of flying here a million seats, we've really grown three hundred and fifty percent over the last.

Five or six years.

I think this is more meaningful as India moves from just a service economy to a manufacturing economy. This is really significant for the k Virgin India. You got Virgin, You've got Virgin Atlantic. That was the priority you saying this surgery, I think, but you've known. We've just announced actually yesterday our partnership with Indigo together with our partners there France and Kalam. This is really about taking account of the strength of our joint venture and expanding it where.

This one could be.

You know, there are about four and a half million passengers a year to the UK, about seven million passengers to the US. Less than ten percent of the population here have a passport. I think this can be very very big.

Okay, so this could be a very big moment. I want to take you back just to the US with just a moment sense that the uncertainty is we just don't know what is going on. But do you think I'm trying to isolate which fanks is are the most important at the moment he's traveling. It's just sent but it's traveling to the US just more difficult now, more nerve ranking more, especially out of Europe.

We've heard that there is some negative feelings towards the United States.

Off all the countries.

In Europe, and I count the UK in Europe, we are the least impacted. You know, people love traveling to the US, whether it's for business of course New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, but also to Florida. So I think that the operative word here is sentiment. Travel in all its types is impacted dramatically by sentiment and certainty inward investment.

Just you know, what are the rules of the game.

And I think we're just waiting to see what happens in July after the ninety day pause on tariffs is but I already see that people even in this period, they are just very quickly and we're seeing a rebound in volumes and in price affect all types of travel.

In terms of the other story that I'm hearing around the holes here is the cost to going out. The tarents do actually mean higher prices for spare parts, for engines, for you name it, it's gonna how much, how inflationally do you think it could be?

Look, this is a question really for the economists, but there.

Have been aviation CEOs are basically the economists. You have to be economists.

You have to have to be economists.

You're not gonna let me off the hook on this one, okay, So I'll take the question and answer it. I think it's fair to say that prices have gone up, of course, over the period through the pandemic.

We're entering into a period.

Of more stability in the supply chain. You know, engines are late, planes are a bit late, and we're seeing a recovery. But the tariffs, no doubt will make it will have an impact on the price of goods, the price of transport, you know, changes of production. But these things take time. They don't adjust overnight. So now I think we're just gonna have to see how it settles and then people adapt.

Relatively qu But it sounds like you're also telling me you've got to deprioritize the US.

Is that is that fair?

No?

And you know for us, it's it's not even a possibility, you know, neither do we want to do that. It's virgin Atlantic. We always say it wouldn't be virgin without the Atlantic. Sixty to seventy percent of our capacity is to the United States, it's our more profitable and are more successful. And no, I don't think we need to deprioritize. Having said that, you can see the growth into India we've announced, of course, we started flight to Saudi Arabia.

Okay, but there is an emphasis. I best you and I had the same conversation with him, your good friend. He was talking about he sees the bit he's got one hundred years, you've got twenty five years. He sees the next hundred years as being outside the United States. It's being the growth opportunity. Is the growth opportunity outside of the United States.

Now look first forty years of Virgin Atlantic, twenty five years of flying into India, and yes, yeah, yes, there is there is growth. There is growth in India, and that's why we bet on it. Actually, in twenty nineteen, we looked at our portfolio and figured that we could really only support one amazing growth market and made a bet on India to the detriment of other locations, including China. It happens to be that the bet seems to be working out. We now have five daily flights into Mumbai,

So the sky is the limit.

And when Indigo is now flying into Manchester into Skipoll, we can connect these passengers.

Forty percent of the passengers.

Flying out of India connect onwards either in the UK or the United States. So I think it's really about the connectivity, it's about the partnership with other airlines, and of course it's a betting on fast growing markets, which is India not China.

Though essentially the world needs to be shifting. This is now maybe just because we're all here, but this is being perceived as being the big growth market. India is the growth market. China is not the growth market. Am I looking at it the right way? I wouldn't write China off.

You know, it's still the second largest economy and there's a long way for India to catch up to China. But I think in terms of momentum, the momentum is very much here.

It's palpable. You can feel it, you can see it, and you can hear.

The conversations if it was an outsourcing conversation in the past and the technology sector, it's now potentially a manufacturing aided by of course, trade deals, aided by tariffs which rebalanced the world economy.

So I've got to catch up. Nice to see you. Thank you.

Sort to get my dates wrong, but you corrective as a so I will as the CEO of Virgin Atlantic,