Eye on Travel

Radio Guest List — Special Edition: Coronavirus — April 4, 2020

This week, on Peter’s CBS national radio show, Eye on Travel, a special three hour edition on the coronavirus has in-depth interviews with travel industry power players — Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall, and many others, the tough questions — and answers — and the information you need to know…and use. Check local listings for times and stations in your area. You can also listen to the stream this Saturday from 10 a.m. -1 p.m. ET on PeterGreenberg.com

Click here to listen to the show streaming live from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 4, 2020.

Have a travel question? Then ask Peter. E-mail him at peter@petergreenberg.com, or tweet your questions to @petersgreenberg (include #AskPeter).

 

 

Arne Sorenson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Marriott International, speaks about absorbing the impact of COVID-19 over the course of months, starting with the properties in China. He speaks about the last time he saw drastic drops in business, which was 9/11. He says that one positive is some recovery in China and people being able to get back to work there. He also speaks about the latest stimulus package and the impact it will have on the hotel industry as well.

 

Dr. Richard Carmona, 17th Surgeon General of the United States, Chief of Health Innovations, explains why only having states on stay-at-home orders and others operating business as normal does not properly mitigate the spread of coronavirus across the country. He also gives his opinion on the aspirational date of April 30th for reopening the entire country. If normal operations are reintroduced too soon, we run the risk of heightening the spread of the virus.

 

Tom Wolber, CEO of Crystal Cruises, addresses potential traveler concerns about taking longer trips farther away from home. He believes travel across the globe or going on a short road trip will give you close to the same odds of catching any virus. He says Crystal Cruises has always led with safety and security, which is why it has cancelled all current cruises. It has great customer loyalty and a large portion of passengers have already booked for cruises at later dates knowing that their well-beings are a top priority from the company. He doesn’t think that this is a situation that the cruise line can “discount its way out of” and that it needs to rely on the product and repeat customers.

 

Bob Crandall, Former President and Chairman of American Airlines, expresses that you can not overstate the detrimental impact that COVID-19 has had across travel and all industries. He believes that there is not going to be a way to have an immediate comeback for any industry from this catastrophe. He also doesn’t believe that airlines are doing the right thing by drastically reducing fares. He says that people aren’t flying because of health concerns, not because the fares are too high.

 

Madhu Unnikrishnan, Editor at Skift Airline Weekly, predicts airlines significantly reducing their schedules beyond what we’ve already seen in the last few weeks. We won’t complete flight cancellations across the board though because of transportation of essential personnel and cargo. Every commercial flight carries cargo and will need to continue running to deliver the items that people are ordering online. Although we will see improvement in the coming months post-pandemic, he anticipates that none of the airlines will go back to exactly the way they were prior to these events.

 

Matthew Upchurch, Chairman & CEO of Virtuoso, dispels the myth that travel advisers are of the past. There are over 100,000 travel advisers in the world, many of which are a woman-led business. It’s one of the sectors being hit the hardest as many are independent contractors that are hit not only with a loss of future income, but also now receiving debit memos for previous commissions received for trips that people can no longer take. He is certain though that post-pandemic there is going to be a new appreciation and understanding for the importance of travel advisers.

 

Mike Boyd, Aviation Consultant & President of Boyd Group International, expresses how the airlines are now a part of a large industry that has no customers. The numbers went from high to nonexistent overnight. He believes that the best strategy for most of these companies would be to shut down as much as possible until the coronavirus has subsided and utilize this time to restructure. He says that flying like this is wasting money and not helping anything. He predicts that in future months we will see more wide-body planes pulled out of service as well as much smaller 50-seat jets because both rely entirely on the amount of traffic going through their systems.

 

Henry Harteveldt, Founder of Atmosphere Research Group, believes that the largest airlines are financially healthy. He also points to two airlines in the startup process, Breeze and XTRA. He explains that if prices for used aircrafts are right and we see a surplus in pilots as larger airlines consolidate, we are going to see the market open for entrepreneurs creating new airlines. Basically, you may see some new logos in the sky, but the number of planes flying is likely to remain the same. Then, he shares his take on travel industry businesses that are reluctant to reimburse passengers and some even citing the pandemic as a reason to not refund because of no fault. Since some passengers have long memories, he thinks that those who are not treating customers well will not fare well in the future.