Airport Lounges - Your Premium Personal Space!

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, it's SkyLounge podcast, David and Alex here and we've got an amazing guest joining us today, but about this little bit later. Yes, we are back, David, we are back, right? - Inshallah, like we say in this part of the world, Alex, we're back. It's been a tough period for us and for all of you, as you know where I am, I'm in Abu Dhabi and it's been a little bit of a tough day so far, but the podcast is about all things good in aviation, so we're not gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about all the nice things that aviation has and in particular, something that I really love about in Apple. Yep, so we're all good Alex over here. - Amazing. - Okay, Alex, so without further ado, I'd like to introduce our guest on the show. The guest that we have is Jonathan Song, who's the Chief Commercial Officer of Plaza Premium Group. I'm gonna do a quick intro with Jonathan because I wanna take the liberty of my first interactions with Jonathan when I met him a really long time ago. I'm not going to remind them how long it was because he still looks very young. I've grown pretty over, but Jonathan has remained the same. The Jonathan is the Chief Commercial Officer of the Plaza Premium Group or PPG. If I can be permitted to call it that, it's so well known that I think PPG, people remember just PPG, right? By now, and he has a Chief Commercial Officer, Jonathan of course plays a reading role in shaping the future of hospitality. I love airlines, but I also love airports as well. And I think Jonathan has, I keep seeing Jonathan and all these different seminars and workshops, and I read an article of his, which was 2022, one of my questions is around that article. And it really got me thinking about airports. People normally don't think about airports. People think about airlines, premium seats on airlines. But I think he sort of redefined the approach to how premium is democratized, I think, in the airport perspective. And he's the next generation of leadership at the Plaza Premium Group. And he builds on nearly three decades of experience of the company's work, which is pretty pioneering. And I'm going to talk about that in independent lounging airport hospitality solutions. A lot of what Jonathan is, who he is, can be found on LinkedIn. I'm going to put his profile also in the show notes as well. So everyone can sort of read more about it. But also a little bit about the Plaza Premium Group for those listeners who are not aware of it. It's a global leader in integrated airport hospitality and passengers' solutions. When I first met them, there was a pretty small group, a seed of an idea about hospitality in airports. And I was really surprised when I was doing my research that they've got more than 14 brands under their portfolio. They operate in more than 150 countries and serve 13 million passengers. Well, that's about the number that Abu Dhabi Airport did for the full year last year. We did 32.5 million in Abu Dhabi. So 30 million is not a small number. So yeah, that's a quick sort of intro about Jonathan and Plaza Premium. Jonathan, welcome. Great to have you on and look forward to really interesting discussion about something that I know is your passion. - Thank you very much, David. Thank you very much, Alex. It's a pleasure to be on this podcast as well. Definitely. I'm so happy to finally connect it back in. Share a little bit of insights about our industry and the airport hospitality industry. - Thank you. Alex, before you ask your question, I just want to, for the sake of everyone, full disclosure, we've had a little bit of Wi-Fi internet issues. So, you know, I said, oh my goodness, me, my data, you know, on my phone, my hotspot is not gonna work properly. I had to rush to look for a coffee shop where it had good internet. All I just reached Jonathan is, I had a lounge, Plaza Premium lounge close by, but I could actually rush into and actually do this podcast. So, here I am in a coffee shop because I didn't want to miss this episode for anything at all. - No, no, David, no worries. I think it's actually a pretty good transition into the starting question that we wanted to ask Jonathan anyway. Jonathan, we want to start with this question. In the recent past, we've seen that, you know, few airlines they started doing a city center check-in, city center baggage drop-off, where people, you know, could drop their bags or check-in day before their flight. And my question, I guess, is, do you see that lounges, airport lounges, or what we know as airport lounges today will eventually extend into city centers or maybe this so-called mobility hubs, because obviously, like, I live in Europe and, you know, multi-model is a big thing, you know, so many airlines, they have part of the journey as a rail or a bus, you know, a leg. So, do you see this evolution of airport lounges anytime soon or at all? - Yeah, I know, great question, Alex. And this is something that we get asked often. We call ourselves an airport hospitality company, but in fact, I think we should be calling ourselves a travel hospitality company or a intermodal hospitality company. Why? Because at the end of the day, travel is not just limited at the air, it's air, land, sea. I mean, for example, if you go into parts of, like, you know, Europe or even parts of Asia for that matter, a lot of the travel that happens domestically even within the country or just, say, within Europe and within the Shengen area is all done by rail, but only if they fly overseas, then it's by the air. So, this is becoming seamless with one another. So, definitely, as Peter Plaza premium group, we definitely saw the trend and not limited ourselves just in airports, but in fact, we already started back in 2021. We already invested into lounges, extending lounges inside high-speed railway stations. For instance, we built our first high-speed railway station lounge within mainland China. You know, as you know, mainland China has one of the most expensive high-speed railway networks in the world and we especially built it into connecting the downtown city over to the airports or the other key tier one, tier two cities around the world. And we're looking to replicate this process not only just in mainland China, but a lot of other key markets where there is a lot of high-speed rail. So, essentially, yes, it's already something that's happening and it will only grow into a big blue ocean for this kind of hospitality beyond just the airports itself. - If I may jump in, Alex, just on this part. So, for example, in Abu Dhabi, Jonathan, we're going to have the, we have very ports in the air taxis and we already have very ports where they're coming up. So it's going to be the cruise terminal and it's going to be, of course, at the Abu Dhabi airport. And I'm using Abu Dhabi as a reference, the UAE as a reference because it's something that I'm familiar with. So like Alex pointed out, it's like, but, you know, passengers today, you could be, you know, taking a train, connecting to a plane, taking a train or a taxi, or there could be so many sort of, you know, interconnected journeys that people have. But I found that the most important thing that people want when they arrive on leave a particular destination is this comfortable place and space that they can either get ready for a journey or refresh after a journey. So like you pointed out, I think, you know, the, the, the lounge at, at, at a railway station, especially the high-speed network, maybe Abu Dhabi, you may have a lounge at, perhaps the cruise terminal as well. You know, you handle with your bags, you're relaxing, you're waiting for your air taxi, and then you sort of, you know, you know, take your taxi, but that's the place that you're comfortable with. Which then leads me to the question of, people are different. I'm not going to go into traveler personas and what sort of people they are. But if I were to look at it from an airline perspective, you've got first class, you've got business class, premium and economy. And now if you look at United Airlines, they latest product, which they announced, I think last week, similar to a New Zealand sky lounge, where now as an economy passenger on United, you can actually buy three, three sort of seats and convert that into a lounge. So airlines now also try to convert economy products and differentiate economy products as well. So when I look at a lounge, I see different spaces within a lounge, but they perhaps are not clearly demarcated like, you know, like in the airline side of the business. Or you may have a really nice lounge in one city, but in another city, the lounge offering is a little bit different. I'll be going to see a little bit more sort of tiered lounge experiences, you know, as a standard across the world. How do you think this is going to sort of, I won't call the word fragment, because. using Hamad International Airport as an example, you've got the, was it the Louis Vuitton Lounge? - Yeah, I think so. - Yeah. Yeah, I know. So, and then you've got the normal lounge. But do you see that sort of splintering or fragmenting or segmenting into clear divisions in terms of of how lounge offerings are? No, David, I think you made an extremely good point. And this is exactly what we're seeing. So I want to just take you back to the, you know, even back to the genesis of how we came up with. So if you look at Plaza Fuming Group back in the day, you know, how did we are origin? Our origin story is very simple. We miss my father, Mr. Song, I see you chairman and founder and CEO of Plaza Fuming Group, essentially democratized the entire airport lounge experience. It was only catering towards the people who were flying economy class, whereas those who flew first class business class had lounges provided for themselves already. So, and for the longest time that has already been in place, so where, you know, there would be lounges such as airline first class lounges, there would be business class lounges, and then there would be the something called independent airport lounges, which Plaza Fuming Group pioneered with our introduction of our Plaza Fuming lounge brand. But over the years, we started seeing something happening. You know, we started seeing that, you know, the approach of what we call a one-size-fits-all is not going to work anymore. That was, those were the back-end of old days. What's happening is that the travelers are discerning. Everyone is coming up from different backgrounds, different means, they are different once. So, you need to be able to build a pyramid. So, what we've done now with all our services, echoing towards this need of not having a one-size-fits-all, but having a tiered approach is that we create a pyramid, a pyramid of different products for different tiers of clients. I use an example here, at the bottom of our pyramid, we have what we call our Plaza Fuming lounge, with those who are coming in as, you know, some are holding maybe a priority pass, or a driving pass, or at some consultator card, credit card based program. But then on the next year, we're starting to see there are certain corporates or certain banks, which also have a higher tier net high net worth clients. And then looking for something even higher, a better, more exclusive service out there. So, that's why we also then, for us, ourselves created the concept of what we call Plaza Fuming first, which is a more elevated lounge, based on how airlines also have their first class and business class, but we did this within our division of independent airport lounges. So, it's catering for a higher tier set of clients where it has to support services, more importantly, allocate dining, and a better curated FMB offerings. But we did not stop there, because other people also had one step higher. So, there are those within our portfolio who are looking for white glove services, looking for a really truly seamless end-to-end white glove services. And that's why we created our service called Beyond First, which was end-to-end from curb to gate, going through a VIP private terminal, and being able to get through your immigration, security, fast track, all through a separate building, and going to a limousine directly to your plane, alongside with a lounge experience altogether. So, you can see that there is definitely a need, and there is a market for a different tier of clients, accordingly. And I want to add one more aspect, since we're talking about also aviation, which might actually lead to this. People might ask, "Okay, what's the market potential of this?" Well, I can tell you, it's a huge, it's large. Put it this way. If everyone thinks about airlines, yes, there's a first class, business class. They typically have an airline lounge or an alliance partner brand lounge that they go to. However, when they're traveling economy or premium economy, they don't get any of these perks. And that's where services like ARS come in to be able to cater towards a different tiers of customers. But nowadays, we're also seeing that airlines are a little bit changing their game. They're starting to what we call debundle their ticket. So, there are some cases where I've heard, and I've seen myself, where there are business class tickets that are issued by certain respected airlines, but they don't include a lounge. They don't include the airline lounge as a part of it. They're debundling. So, but does that mean that those people don't deserve lounges? No, they do. But they just don't want to use the airline lounge. They choose to pay maybe a few thousand dollars less, but they value the ticket. They don't need to value the airline lounge. And that's where we fill in the niche gap. So, there's a huge market for this. And in one more example I can give is the LCCs. So, low cost carrier is a good example. Everyone would assume in back in the day, when we think about low cost carriers, it's a budget traveler. But that's not the case. I myself, I fly Air Asia. I fly Scoot. I mean, in your part of the world, there is a flight to Dubai or you name it or fly NASA. What have you? I mean, there's supposedly the low cost carrier. But actually, I'm sure that you go every Monday or every Friday. You'll see people who are business folks who are riding those aircrafts. They're not backtackers. They're business travelers. But they fly it because of the frequency of the price, the frequency and so forth. But they may not offer the hospitality experience on the ground. Hence, that's where we come in. So, providing different tiers of kind of lounges, specifically for that clientele. So, you can see that it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. We need to be able to attack this at a multi-layer. So, hence, the reason is why over the past history, you may have seen that we have so many different brands. And that is exactly as a result of us being able to address the markets needs to be able to cater towards different clientele to a half-backhole pyramid. Yeah. Thanks for sharing, Jonathan. Yeah, but Alex, we're sorry. I know, just wanted to say, I think it's super interesting that you mentioned this differentiation and as a passenger. Obviously, I see value in it. I live in Europe and very often, you know, travel, easy jet or Ryanair. But then, thanks to my credit card, I can access those lounges. And it makes the entire experience completely different. And I also, what you observed about, you know, business travel on low-cost care, I see this a lot. Simply because in Europe, often, it's the most convenient way to travel. They provide like great connectivity. So, and with airlines unbundling more and more, many people would prefer, you know, to fly easy jet instead of B.A. or the Fransa. So, I totally see the value. But I want to dig a little bit deeper on this and ask about the philosophy or difference in philosophy between airline-operated lounges and those independent hospitality-led lounges like yours. Obviously, I've been to both categories. I've been to great airport lounges, but I also been to horrible airport lounges led by airlines, which I sometimes would prefer even not to go at all. They were just not great, you know? And then, I've been to really amazing independent lounges, which many airlines have access to. So, for me, as a passenger, like, I cannot make up my mind. If you ask me which one I prefer, I wouldn't know, like, it has to go case by case. But I'm just curious about the operating philosophy of it. Like, how do you approach this? Okay, I think what's very important is to highlight more about a class of human group as our core in our DNA. You know, when we first started off, we started off our business as independent airport lounge. So, as an independent airport lounge operator, we cater to all types of travelers. The whole genesis of how we started the company was based upon we don't, regardless of your airline, or regardless of your class of travel, we take care of everyone and extend host how they all cross. What's very important to us as our service philosophy is that we give four things, as my father always says, or as our founder and CEO always says, we provide comfort, convenience, loving care, and value. As long as we're providing these four things, yes, we can dress up as much as we want, we have the best foods, you name it, whatever you talk about. But always boils down to these four key principles. And as long as we're able to address these four key principles, this is something that we can then cater towards any type of traveler, be it business, leisure, family, what have you. So, I wanted to just kind of draw back to one of your questions. I mean, you said, hey, what's the difference of an airline lounge and independent airport lounge fundamentally? Definitely, both. I mean, I've seen great airline lounges. I've seen, I mean, we operate excellent sidetracks award-winning independent airport lounges. But what's important here is the nature of it, which is a little different, because fundamentally, you must understand an airline traditionally airline lounges are built, which is great. But remember, they are built for the purposes of serving that specific airline. Okay, so that's specific airline. Let's just say it's a Singapore airline. So, it's a, it's a Lufthansa or you name it. So, they built. Just for that one airline and that's great and then they're catering as a more of a brand activation to be able to cater that hospitality and extend it across over for that to take care of the premium clients. But you must understand and here's also a fundamental part you as the airport gets busier and busier and real estate gets more limited across airports. We cannot have 20 different airline lounges in one airport. It's just simply there's not simply enough real estate and it just doesn't make sense and you must understand as well that airlines fly at different times of the day. There might be an airline that only flies maybe two times a day, maybe one morning flight and then one early afternoon flight. But then what happens at the late afternoon what happens at the late evening that lounge remains empty closed and not utilized. So even our or as ppg as well as airports we start realizing wait a minute there's a gap. You know if there is a gap because there is a real estate that's made available. If we were to come in as independent airport lounge operator but of course the provide excellent world class lounge services being able to address the different airlines needs. We can be able to ensure that this asset or this lounge gets utilized from the day that the from the time it opens to the time it closes. Which is so any given time with taking care of a customer and what's it's not the left idle or an empty. But what's also very important you we also have to also remember as well is from the airlines perspective we all know airlines they're great but although they're as great as they are. The airline is not going to build 100 you know some airlines fly a hundred destinations or even 200 destinations. It doesn't represent that that means that they will build 100 to 200 airline lounges it doesn't make sense. Because due to frequency and due to the profitability of the route it doesn't make sense. So that's where we at ppg supplement the airline in fact we're not in competition with each other. We are if anything are just supplementing the airlines so particularly these key airlines. They make me find a hundred destinations but maybe five or ten of their key destinations are very important routes where they will have their own airline lounge or especially in their home market or hub stations. However the remaining 90 that's where ppg comes in as an independent airport lounge operator. So we will take care of their premium clients of that specific airline premium clients inside our independent airport lounge. So then that way everyone is supplementing and taking care of each other within this whole overall ecosystem. So it's a win win for both parties so I hope that kind of that kind of explains the rationale behind an airline lounge and an independent airport lounge respectively. Oh it makes absolute sense thank you very much Jonathan and in fact you know I recall my experience with premium plaza first class lounge in three airports where I was flying with beyond. And of course that is something that you know you mentioned beyond operates only one flight you know a day and it was late in the evening. So of course for them and it's a very small airline they want to offer premium experience but of course they wouldn't build their own lounge there it just wouldn't make sense. So then they utilize independent lounge in the airport and that was plaza premium first class lounge and it was such a great experience. It was a very I would call it a boutique kind of lounge it's relatively small but it was it was very special I can say that for sure. I wanted to share a very secret here and it's my wife she each time we have a trip planned she sort of her first question is okay I like going to the airport really early for me even though I work in the industry I like going to the airport really early and you know what happens when you go to the airport early you check in and then you've got a lot of time you know available. Not too much interview free shopping so I've got into this mode that the first thing she does is are we going to the lounge are we going to the lounge which lounge are you going to and I can remember from a recent trip that we were coming back you know and I won't mention the city. Unfortunately we didn't have a lounge that we could use over there so that disappointed me very much and like Jonathan said is I personally if I had to pay for my pocket I would try to save on the flight. I would try to save on the flight and use all that extra money for my experiences on the ground as well that's my belief i'll rather spend more on a hotel you know in terms of you know the things that I want to do but I think you know the lounges have spoiled us now that when I go to the airport if I don't go to a lounge or I don't have to access to a lounge I feel I'm missing out so I guess I need to blame Mr song I mean the chairman and the CEO. Yeah for getting us into this you know this this sort of you know you know taking lounges as part of our travel experience and making it really a part of our travel experience you know I go back to the early days really early days like Jonathan said it's only if you were an airline a light member did you have access to a lounge but today it doesn't matter which airline you are flying it actually the lounge experience makes your trip so much much better so much more better which then leads me onto the question of. It's lounges lounge operators have become brands on there in their own right and Jonathan spoke about you know working with airlines in their 90 other destinations so it's all about the brand but my question is what are you doing when you come to collaborate with premium brands because brands are all about consistency high in experiences right. Jonathan how do you look at which partnerships that you go with versus partnerships that you sort of say no I don't think I want to do that with you because you're a big enough now to sort of you know because you'll have your own well known brand how do you go about creating partnerships that really make a difference that not just enhance the lounge experience but also enhances the travelers experience right because it's both it's the physical space as well as the experience how do you go about that. No definitely I that's a great great question David and I want to kind of reiterate some one thing that I think it's very important and now I'm sure many of your listeners will kind of attest to this so there are there are times where I we are approached by some brands or the travel retailers and we're not exactly seen as the best friends of the travel retailers. I think that is a misunderstanding and I can clarify that but why let me just put it this way like you just said earlier on your wife she goes into the airport but what's the first thing that you said that she does she was it's to the lounge but certainly we all know it's about non aeronautical revenue is that they want you to be spending in the duty free. So buying that Chanel bag buying that new chocolate you know buying that new you know all these new luxury electronic goods which is understandable I understand where the dilemma might be and that's why you know I want to kind of shoot down the myth that those two worlds cannot travel retail and airport hospitality cannot coincide together in fact there is such a thing there is such a world where the Trinity exists and we've actually started rolling this out already. So what do I mean by that although one would typically usually go into the lounges maybe like that's what they first go into but does this stop us from being able to promote different goods and services such as you know their perfumes your cosmetics your alcohol no in fact it's a paradigm shift if you think about it. If you think about it just if you truly really think about it when you go through a duty free can you sit down at duty free and drink that bottle of whiskey that glass of whiskey in that environment no I don't think so can you actually have the environment where you can have like you know some some key skincare and have it inside environment where it's a spa massage you know being applied to you I don't think so not in the duty free environment unfortunately I mean it's great to retail environment but we are an experienced environment so actually if you flip it around we are a perfect location for brand activation for a lot of these key high and luxury brands and don't forget who are the people who are coming into the airport lounges these guys are playing our first class there are business class or they are holding a certain tier of credit card which meaning that they have a high spending propensity so you already filtered down the key purchasing groups of people and they're here inside your space you know sitting there for an hour or two hours this is the perfect opportunity to do some brand activation so what we've done in the past we work together with some high end spirits liquor and spirits company before and to have them be featured inside a lounge as a brand activation so we would have the bar branded as a certain whiskey brand I'm not going to need the whiskey brand exactly but that's what we're working on and what we end up doing is that if the if the passenger like drinks that whiskey while they're in a very beautiful nice environment And they're like, Hey, I like this brand. Where can I get this? It's just we already have worked out deals where we can collaborate together with a duty free operator. There's click and collect program. What's stopping us from putting a QR code and being able to do the purchase inside the lounge. But then having the duty free operator to send it across into the lounge. There's nothing stopping us, but we just have to have that paradigm shift to get out of our isolation. So in fact, this brand activation is a big big new driver of what we're pushing towards to and you can already see the trinity of this all coming up. I mean, look at the world of you go to Doha. There is that you mentioned your cafe or or there's all these create and it's already happening in the world of FMB and travel retail. Why can't this happen for travel retail and airport hospitality? So what I'm just trying to highlight is that definitely brands have a very big role to play alongside with airport hospitality. And together if we collaborate, we can definitely bring immense value to all the passengers coming inside the airport. How many people are getting into the shopping mood after one or two glasses of whiskey and wanting to buy some stuff. So I think it's win-win for everyone. So absolutely. And like Jonathan says, one thing is with an airport also, you know, you have the lounge, but you have a quiet space, a personal space weight. It allows you a little bit more iconic when you want to browse something and you want to buy something. And if if brands and lounges work together, it's also win-win for airports as well, because it's all about the non-aeronautical revenue, right? And I think in the commercial airports, where they call it the golden hour. So I think the time in lounges is actually the platinum hour, because that's when people are at their relaxed best, like I said, Alexi, sipping something, relaxing. I know, you know what? I'm on holiday. I want to spend something. I want to buy something, you know, whether you're traveling out or you're coming back in, oh, I forgot that gift. What better place to do than in a lounge as well? Yeah, so I look forward to seeing more and more sort of, you know, these innovative and interesting brand collaborations coming up in the future. Yeah, we meet you absolutely. I think we will move on to the next question we've got for you Jonathan. Actually, there is so much we really had to, you know, spend quite some time to just limit ourselves to the list of questions that we want to address with you. Yeah, but the next one. I know, I know it's a huge topic. Very important. It's a very exciting topic, definitely. I know, I know not only for David's wife, for everyone, lounges are super important. So I guess the next question we wanted to ask is about this democratization of lounges, because so there is an article on the democratization of airport lounges in New York Times. Data 2022. It's a great article, right? Enjoyed reading it. But my question is to sort of started this democratization of airport lounges with paper use access. And have you experienced some resistance from traditional airline model, or do you see some resistance even until this day, because most airline lounges, you cannot access on the paper use space. You can maybe leave access as a guest if someone is traveling on that airline, you know, and they have access to the lounge, but then they can carry on guests. But I don't think most airline lounges, premium lounges, they allow this paper use access, at least not all day, you know, every day, maybe in off pick times. What, what, what, what's your take on this? Oh, no, definitely. So like earlier, as I mentioned, but the whole, as we, as we pioneered the whole democratization of airport lounges experience, definitely. This is very important because we are essentially trying to give the opportunity for those who are within the 80%, you know, that those will find economy premium economy or LCCs and opportunity to also enjoy the hospitality experience as well. So we're just opening up the market much wider, because it's a remember not everyone is flying first class, not everyone is flying business class. They are choosing to fly premium economy economy for various and different reasons. I mean, for example, you might be a corporate and you might have a special HR policy that you might even be a C suite or a director, but because for anything four hours or less, you need to be flying economy or an LCC, it's not business class. I mean, but doesn't mean that you cannot afford it. Just like Mr. Song back in the day, 28 years ago, it's he had that same feeling. He's like, I used to be a senior vice president of an investment bank and then when he quit his job and do it, then he started flying on his own dying. He started flying economy, but he lost all those perks of travel and they felt a little change. It's got feelings saying, hey, wait a minute, it's not like I cannot afford it, but it was never given the opportunity to pay for it. If I was to pay, I don't mind doing it. So you may make it be clear, and here's a tagline I'd like to share with you, you might not be VIP in the air, but you can be VIP on the ground at a much lower incremental cost. So we're just really opening it up for just overall general public. So if you ask like, oh, yes, the issue, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, there are still somewhat resistance across to this idea. The concept is still relatively new, but I think as we get into the economics, we get in and then more sidetracks award winning lounges that were developing and the quality goes up. People are still, people are saying, wait a minute, or even airlines for that matter, I say, wait a minute, you know what, it actually makes sense economically from a quality perspective and economic, it makes sense to actually send my customers over to an independent airport lounge. Instead of me building a business class, building an airline lounge in a hundred destinations, which is not going to happen. Why don't I send my most important clients over to Plaza premium lounge given that they have a network because I trust that they will be able to create their services and facilities. Decatur towards my passengers, so which we definitely do. For example, in some of our lounges, although it's a Plaza premium lounge or Plaza premium first, we're able to curate experiences tailored only for that specific airline. So if it's an airline that is from Singapore Airlines is an example, we dedicate a certain zone with bespoke services, with curated menus such as lots of noodles specifically just for that client type. So you can see that we're able to mix and match. So definitely this is something that we're moving towards to and I think that that's trend, you'll see more and more so, but I want to add one extra part, which is very important into this. It's not only just about lounges, democratizing that as airport hospitality. Why we call ourselves airport hospitality is because over the many years, we've also seen the need of actually to incorporate other hospitality services that were not. That were taking for granted or not even known to a lot of passengers. So I will, for example, service such services such as airport concierge and meet and greet services services such as in terminal airport hotels and the loyalty programs and what have you all this all these different verticals are also airport hospitality. You know, that's one thing that we're moving towards to is to democratize this. We want to not just limit ourselves to just lounges, but be able to extend to overall hospitality for someone as they travel from the origin to their transit to the destination and making sure that they have a seamless end to end journey from start to end. Thanks Jonathan. I think you really touched on some really some points that you know sort of got me thinking now when you talk about the traditional customer touch points in an airport. There are many touch points that today at you know are really vastly improved from the old days in terms of cues and in check in and you know those sort of areas and in the past going to an airport used to be this big dull space where you know you just had to wait for for a plane. But you know not just airport in the Middle East but airports all around the world are actually turning into you know destinations of their own right people go not just for the flight but also go early because they want to really enjoy everything that the airport has to get the duty free right. They just want to enjoy the experience as well and like you rightly said is you know there was so many things that could have been done and I think looking at your website. 14 different brands all around you know the concept of hospitality and like I said before I'll pay more for hospitality on the ground and hospitality in the air. Sometimes you're very limited with the air right how much can you do even in first class in business class you know you're limited by the size of your seat but on the ground you've got so many more options that you can do. And today it's it's more you know how you integrate them all together but one thing that I've never used much or I've used a little bit but and basically hotels right but now that's a whole different dimension from from lounge to logic stand. you know, operating in a hotel is normally a difficult task in any, you know, even in a normal world, in a normal city. But when you add in a hotel into an airport, within confined spaces, it becomes a challenge, right? And we do have the aerotel over here. And sometimes I see the line at the aerotel is as long as the line for the lounge as well. So there's definitely a need for the product. And I like the name. I mean, I like the name of the Abu Dhabi, the EU hotel in Abu Dhabi. But how difficult, how different is it from managing this airport hotel versus a traditional hotel? Yeah. How different is it? No, definitely. It's very different. So that's why other than, of course, our lounges are a big part of our, another big fundamental shift that we created in actually pioneered was our internal airport hotel product under the brand name of aerotel. So you might be asking, okay, there are hotels that exist already. What's so special? What, what are you doing? That's so special. Well, fundamentally, what we are doing is creating a network of internal airport hotels. Fundamentally, when you, when you don't go to a normal hotel, you're, you're, you will stay for on a per night basis. In this case, we are catering towards those who are traveling. So you might be traveling, um, transiting. You might have early departures. And you don't actually need on a per night. You actually only need it for maybe five hours, seven hours, six hours. What have you? Because you're only just staying for a short duration of time. Let me give an example over here. In downtown, just say London Heathrow is a good example. In London Heathrow, you actually have your typical check in time as a normal hotel. You go elsewhere is roughly, let's say 3 p.m. 2 p.m. And then your checkout time is around 10 a.m. I fly from Asia. I'm from Hong Kong. I fly to London. My flight always arrives at 7 a.m. in the morning. I just go off of bed. I fly. I'm tired. I'm smelly. I'm dirty. I want to get a shower and refresh. But I go to my downtown hotel. They will say good morning, sir. Uh, welcome. Unfortunately, your room's not available until 2 p.m. You can sit at our reception and wait. Uh, is that called hospitality? I don't think so. So that's where we come in. We're not competing with the hotels up downtown hotels. We are actually supplementing the needs between the airline world and the downtown hotel world. So if now in London Heathrow, we have our arrow tell product in Terminal 3. The moment that you land at the arrival, you can come in or you might arrive 6 a.m. in the morning. You know what? We have a room for you that you can rent for, let's say, only 6 hours or six hours or so. You rent it. You can have your shower. You can have your power nap to, you know, adjust to the jet bag. And then you can have a breakfast ready for you. All done. And by that time, you can leave your baggage and we can go for your downtown meeting. And then we are also going to arrange to have it sent over to your downtown hotel. How convenient is that? Just in time for your downtown check in where your hands free. That is called hospitality convenience. That's what we have as our arrow tell product. And so you can typically expect that that is needed for those people who have an early arrival or early departure. So what have you? There's another business case or an Interminor Airport hotel, which is for example in Singapore or you have say Abu Dhabi. There's a lot of people who are transiting, but they transit overnight. In Singapore, there's a lot of Australians who transit via through Singapore to get to London or get to Europe. They arrive at the evening and then their next flight over to Europe from Singapore is in the morning. So what do they do? It's too long to stay in a lounge. It's too short of a transit to go outside of Singapore to go to a hotel and drive back to the airport. It doesn't make sense. And hence that's why there's a transit hotel product called Arrow Tell is purposely built for this occasion. So that's why we filled the missing gaps in the market and built our Arrow Tell product accordingly based on these respective needs. So that's the fundamental difference I would say between an Interminor Airport hotel versus a traditional downtown hotel. I personally love those. I love transit airport hotels just exactly for the reasons that you mentioned, Jonathan, because I often book red-eye flights and on paper it looks amazing like yay, I will arrive six a.m. or seven a.m. and then I have an entire day in the city and I also you know save on a very expensive downtown hotel. But then you arrive at seven a.m. and you feel exactly as you described it. The only thing that you really want is to have some rest and you know for example in the US they would check you in sometimes at 4 p.m. in certain hotels. So as a passenger, as someone you know working in the industry I totally see the value of airport hotels and it's amazing I think that you are leading in this space and you are also democratizing this part of air travel. And my next question would be we talked about lounges, we talked about hotels a little bit about dining. It feels like those all element elements are the part of the integrated ecosystem. Are you looking at it as as as such or those are still individual elements or is there really like one big picture that you're trying to assemble and that's how you see the long term. I know exactly exactly like you said Alex we're not looking at this as a standalone. We are looking at this as an overall airport hospitality. So what we are developing as ppg is an overall airport hospitality ecosystem. We have lounges but we have lounges of different tiers catering for different tiers of customers. We have airport concierge services which can be involving your meet and greet upon a viable departure transit, your fast track services, what have buggy services, airport magazines, what have you. That's that. We have our interminal airport hotels under the branding of aerotel. We have our dining services and so all encompassing we have a whole wide ecosystem of services. So our intent is to be able to create and hyper personalize the airport experience for every different type of individual. There's no such thing as one size fits all. So we just need to understand. So Alex if you're traveling let's just say hypothetically you are traveling from Sydney to London. In Sydney you come in you're traveling with your family you might want a meet and greet for you when you go to Sydney. You know taking care of you going through the fast track immigration fast track security and being able to see this go go inside the lounge with your you and your family inside and then and then be then s sorted onto the airplane. Okay then you arrive Singapore it's a oh but you arrive Singapore in the evening but your next flight is in the next day in the morning. It's like I said or you might be saying hey it might be it doesn't make sense for me to go downtown. It also doesn't make sense for me to go to the lounge. I really want to rest with my family. Here I have an internal airport hotel for you that you can stay in so you can get a six hour power nap and refreshing up and a good breakfast before your next early morning flight. Then you arrive into London we have our meet and greet service team waiting for you upon your arrival. I'm helping you to expedite the immigration expedite the check-in making sure that you're arrived and we can bring you to our arrival lounge where we can then arrange for your airport and the movie to take you down to your downtown hotel. So you can see that this is ultimately hyper personalized for every individual. So our ultimate aim is to be able to understand our customers and say hey Tay you can be different tiers it doesn't matter but here is a long list of services. Here's a big marketplace. Let us recommend for you based on your requirements and your customer journey what is needed to make you comfortable to deliver what we call comfort, convenience, value and love and care. So that's ultimately what we're doing as an airport hospitality company. Thank you Jonathan and just to add to the next question so it leads very nicely into it. You have a great space you have great food but I definitely don't want to interact with a bot or an AI system or you know an automated system or a self-checking desk or self-checking machine. The whole beauty and humanization of a lounge is the people that actually you know work within the lounge and in all the different lounges that have been you know the people that things that really make the difference yes food makes the difference the ambience makes the difference what really made the difference are the people you know the people that actually work in the lounges work in aerodel work in all these different brands because its hospitality right without the humans in hospitality hospitality is nothing. So for me you know you'll have a very complex ecosystem so the brands itself are pretty complex well deal with tired passengers, upset passengers, cranky passengers, different sort of passengers so it's not very easy. I'm especially sensual operating so many airports around the world, cultural differences, food differences. What is internal culture of Plaza Premium Group? Because it's still so very human-based, right? Democraticization is based on humans. But how would you describe the culture? I was going to say three words, but I think that's me putting you on the spot with three words. So you can describe it in three words, or you want to be a little bit longer in no problem. Go ahead and tell me, what would you describe the internal culture in Plaza Premium? Sure, I think what's important here is, like exactly like you said, hospitality, ultimately. We can have the best technology. I can have the best design, the best foods. Ultimately, it leads back down to humans. So it really boils back to the culture. When you come off a long flight, or you have any troubles, what my father always says, our founder and CEO always says, we have the greatest gift, the greatest gift that we've been given, is our smile. So just a smile, and having some empathy can go a long way. You don't know what troubles the passenger has gone to, but as long as you can empathize, you smile, and you have a fine solution for him or her, I think that's what really wins the day at the end of the day. It's service. That can't be the place by any bought or what have your human element to it. So I would like to boil down the culture into four things. We have a culture, what I call trip culture, T-R-I-P. Funny that we're using these acronyms, given the travel. But T, trust, our respect, I, integrity, and P passion. You have these four T elements. It's what really embodies PPG as a hospitality provider inside, because when we have the people coming into our lounges, we must see them as our guests. Think them as this is your home. We want to instill that culture, that this is your home. These are the travelers or the guests who are coming in. They're coming in from all walks of life. You need to be hospitable to them, provide them the things that they want, provide them all kind of possible to make them feel at ease, because what we are providing is an oasis, an oasis away from the chaos that is travel. So try to give that that kind of oasis away, and try to make it as ease them and as possible. So then that way, they enjoy their travels. It's not seen as a burden anymore, but as a pleasure altogether. Thank you so much, Jonathan. And I think here, we are almost out of time. I like Alex said at the start, we have so many questions, but we're going to leave that for later. It's such an interesting discussion. The insights, Jonathan, were really, really, really took us to things that we didn't think about as right Alex, especially when you come to travel, the small bits, the products that can be created to make journey so much easier. And here's a fun sort of thing I was just thinking about. So I have a feeling you're going to change your name from PPG to PPA. And I'll tell you what I mean by PPA. It's the Plaza Premium Airport. I mean, you guys are getting into all these different areas. I would be surprised to see an operating an airport in the very future. And so you may take the concept of why bothered about why call it an airport terminal, call it an airport lounge. So essentially, the entire airport becomes a lounge with all the products that you're offering. So just a little bit of food for thought for all our listeners as well that we think about planes, we think about the beauty of travel. But I think sometimes the simplicity, the joy of being on the ground, the joy of being taken care of like you talked about, trip, you know, class, respect, dignity, you know, it really makes a big difference. So really Jonathan, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing with us your personal journey as well. And we know it's a very personal journey because it started from an idea which your dad had to grow into something that is really a tree that covers the entire world today. So thank you so much for sharing with us. - Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed that sharing this insights together. Thank you so much. You know, it was a great conversation. And hopefully one day we get to meet somewhere maybe in the airport lounge plus a premium airport lounge and you know, continue our discussion. But until then, we wish you the best of luck, Jonathan. And thanks again. And to our listeners. - Thank you everyone. - Bye bye, safe life. 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