and everybody's cultures. And everybody seems to get on extre- mely well. I'm sure you see that in the events. And it's just enligh- tening, particularly given the situation in the world today. With the acrimony, the wars, the cultural lack of understanding which is challenging the global environment. And to see that almost non-existent within APG, that we're just individuals sharing a common love of aviation, and that's what brings us together. And we are all quite similar individuals. We always talk about an APG character and a lot of us have that character. So, it is quite ama- zing when you're in a room with so many different people from so many different places. And we are all, in the end, just a big family, a very large group of friends from all sorts of different cor- ners of the world, enjoying what we do together. So, that's always really quite inspiring. It's very strong and when you go to the World Connect, you can feel it. People sometimes think, well, yes, it's part of the marketing. But when you actually come to an event, you can actually see it. It's real and does exist. I think Jean- Louis Baroux did something amazing at the beginning with the network to create this family feeling. It's what drives us forward. And Jean-Louis had this great vision at the start. When I joined APG, the company had existed for about 10 years at that stage. It was still very, very small. The very first meeting that I went to with all of the offices was less than 20 people. So, it’s staggering how it’s grown. But to bring the right kind of people together in a structure that works and is fair and is transparent was an amazing vision at the time. Indeed, a time where these kind of things didn't really exist. This sort of globalization has taken off since then. There was no, even in aviation, global alliances or linking up on a global level in that way at the time. So, it was quite inspired. And it kind of had its own momentum. Once it had started, people wanted to join. And people who were in, brought people from outside that they knew, and who they knew would want to be part of it. And we were very challenged commercially at the beginning because we were quite unique in terms of having this network of originally GSAs at the time. Obviously, we've expan- ded into lots of different services now. But that wasn't something
over the years, and Antoine is our latest. He has a different career path from mine. So, it's always fascinating to learn of his expe- riences over the years and different contexts as well. It’s certainly a pleasure to work with Antoine. Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine : What is the most interesting aspect of working with the network? Because it's not easy to have a worldwide network and to work with it, with independent people and different cultures, different geopolitical situations. Richard Burgess : Yes, this is true. I think that's the point I always come back to with APG. We're a group of people that seems to have no borders, no boundaries. Of course, we all have our own cultures, but there is a huge amount of respect for each other
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