everything coming through at pace. I don't see it anywhere else. Last night I left Heathrow late because there was no tug. And they said, we're in a queue for the tug. I said: “ You got a queue for the tug? If I had a queue for the tug, I'd fire all the drivers and the people controlling the drivers. Because if you don't get your hub working like clockwork, you know, you've got 120 departures going out in two or three hours. Most of them are all 380s or 777s. If that doesn't work, like an orchestra playing a beautiful symphony all coming in at the right time to the same score conducted by the management, you're toasted. You'll see what goes wrong when instruments aren't played properly, they come in at the wrong time : it is the most horrible sound.”
they got that wrong. But ordinarily, it's very difficult to go through these highly compressed airfields that have never been expanded. They add on, they do bits and pieces. Then you've got immigration, customs, all the agencies that have no staff. They have strikes, sickness, absentees. So if you have six immigration officers on and only two turn up, the impact is hor- rific. But it happens all over the Western world at the moment. And it's that kind of thing that we can deal with, but whether there's a will to deal with it, AI, technology, it's all there for us. But if you don't do it, if you haven't got the will to do it, or you're so heavily unionised, if the unions continue to strengthen, the ability to go forward, and unfortunately, it does mean stripping out a lot of human input, even to our business. That is going to be something very difficult. So the industrial labour organisations are very concerned about the future. And they are making life extrem ely dif- ficult. And this kind of militancy, militates against the ability to advance technology. At Emirates, we're constantly looking to improve everything we do, certainly the hub, because we have control of the hub. And this business about Singapore and Dubai having a vertically inte- grated control mechanism allows us to do what we want to do in terms of improving all the time. I've just been last week working on completely new layouts for the terminals with new lounges, additional lounges, upgraded lounges, technology, biometrics, It's not a joyous experience to be quite honest. One of the things I try and do with Emirates both in the air and on the ground is make it a joyous experience.
Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine: Do you ever travel with an air- line other than Emirates?
TimClark: I do, yes. Well, I often go there as a sounding board, a test to see how not to do it. There are a few that I can see the sad- ness of the whole product. You don't know where to start. If you took control of a company like that, you'd have to knock it down completely and rebuild it. So many of those are in that state at the moment. They need to be scrapped, rebuilt and started again. And you've got to define what it is that you want to do. If you want to be low cost and you want to be full service, and you want to be in between that, and you're trying to come up with a hybrid model, you'll fail.
Class & Relax Lifestyle Magazine: Overall, are you optimistic about the future of civil aviation?
TimClark: I'm always optimistic. You need optimists in this busi- ness. Otherwise… I can name a few of them, people who are in a desperate state. They don't know which way to turn. And that affects the DNA, the way a business is run. The willingness to get up and do things, sort them out at the coal face. A lot of the CEOs and the boards retreat to the corporate world of KPIs and returns on investment. I come in a completely different way. I'll go to the coal face, get that right and worry about the return on invest- ment. I know it works. Hit the sweet spot with what people want. Remember what you're doing and the money will flow. Don't worry about the balance sheet. All will work for you if you hit the sweet spot. If you miss it, in our business, you'll be under within a year. www.emirates.com
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