Murat Nursel, Senior Vice President of Qatar Aviation Services, who has led the company for over a decade, outlines the company’s next phase of growth and its strategic thinking around people, sustainability and customer service, in this question-and-answer style article with ARGS
1. ARGS: Explain the QAS business strategy and specifically your plans for expansion on geographic, organic, consolidation or acquisition lines?
MN: Before talking about QAS expansion strategy, I would like to talk about what we do understand from expansion. Globalisation has intensified the companies’ expansion appetite. This appetite for growth encourages companies to expand into new geographies with existing products or penetrating into new market segments with new products. By the nature of it, every move seems logical when made but when we talk about expansion specifically without focus it only lasts with disappointments. I do mostly prefer to use “sustainable growth” instead of “expansion”. Sustainable growth is not an aim that we could get to overnight. It entails serious effort and continuity.
Being a member of the World’s Best Airline Company Group, we did consider and formulated our long-term strategy which for sure contains “sustainable growth” targets. For us, growth does not only mean to have more stations served and increase revenue. We do believe that we could only have sustainable growth once we export our service quality and be able to control our quality in other markets. That is why we are not looking to have massive international portfolio.
If you put sustainable growth as a main pillar in your strategy instead of fast expansion there are other factors that come into the equation such as “growth potential” of the market. As it is said it takes two to tango! For the Ground Handling Services, as a part of Qatar Airways Group, we do see rising opportunities in Africa. [see related story on page 16 regarding the investment of Qatar Airways in South African carrier Airlink]. We are getting ready to be a part of this bright vision Qatar Airways has for Africa. I would say Rwanda is going to be the first step also for Qatar Aviation Services and there would be other following steps in next three years in Africa.
Speaking of growth, as I emphasized, apart from penetrating into the new geographies with existing product, there is also other way to enhance growth strategy thanks to having ability to offer new product/services to new market segment. Central Load Control service is the other service in our portfolio that we are now ready to offer to new Airline Customers. This initiative started 5 years ago when we opened QAS Delhi CLC office which was our first CLC location outside of Qatar.
Based on the experience we have both in Doha and Delhi office now and with proven assurance in our service quality, I do proudly say that we are going to open our third office in Manila in coming months. The fourth office would most probably be launched in coming years.
2. ARGS: Discuss the new brand strategy and mission statement for QAS and how you hope this will translate to business, customer, and employee benefits.
I am proud to announce that a new era awaits QAS. We are planning to launch very soon our new QAS Brand strategy, redefined Vision and Mission and QAS DNA.
We have developed a bold new strategy to transform ourselves for long-term success in rapidly changing industry.
Growth & expansion, Customer experience and Employee experience are among our strategical pillars and are the key foundational elements that we have built the overall strategy upon. The pillars represent the critical areas of focus and the guiding principles that drive our long-term goals and objectives. At the same time, they provide a clear framework for aligning efforts, resources and decision making to achieve our overall strategic goals.
I am confident that the synergies between our talented, diversified and dedicated teams will drive QAS in a unified purpose to strive for excellence.
We are aiming to be dynamic and adaptable, collaborating with respect and inclusiveness at all time, this is our DNA.
People are, and will always be our most valuable assets therefore we are passionately committed to invest in our people while building a highly engaged, talented and motivated workforce, fueled by opportunities to thrive.
Our strategy lays out an ambitious vision for the years ahead – one that will require a business-wide commitment to execution and innovation. Our reliability, trustworthiness and customer – centricity is unsurpassed, which put us in a category of one; we don’t want to be the first choice, we aim to be the ONLY choice for those seeking Ground service excellence
As a team we are united in our determination to bring the strategy to life.
3. ARGS: What does QAS see as the main issues facing the ground services business, such as operational integrity, recruitment/retention, sustainability?
As a people business, we care deeply about what we do, who we do it for and who we do it with. It’s well known that attracting the right talents, keeping them within the business and making them committed to work in ground handling industry is becoming very challenging in last few years. With a new generation’s expectations and multicultural presence, we needed to reshape our People programs and to invest more in initiatives that will create a skilled, diverse and engaged workforce. Leadership success frameworks, QAS Academy and robust talent success planning are just some of the initiatives to support our intention to keep the talents within our organization.
Moreover, we are committed to relentlessly elevating operational excellence through an unwavering focus on sustainability improvements in quality, technology, innovations, protecting the wellbeing of our people and reducing the environmental impact.
We are constantly encouraging a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, leveraging technology, automation and process improvement to boost efficiency, build resilient and secure business continuity without jeopardizing our integrity.
4. ARGS: Your home base in Doha, Hamad International Airport, is seeing significant growth. How is QAS managing?
We have proven successful achievements in last few years by hosting the international events such as FIFA 2022, Arab Cup and adopting the way we are operating towards introductions of new airport infrastructure developments and increased traffic growth. We achieved successful performance results during a time of greater passenger movement in last few years and increased cargo/ tonnage movement by 20% during the pandemic sessions.
Hamad International Airport recently announced that July 2024 has become the busiest month in its operational history, serving a remarkable 4.73MIL passengers which represents 10.2% increase compared to July 2023. Those customers, both Qatar Airways and Other Airline Carriers were served by our
committed workforce while delivering exceptional safety and operational performance.
We do have challenges that are linked to multiple factors well known within ground handling industry, such as increased traffic, availability of resources, infrastructural changes, new baggage facility, additional cargo facilities, etc. Still as I mentioned at the beginning, we want to be only choice for those seeking the ground service excellence and this is only made possible through the passion, effort, courage and expertise of our people. That is why QAS is focusing on the employee experience following Qatar Airways Group 2.0 strategy pillars. Ensuring the wellbeing of our staff to increase retention and offering a great place to work for attracting talent is a priority.
5. ARGS: What advances is QAS bringing in when it comes to its ground services infrastructure?
Traditionally, the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) sector, as a niche, has really struggled in driving technical innovations into the ground handling field as the margins and volumes in our sector are far from others such as civil construction, mining machinery or automotive.
This fact has changed drastically as technological transfer was boosted between sectors in the last 10-12 years. Thus, the OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] are providing us with a huge variety of solutions and options.
The challenge now is to make the right decisions. Which of these solutions will be the standard in the future? Is there any liability on the new technological advantages of the new features we are seeing, especially when you talk about software-based ones? These questions are not easily answered.
This also applies to our thinking when it comes to the sustainability part of GSE. We need to make decisions now on how to invest in our GSE fleet. And there are multiples options for us to consider, such as electrical equipment, vehicles based on lead acid or lithium batteries.
Moreover, should we convert our assets into electrical power or not? Are there hybrid models? Another innovation is the possibility of autonomous equipment.
If you focus on the data, the cost of acquiring on-board data has reduced drastically in the last years. Couple this with the rise of IoT [Internet of things] technology and this opens a big field for us to explore and take advantage of.
How these technologies are adopted and how they are used to support business decisions will set, in good part, the health and the profitability of our business going forward.
There are many questions here to answer; not only in the technological side, but also in how the managers and decision makers adopt the information captured on the tarmac.
Nevertheless, I am constantly encouraging my team to drive innovation, explore technological opportunities, and use the data while creating the solutions that can help us to boost service efficiency.
6. ARGS: Please outline how QAS views the vitally important of sustainability?
QAS in particular has made a sustainable commitment towards environment, people, financial stability, Innovation and Technology and Process improvement.
You may know that QAS is the first ground handler globally to go through the IATA’s Environmental Assessment Programme certification for Ground and Cargo Handling Organizations.
We at QAS believe in our responsibility to care for the environment. To achieve this goal, QAS aims to
•Achieve lower, more efficient greenhouse gas emissions
•Prevent pollution, reduce waste and minimize the consumption of resources
•Educate, train and motivate workforce to carry out tasks in an environmentally responsible manner
We are aiming to build a deep bench strength of high performing talent, create and leverage the employee brand to position QAS as an employer of choice and to create a highly engaged workforce where employees and QAS mutually thrive.
Our plans expand further to attract, retain and hire top talent to build a skilled and diverse workforce.
And in line with Qatar 2030 vision, we thrive to bring significant initiatives to boost local talents presence through Qatari National Development Programs to support readiness for future progression.
7. ARGS: What solutions or approaches does QAS have that makes it a strong ground services partner?
First and foremost, our biggest asset is our people. We have 8,917 dedicated employees from 51 nationalities, always ready to serve our customers to the highest standard.
We offer a wide array of services that include redefined customer experience throughout their journey, airside operations, precise engineering services, centralized load control, timely travel and tours, reliable cargo warehouse handling, and premium executive aviation along with dependable support services.
Our GSE is treated as an important part of our company’s strategy which allows us to strategically plan our fleet movements and investment thinking in the long run. All maintenance activities and fleet supervision are done in-house by our own personnel. We have full control of all our suppliers, which parts are installed in the equipment, how the preventive inspections are taking place, the training of our technicians, etc. This ensures control of the full value chain when talking about the maintenance of our GSE fleet and is an important driver to assure the quality, safety and reliability of our equipment while supporting the airside operation.
This is why we care about keeping the highest standards in the industry while talking about GSE preventive inspection compliance, promoting the latest technological advantages and other operational KPIs that drive us to hold certifications such as IATA’s ISAGO and its Enhanced GSE Certification. As QAS’ business portfolio keeps growing, this certification will enable new airline customers to easily recognize those ground handling companies who have made significant efforts to reduce risks and ground damage.
I am confident that in this new era QAS will exceed every expectation by constantly redefining excellence in everything we do.
