JEDDAH, 29 May 2006 — Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) has organized a three-day conference on ‘Future Horizons’ for the aviation industry in general and the airline in particular. Dr. Khalid Ben-Bakr, general manager of Saudia airline, opened the conference Saturday evening with a speech focusing on change and the need to adapt. Today is the last day of the conference at the Jeddah Hilton; among the participants are representatives from IATA, STAR alliance, IBM, Boeing and SPAN companies as well as academics. They are all addressing the challenges faced by the aviation industry and the strategies needed as well as the service and technological developments.
Yesterday morning the conference began by all of the Saudi airline employees including Dr. Bakr participating in painting the ‘big picture’. Each of the many tables spread in the hall had a team of men working on painting part of the picture, requiring each team to communicate with the others to determine how their part could be completed and located in the puzzle, which will be revealed today as a new concept for the airline.
Talking about this unusual exercise and the purpose of the conference, Dr. Bakr emphasized teamwork and change. “This conference is to boost teamwork among Saudi Arabian Airline employees. In the aviation industry, you cannot achieve any goal unless you work as a team,” he said. Every two years, they come together to learn from each other and support each other to establish one objective and direct all their efforts toward achieving that objective. “This exercise we are doing today, maybe for the first time in Saudi Arabia, is to paint this huge picture that will be unveiled tomorrow. Each individual in this hall has had a big role in making this picture either beautiful or ugly. This is to show people that whatever your position, whether you think it is small or irrelevant, it is still very relevant. This is a powerful exercise and it involves teamwork and to show everybody that they are a member of a big family. With this spirit no one can beat us.”
With regards to the challenges faced by the aviation industry, he said that it was facing a difficult time with increasing fuel costs and inflation measures hitting the airlines. “The industry has suffered lots of losses in the past few years; the accumulated losses match all the profits they have enjoyed since their establishment many years ago. Because of these difficulties, the classical way of thinking and doing business is not enough any more; you have to be creative, you have to be pro-active rather than reactive to changes around you. Saudia has prepared itself for the future through privatization, which makes it more lean and efficient and responsive to the social, economic, political and technological changes around it.”
Nevertheless, the biggest challenge remains changing people. “The easiest thing is to make structural and technological changes; the most difficult thing is to change the attitude and behavior of the people because it is deep-rooted in the culture and that will take more effort and longer time.”
He said that the airline started this campaign a long time ago and had succeeded in moving the organization from a bureaucratic government organization to a business organization where the customer is boss. “We tell everyone that the customer, whatever he is, wherever he is and whatever color or religion or race he is, is our boss. He is the person paying my salary and everyone’s salary. So we moved the perception of the customer to a higher level and we are working to serve him. I think this kind of change in behavior took a long time for us and we are still working on it. I’m happy to see this transformation is happening, especially among young Saudis.”
As for complaints about the airline’s service, “As long as an airline flies, you will hear complaints. No airline can reach perfection,” he said. “It is human nature always when an organization excels, they think it is the norm, but if you fail in any of the perceptions they have in their minds, they complain. That’s why it is difficult to work in a service organization. But we welcome any complaints and we will work to eliminate our shortcomings. We have the intention to improve and we will not tolerate any abuse of position or the rights of our customers. Any complaint we get is dealt with it in a harsh manner; we value our customers and work hard to satisfy them and if we fail sometimes we promise to succeed next time.”
With regards to the new licensed local airlines and the expected competition, Dr. Bakr said that Saudia was used to competition. “We compete with 45 airlines internationally. We welcome any kind of competition. I think competition is healthy and I hope it will be directed toward improving service rather than reducing it.”
