Following are excerpts from the transcript of a CNBC interview by Hadley Gamble and Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways
Your excellency, thank you so much for joining CNBC news, Qatar Airways just took delivery of their 25th Dreamliner, what else are you looking to buy at this airshow?
Unfortunately we're buying anything during this airshow, we have done all of our shopping and the last one was very recently in the Le Bourget, we need a little bit breathing space, when we are ready hopefully by Farnborough, maybe we have something to talk about
Talk to me a little bit about the push back you're getting from some European carriers, they say that you're colluding even with the European Commission . How do you respond to that?
You know this is always a story of crying wolf. They are afraid of competition, I have repeated on this many times, and I just don't want to dwell upon it. The only thing is that they cannot stand up and be counted like we do, we give them a very tough competition, we give their customers a very good value for money, we have product that is of a very high standard and at the very same time, fortunately, we do not have unions that control how we run our business, a simple as that.
What are you very excited about that's coming up next for Qatar Airways?
There is always something exciting coming up about Qatar Airways. You know that we have just recently finished our new hub. We have just the last week opened the world's best first class lounge, we hope also very soon to unveil the world's best premium product in the airplane, so all this is very exciting for Qatar Airways, you know we are always raising the bar for other airlines. Keeping in mind that we were the first airliner after British Airways to have a horizontal flat seat in first class, we were the first airliner to have lie flat seats after British Airways. We introduced all this in 2001 and 2002 and our competitors only started introducing from 2005 onwards, we always innovate products that everybody copies but we have become smarter this time as we are developing a new premium product we are getting it IP'd so that nobody can copy the design or the ideas that we are introducing in our future airplanes
Talk to me a little bit about not just innovation but costs as well. What are the biggest costs to running the airline? Is it oil?
Definitely fuel constitutes the largest single part of the airlines' cost and we are now very fortunate that the oil prices are dropping, but I don't think that this honeymoon will last very long, I'm sure that as the world economy starts developing, that the oil price will start rising again
And in terms of your revenues, 25-30% of your revenues are from cargo traffic, are they not?
Yes, 25 percent of my revenue between 24 and 25 percent of my total revenue comes from cargo and we are trying to enhance this even further. I'm sure you know that Qatar Airways is now the number three largest cargo carrier in the world and it is a very exciting news for us
And then in terms of in flight entertainment systems, you've said they're very heavy and that they're not going to be around for that much longer. What do you see replacing the in-flight entertainment system?
Well the connectivity that is being developed for the airlines, especially the K-U and K-A band and more powerful satellites will encourage airlines like Qatar Airways to introduce systems in an aeroplane which will do away with this IFE, and will concentrate with people bringing their own tablets and connecting with the systems we have to get even a larger content than we currently provide to our passengers
That's bad news for a lot of your suppliers, isn't it?
Well I don't care if it is bad news for suppliers, as long as it is good news for my airline to shed more weight and in turn have less fuel burn and then in turn have less C02 emissions
Talk to me a little bit about the geopolitics because certainly we've seen several airlines re-routing flights not just around Syria, but more recently around the Sinai. How does that impact your bottom line?
Well diverting aircraft away from Sinai will not make really a very large impact on airlines, as a matter of fact we still fly a lot over Egypt and we will continue to fly over Egypt, we were not flying very much on Sinai anyway except two flight that was going to Cyprus and to Lebanon. But I'm sure that as the investigation progresses, things will be more clear and that the airspace over Sinai will open up again.
And in terms of the communication between different airlines. We spoke earlier with Emirates President Tim Clark, he was talking about how important it is that airlines communicate in terms of the security situation. How is Qatar Airways working with other airlines?
I don't want to divulge confidential discussions we had with our other airline partners, and our other colleagues, but yes Qatar Airways very actively exchanges and provides information whenever we see that any of us is in a situation which needs us to alert the others
So in terms of the regional turmoil you don't really see that impacting Qatar Airways?
I don't think so, whatever impact had to happen has already happened and I don't think it will get any worse. But our biggest threat to day for us is pilferage inside airplanes, this is a new phenomenon which at Qatar Airways we discovered around a year ago and now we are providing our fellow colleagues in the region and our airline partners about this growing security issue where passengers are travelling from point a to point b and then going through passengers baggage in the bins and pilferaging valuable items and money.
So that's happening in flight?
That is happening in flight and this phenomenon we discovered around a year ago and mostly it is from a certain country that we have been able to apprehend large number of individuals.
And so you're doing that using security cameras or more surveillance?
No we are not doing that, but what we are doing is warning passengers are part of our PA and passenger announcements and training our crew to be very vigilant on flights especially on night time flights when the cabin lights are dimmed
And finally, amongst your airline colleagues, you're known as, rather the John McEnroe of aviation. Certainly you're a favourite with the press. How do you respond to that?
I prefer not to be John McEnroe, because I'm not an actor. I am an individual that believes in delivering the economic interests of my country. And yes I like to be very frank, I don't like to be a diplomat. I think press and the general public should know exactly from the head of an airline what our business is about and what we do.
Your excellence, thank you so much for speaking with CNBC
Thank you
About CNBC:
With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, CNBC World and CNBC HD , CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to approximately 371 million homes worldwide, including more than 100 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.
CNBC also has a vast portfolio of digital products which deliver real-time financial market news and information across a variety of platforms. These include CNBC.com, the online destination for global business; CNBC PRO, the premium, integrated desktop/mobile service that provides real-time global market data and live access to CNBC global programming; and a suite of CNBC Mobile products including the CNBC Real-Time iPhone and iPad Apps.
Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/mediavillage/networks/cnbc/.