Rob Morris 0:00

And I was standing up at conference and and saying demand could come down as much as supply could come up. That's based on four percent per anum growth. It used to be five percent primary growth. Don't take four percent for granted. It might start with a three, it might start with a two.

Courtney Miller 0:20

This is the Time One Wing Podcast. Welcome back. Courtney Miller with Visual Approach Analytics with me. As always, Gueric Dechavanne of Collateral Verifications. Gueirc, who are we talking to today?

Gueric Dechavanne 0:32

Uh, the one and only Rob Morris. Rob is recently retired, but he is still very busy looking at kind of staying in the market, looking at the market. Prior to retiring, Rob was the global head of consultancy for Cerium Ascend Consultancy. Uh he was also VP Marketing and Analysis for BA Systems Essen Management, uh, which then turned into Falco Regional Aircraft. Prior to that, he was manager of market forecasting for the Department of Trade and Industry. Uh, and he was also a marketing executive for British Aerospace. He has a BS in chemistry from the University of Exeter and an MS in analytical chemistry from Kingston University. So uh not unlike our friend uh Mr. Hatcher. Yeah, that's got some chemistry in the blood, uh, which you know what, those guys are always uh you know playing around with interesting stuff. Uh and as of I think 2026, he was actually named one of their one of the uh the aviation legends from uh airline economics. So uh in any case, it's gonna be great to kind of chat with him and and get his take on uh what's going on, hear about his background and everything else. So, Rob, this is your time on a week.

Courtney Miller 1:39

Just a quick intermission to pay the bills, then we'll get you back to the podcast. You've probably heard of Visual Approach Analytics. Here's what we do. Visual Approach delivers contrarian data analysis on the commercial aviation industries. Subscribers can start with our industry analysis and weekly insights, and then upgrade to access our downloadable charts and visualize market trends. You can even white label our charts in your own branding. If you need a white paper, a custom presentation with novel contrarian insights for your investors, or your board members, or your boss, yeah, we do that. Our objective is not to be the thought leaders in aviation. Our objective is to give you the tools to be one. Vigileaproach.io. Check us out.

Gueric Dechavanne 2:18

Okay, back to the show. All right. Well, hey, Rob, thank you uh very much for joining us today. We uh love the fact that you're you're able to take the time to speak with us. And uh, you know, as as we do with every one of our guests, we'd love to hear uh how you got your start in aviation, right? Where the passion came from, you know, and that there's all different kinds of stories that we hear. And so we always kind of love to hear yours, and and then we can kind of love to hear more about kind of your your career path to where you are today, which is uh, you know, kind of nicefully happily retired. All right. So, but uh, but we'd love to hear about the whole career part. So I'll let you kind of take it away and uh we'll go from there.

Rob Morris 2:59

Thanks, Garrett Corney. Great, great to speak to you guys, and thanks for the invitation. Yeah. Um, how did I get into aviation? Well, uh, I suppose I got into aviation um from the enthusiast uh route in the first instance, right? I as a as a kid, right, I lived very close to Heathrow Airport. I lived at a place called Woodley. I was born and brought up a place called Woodley, uh, which had a uh a beacon, non-directional um navigational beacon there. And so lots of aircraft flew over my house every day. Um I noticed your Concorde there, Gary, because Concorde used to fly over my house twice a day, and it's like when people would hear the noise, they'd go, What's that? And I'd go, Oh, that's just Concorde. Uh right, and they would rush out and talk in it, and I'd just go, Oh, it happens every day. So I loved aeroplanes, right? And then one day back in the mid-70s, my parents gave me a pair of binoculars to Christmas. And on Boxing Day, the weather was doing English weather, and my brother said, My brother's not older than me, brother's 10 years older than me, he was driving by that point, let's go to Heathrow and look at some planes with your binoculars. Yeah, great. So that's what we did. And from that day on, I loved aeroplanes. I became a plane spotter. I know that's a a bad thing to say, but I was a spotter for many, many, many years, right? And through my whole teens and early twenties, I had an enthusiasm for aviation. But I'd never studied it, right? I I was just a pretty quiet guy at school. I was academically quite good, but but I was the geek in the corner. I studied chemistry because it was what I understood and was good at at the time. I drifted into chemistry as a as a career, um, and and got but but but was still an enthusiast. I was still actually during my spare time I wrote for a magazine. I used to write articles. I I I kept production lists in the 1980s, my own production lists of British built aircraft, etc. So and I used to travel to the States to take pictures when you could walk down to the end of the end of the gates and just stand there and take pictures all day long. Um I loved aviation, but I didn't work in it. And got to about 19, I suppose 1988 or 89, I was pretty unhappy in my career. Um, I was still on my own, still living at home actually. Um, and I saw a job in a magazine called Aviation User Review. British Aerospace commercial aircraft requires an aviation analyst to to manage its database. I went, oh that looks like fun. Maybe I should change my career. So I applied for the job. Um I went for an interview and they went, sorry the job's gone, but you look interested. I've got another job. We're looking for an analyst to do other stuff. Are you interested? Yes, please. So um guy called Tony Starf, Starforth, who was vice president at Martin, a guy called Phil Bolt, who many of you will know worked for Tony and that that those guys gave me a break, um, gave me a job at Hatfield. So I I I relocated from Barksley where I was still living to to Hatfield in early 1990. Well, I got a job working as an aviation analyst, and uh I remember, and I've got the above me there's a picture that says, Am I getting paid to do this? That's a quote I made at my leaving due because I said on the first day of May 1990, I sat in Hatfield reading magazines, writing stuff down, making notes. And at the end of the day, I went, Are they paying me to do this? I think I could do this for a job. And it started, right, in 1990, and um, you know, I I was uh an an aviation analyst, uh, I was promoted to a senior market analyst on the day they fired a whole load of people because we went into the recession of the early 90s with the first Gulf War. I was promoted to an aviation uh to a to a um uh a marketing executive. Um and then they decided to close Hatfield. So it was like, right, now what? Um get made redundant, uh go and work in Woodford, northern in Manchester, uh, or go, they'd formed AIR, go and work in Toulouse. I didn't want to go to Toulouse, I just got married. We were thinking about family. My wife is from the local area here in Hertfordshire. I I found a job at the Department of Trade Industry, so you know, moved from one job to the next, uh, but never looked back, always looked forward. Um so yeah, I I I I be came to this job with no formal qualifications as an analytical thinking person. I worked as a analytical chemist for many years before came here. But I bought enthusiasm. I wanted to know how the industry worked, I wanted to know how how aircraft were built. I used to visit factories before I worked in the industry. So yeah, just enthusiasm, Gueric , Courtney, just brought me to where I am. And that passion never died, by the way. The hobby became a career, but the passion never died. The passion to want to know what was going on, work out what the data meant. That's what drove me through my whole career.

Courtney Miller 7:44

Yeah, it's a uh it's a common affliction, Rob, uh, but it is also terminal, pun intended. Um, it never goes away.

Rob Morris 7:55

Uh absolutely, and that's why, although, you know, so I I went from British Aerospace to the Department of Trade and Industry to BAE Systems Asset Management to what was finally called Cerium. Um, but actually I never lost that passion. And and in the end, I okay, I retired a bit early. I'm not I'm not yet at retirement age, but I decided that I'd probably had enough of corporate life. But that that terminality is still there for me because although I've been retired nearly a year now, retired in bunny years from vertical commerce, I still love to track the industry, I still love to know what's going on, I still look at Skyliner, uh, I still look at Surium's data that they happenly let me look at. Uh, I still try and work out what's going on. And actually, when I'm in McGarden, I live I live about 15 miles from Newton Airport. Uh, we're under the uh departure path if they aircraft are going into Europe. I still look up and look at FR24 on my phone and wonder where that was A321 NEO is going. And, you know, wonder what the load might be and how high it might be, and whether it's engineers have been through shop yet.

Courtney Miller 9:00

Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. You know, it's a it's a funny thing that that I've discovered. Did you did you know that when airplanes fly overhead, not everybody automatically looks up reflexively? Like, I thought that was just a thing. Like I thought you needed to know exactly what was flying over your over your head. But apparently normal people don't do this.

Rob Morris 9:25

Well, it's it's funny because I have a son, right, who who actually works, he's a teacher, he's a math teacher. Um, he he he didn't get the aviation bug uh early. That's on me. But he has as of late. So we have, of course, now we we all we all now use flight radar. Um and when he travels, he he uh he tells me which flight to track. My wife goes, what what's that? Oh, you don't know what flight radar 24 is? You don't want to know? What's wrong with you? Yeah.

unknown 9:56

Yeah.

Rob Morris 9:56

Anyway, yeah, it's you're right, it's infliction. I think one of my former colleagues called it kerosene poison.

Courtney Miller 10:03

Yeah, I know. I don't know that I'd call it poison, though. It's it's slower than that. It's yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's it's definitely more in that kind of um narcotic territory. Yeah.

Rob Morris 10:16

But I think it's a privilege, right? I mean, I I worked I worked for six years as a as an analytical chemist. I worked for the atomic energy authority trying to manage and monitor pollution in the UK. It was kind of interesting, but it kind of wasn't. It was kind of dull. I can't imagine not having done what I did for the last 35 years, because that was never dull. Right? It was always interesting. There was there might have been some some corporate stuff I had to deal with that was a bit boring, but if it was boring, it dived into the analyst, the data. You dived into what was going on, what was what was happening with Pan Am in the 1990s, you know, what was happening with the low-cost carriers as they as they became uh the drivers of our industry growth. What was happening with growth? What was happening in Asia? All these things are just fascinating. Like for us anyway, they're fascinating. And of course, they they they the industry itself, you know, allows people to experience new things, experience or meet their meet their friends and family who've who've gone overseas. So the industry is just fascinating. I can't imagine not having done this for the last 35 years. I can't imagine not ever thinking about it, even though I'm retired.

Gueric Dechavanne 11:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd be I'd be curious. So when you moved to the Department of Trade and Industry, right? Um I guess what were you doing there and what what drove you to then, you know, were you at what point did you start going, well, you know what, I'd really love to kind of go back to more of the aviation asset management stuff? Or how how was how did that play out?

Rob Morris 11:50

So DTI was still an aviation team, so the Department of Trade and Industry was a UK government department, which is responsible for uh effectively, let's put let's uh let's use this word in a in a kind of a explanatory sense, sponsoring industry in the UK, whether it be pharmaceuticals or tech not high tech or data cent. Aviation. So the UK had a a deep history in in commercial aviation and defence. And you know, aviation and defence employment generates generates uh economic wealth for nations and for regions. And so the UK's DTI had a uh an aerospace and defence team, which was responsible for managing technology development, uh, technology programs, and manufacturing in the UK. You all have heard of uh what the UK and Europe calls launch investment, and which the US, when it took it legal, called launch aid. And it was historically called launch aid, and I was part of a team that was managing launch investment, but I was part of a team whose responsibility was to analyse business cases to understand whether the market had failed in its in its ability to finance a high-risk high technology program, and whether some government investment could generate that program in the UK or other parts of Europe, um, and and whether we could make a return on that. So uh at the DTI I was responsible in I was part of the um the market team who was trying to forecast, God help me, I forecast the A380 sales when the UK put made its 530 million pound investment in A380. Um I I I remember still some of the numbers, I won't repeat the numbers because Delusa would breach the official secrets act to which I'm still a party. Yeah, okay.

Courtney Miller 13:46

But actually, you know, so I was still involved in the You could say how many how many numbers was it, was it, was it five figures? Was it four figures? Was it did they Yeah, how uh what what was the order of magnitude here?

Rob Morris 14:01

For for the A for the 0302, the order of magnitude accordingly was three figures. There were lots of scenarios. Okay. Um I I I I don't have a copy of the report because I I I couldn't have it. That would be a breach of the official secret dimension. But I've got a pretty good memory. Um and I can remember some of the scenarios. Um and and yeah, okay, they sold 150 odd aircraft, but actually one of the scenarios did predict a relatively low number of sales. There was that was there was higher numbers. But also remember the A3XX, as it was then when I when I studied it in the 1990s, I did my forecast in 1999. The A3XX had four variants predicted. Right? The A3XX 50, 100, 200 and freighter. The 100 became the A38800, that horrible short, stubby thing with that massive big wing because it was going to be stretched and a massive great tail because it was going to be shrunk to a 50, a 450 seat aeroplane, and then a freighter. So anyway, we we we did forecast for that, we did forecast for the A3 4600, the Trent. My last programme was an airplane called the Bombardier C Series. Um the Bombardier C Series got me through the door of number 10 Downing Street for a couple of meetings, not with the Prime Minister, but with the Prime Minister's uh special advisors, because the UK had an interest, of course, in in Sherwat's manufacturing the wing in Belfast. Yeah. Uh and the A and the and the C Series was launch-aided. The UK, I can't remember the amount of money, but the UK lent money to well, which became Bombardier, Northern Ireland, I think, um, to to uh enable them to manufacture the wing in Belfast.

Courtney Miller 15:47

So 251 uh A380s were ultimately built.

Rob Morris 15:54

So we weren't we weren't so far out.

Courtney Miller 15:55

We weren't we weren't we weren't an order of ten outside and uh yeah so there were seventeen oh I'm sorry, twenty-seven freighters that were ordered that of course uh yeah FedEx and UPS both had launch orders.

Rob Morris 16:11

Mm-hmm. Both cancelled. So we so we w so I was doing that at D TI, but also we were involved in all sorts of other things. I did I did forecasts for uh diesel engines for for general aviation. We had a manufacturer of a diesel engine in the UK. We had microlite manufacturers, we had we had um we had Rolls-Royce, but we had uh um GKN and supply chain manufacturing the sales for the the the uh the Dash 8400. Um we we did predictions. In fact, I remember uh doing forecasts for the CRJ 700 because the CRJ 700 received some UK government money for for manufacturing in Belfast again. So we we we did the whole the whole cross-section and it was a fascinating time. But again, I did 12 years there, and after 12 years things changed, you decide you want to get back into negotiation. Actually, what happened was one day I got a phone call from somebody who said, um, I have a job, uh I have a job going at um BA System's Asset Management. Do you know anyone who might be interested? And the question I then asked was, How how close to home should I think about? And they said, Well, are you interested? And the answer was yes. So I left um I left the DTI in 2005 and went back to BA systems with the asset management team there at Hatfield, which is very close to where I live today still, um, and worked there as initially the the manager of market forecasting and analysis, and latterly as the vice president of marketing and analysis.

Courtney Miller 17:43

I I'm really interested in your time with the trade something something, the something trade something something.

Rob Morris 17:49

DTI. That's developer.

Courtney Miller 17:50

DTI, thank you. Um so we you've talked about the aviation projects you worked on. I'm really interested in some of the non-aviation projects you may have worked on that had a lot more crossover than you expected, or that you just kind of kept with you as you kind of continued your career. I mean, what I'm I'm fascinated by all of the other connections and other industries we may not think of. What what was the one thing that you're that you just kind of really kept with you over that? That it wasn't aviation related?

Rob Morris 18:20

So I was always in the aviation team, Courtney. We didn't we we we were we were siloed into industry teams. So I worked in the aviation team. But but of course, one of the one of the rationale behind the government's desire to maintain an an avi a thriving aviation sector was tech to was technology transfer. But if we think about many of the things there was there was a there was a pro a program at the time called CARAD. It's called CARASD for the Civil Aviation Research and Development Programme, the CARAT program. The CARAD program was, again, it was it was it had to be WTO compliant. Effectively, the government would make investments into far-from market research programs which didn't necessarily have an application in a program initially. So as a technology program, it could be some materials technology. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But the government would would, you know, where where you'd industry didn't want to invest, or industry, finance didn't want to invest. Financiers want to invest in programs with a a sightline to a near-term return. And it and many of those moonshot type programs would not have that visibility of a near-term return. So by definition, they'd either charge a very high rate of return because the risk is very high, or they wouldn't invest at all, the market would fail. And if the company couldn't afford to do that research, it would fall by the wayside. So we'd have partnership programs, universities, industry, government, partnership programs with seed capital effectively going in to try and generate these these technologies, which would then become perhaps applied in a program five years down the line or more but but would also generate, you know, uh spin-off technologies in other sectors potentially. I mean it's not so applicable, I don't know so much about it, but I do follow Formula One a bit. Formula One has generated huge numbers of technologies that are now used in automotive generally. My hybrid uses energy recovery technology, which has its genesis in Formula One technology. So all these kinds of things aviation had some of that. I can't I can't quote any specific programs that that we might have put carrot money into that that um that would have spun off other technologies now, but we were trying to analyse those the whole thing, we were trying to advise generalist uh politicians and civil servants from an expert expert perspective. And the UK government I think was was relatively unique in having this uh aviation team. We were called Air Three at the time. We we were the third division of four within uh the uh aerospace, the air team. And Air Three was a purely an expert market team, but there were about 15 of us probably. Um we we were also involved in I wasn't involved myself personally, but but a couple of the team members were involved in uh in um I'm having one of my blinder, blind moments, so I have this case you forget the word, in the environmental studies back in the CAPE. The the the ICAO um uh Civil Aviation Environmental Program was was active in the nineteen nineties and we had colleagues who were trying to look at long-term stringency measures. We were trying so I was forecasting traffic growth effectively globally, to allow them to try and project emissions, even in the nineteen nineties, so we could work out uh Uh I mean so yeah, it was an interesting place to work. Actually one of the reasons that I was becoming a bit uh disaffected in that role, apart from development opportunity, was that we were going more generalist. They were trying to stop us being more specialists, and I wanted to be an aviation. That's what I chose to do in 1990, where I changed my career.

Courtney Miller 22:22

I find that uh interesting. Uh just it sounds like a fun job. I don't know if it's a 12-year fun job, but it sounds like you know, a solid eight.

Rob Morris 22:33

For me, for me it was fun because I got to meet with with OEMs and suppliers and uh, you know, if we'd be doing a market study, I need to go and speak to airlines to work out what they needed. So I would I would be able to go and speak to airlines in the US, in Europe, and less so in Asia, because at the time Asia was less of less of a significant region, but we were able to talk to operators and uh I I would visit Airbus three, four times a year for for meetings, etc. I would I I rarely got to see Boeing because we didn't have a lot of investment. I would go to Belfast quite frequently. So it it kept it fresh, it kept it interesting. And of course, there was a lot of technology development going on at the time, you know. Think about the early 1990s, you know, everything was about four-engine for long haul, everything was about well, the A320 was in its in its infancy, right? So we the government had invested in the A320, but but I do know it's a matter of public record, the government had predicted that that the Airbus would sell 600 A320 aircraft over the program. Wow.

Courtney Miller 23:33

In fairness, in fairness, they weren't wrong. They did sell 600. They did sell 600. Right before they sold like 10,000.

Rob Morris 23:40

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Courtney Miller 23:43

Yeah. Yeah, that program is uh unbelievable. And then uh so after DTI uh I was it Ascend at the time.

Rob Morris 23:50

Then it was back to BA systems asset management for a few years. Yeah, so I went to asset management. Asset management was a really it's a leasing company, right? But it was a really strange leasing company because it was a it was a captive leasing company. Remembering that so when I worked for British Aerospace first time round, we were we were selling four-engine regional jets, good idea. We were selling ATPs, even better idea, two and two engine 60C development of the AT748. We were selling jet streams. Well, but the problem is we weren't selling them, we were taking financial recourse on them, and they all came back to be, or a lot of them came back to B AE, as it was then became called. And by the time I joined asset management in 2005, I had a portfolio of several hundred one four-six RJs, ATPs, and jet streams that needed managing because the company still owned them. Um it was even more complex because they'd done a couple of interesting financial uh let's call them shuffles where where they had um insured the lease income, the rental income from these aircraft um and had a insurance package that if if they basically didn't make the projected income each year, they could claim on the insurance that they stole. They wrote that package in 2000. Something happened in 2001 that changed this industry quite fundamentally, and they they they very soon went through the excess on that policy and made a claim. They'd also, by the way, having having got that policy, these are all massive public records, they then securitised the income in a in a structure called Systems Asset Trust 2001. Part of that meant that they had to have an asset manager which had to act like a prudent uninsured leasing company. That's what asset management did. So we were we I went there and we were sort of marketing the 146s and RJs and ATPs and jet streams. Um we went through all of the claims on the insurance, of course, it went legal and illegals all got settled, blah, blah, blah. Once that all got settled and the company got its money, they then said, let's sell this thing we don't really want, let's start asset management. So we put our so we then spent two years. I was part of the team with the senior management there marketing effectively what was uh asset management to various people, and in the end, uh funds managed by Fortress bought the company and the portfolio. In fact, they bought the portfolio and the people from BAE Systems Asset Management and renamed it as uh Falco.

Courtney Miller 26:18

I was a Yeah, so we can't get away from BAE. I think just in general, that's like an industry like BAE just just is always kind of there. Uh so we've had Jeremy Barnes on the podcast, of course. So he was the start of that, uh, from the Falco side. Um Chris Jones was uh British Aerospace on the the sales side. Uh I feel like we've had some other people, Garrett. Doesn't matter. Oh, yeah. We just got done talking with Charles Graham, who was involved with TNT and launching the 146 freighter, which I didn't even know. I didn't even know there was a factory freighter. Like I and I forgot to ask him if it was bulk loaded because it would have to have been.

Rob Morris 26:59

Courtney, um Courtney, it wasn't. No, it so it wasn't a factory freighter. Just just as an aside, right? The the 146 QT, QT stuff a quiet trader, was actually built green in the UK and then flown to I think it was flown to Dothan, Alabama, where Pemco were based, to uh so Pemco would receive the green aircraft, install a large freight door and a cargo loading system. It had a big door, had a big door. Um and uh the aircraft would then come back to the UK and re-deliver from the U deliver from the UK. So it was actually factory built as a whole aircraft, and the freight door was installed in in Pemco and then back to the UK. Um TNT placed a launch order for over a hundred. Um I think 36 were built and delivered. 200s and 300s. Um yeah, we they never bought a hundred. Uh they made a commitment. This would be a in those early days. British Aerospace would always over-announce, overcommit, finance, take recourse. Anyway, yeah, so um you can't escape British Aerospace because we were part of the history, right? British Aerospace was part of Airbus, don't forget. Actually, really UFO government. Yeah. Yeah. But it was part of Airbus for a long time. They sold the Airbus stake. Interestingly, when I was back at Hatfield um 2005 to 11, uh the I think the stake was sold in 2006 or 7. Um we were asked we were asked our view on whether they would sell or not. I think we said don't sell, but they sold anyway. Um and of course now now we have no BAE hasn't l limited political control over MSUK. MS UK is still of course still based in in uh in in in Broughton Chester, where it still manufactures A320 wings, A330 wings, A350 wings. 219 146s and 100 and some Avro RJs. The Avro RJ was just a remark, a rebrand of the 146. The type certificate is 146-RJO.

Courtney Miller 29:14

So you're pushing 350-ish airplanes. I mean, if you think about it, that's that's that's what 1400 engines. It beat. Exactly. It beat it beat.

Rob Morris 29:25

Well, don't forget spares calling because we used to blow a lot of engines. Oh, of course. Yeah, so that's at least 2800 engines, right? Also, also the original the original gear turbofan. Zero thrust reversers. Yeah. The original gear turbofan, though. The the the the the the the ALF 502 uh was a geared turbofan, uh originally a helicopter engine, um, but converted to uh and and the and the the design ethos at the time was that this engine was uh relatively low thrust, relatively cheap, relatively easy to retrofit. So if you blew one, you took it off the one and you put another one on.

Courtney Miller 30:01

The disposable engine, I love it.

Rob Morris 30:02

Disposable engine. Uh the the gear, the gear performed really poorly. The original uh uh AL ALF 502, Avro Avco Low Cut Lycoming 502, um the gear would shear metal all the time. There was all sorts of problems with bearings, etc. Um fixed in the 507, the LF LF 507, which is the engine that went on the Avro RJ, uh originally originally a hydromechanical but finally a FedEx uh system, uh was a much more reliable engine. Um and the gear didn't cause any problems. Um of course when Pratt and Whitley decided to design a gear turbofan, everyone said, oh, the gear would be terrible. And we went, well, actually, we do know how gears work at BAE or um Honeywell in the end. Honeywell figured the gear out and made it work. Um, but actually, I think it's rather ironic the gear's been pretty flawless on the gear turbo on the uh the Pratt when the engine, it's everything else that's gone on.

Courtney Miller 31:06

But that's so Pratt, right? Like, like it it's it's fascinating because we were all paying attention. I guess probably applying some of the learnings from from the ALF. Yeah. Um I didn't realize the 502 difference with the 507. That's that's quite interesting. Um But yeah, like metal shavings, the gear's the new thing. But you know, what was it, the Pratt 6000? Similar kind of issues, right? We're like, okay, we're doing all these things, building the grain engine, and then they screw up the core. Come on.

Rob Morris 31:39

But but Courtney, we we we said, yeah, they screwed up the core on the 6000. Yeah, right. The last engine that Pram when he got the core, the last narrow body engine, they got the core right on. It was the JT8.

Courtney Miller 31:56

Yeah, and that was what, like that was that was two minutes ago.

Rob Morris 32:02

I've got gray hair, and even I was even I even I was only just born when the JT8 was being developed.

Courtney Miller 32:08

Yeah, and it so uh yeah, look, the ALF is so interesting in uh I mean look first of all, it's just an interesting engine, but but in the context of today with the GTF, right? And and and how that set perspectives for the GTF.

Rob Morris 32:26

Of course the ALF is also on the original Challenger. I didn't know that anything. I think I'm pretty certain it was on the original Challenger and it got replaced by the CF-34 fairly quickly. Okay. I'm pretty sure that's the case. Um I should have checked that further.

Courtney Miller 32:43

Yeah, the 1A11 series. Uh and we know it's true because Wikipedia says so. And if it doesn't, we'll just add it. We'll just add it right. I'll just add it in the right.

Rob Morris 32:52

C F-34 replaced it pretty quickly, didn't it? But so good because of the end the problems. But yeah, um, so yeah, that was that was uh there's some learnings there that we forget. And I think it's one of the themes actually. And it's more in in airlines and finance in this sector, a a lot of learnings get forgotten quite quickly because because whilst a lot of people are in the studio for a long time, they they cycle through jobs, and you know, there's just there's not a huge amount of corporate memory.

Courtney Miller 33:19

And then you hit, I don't know, just for example, a global pandemic with amass retirement and that cultural memory, that cultural knowledge just gets wiped.

Rob Morris 33:30

Aaron Powell, but kind of the pandemic for for me, right? I I I so I started in 1990, as we said earlier. And in 1991, we had the uh the the first Gulf War, uh the the the global economic downturn, and in in 1991 um the the global traffic declined for the first time ever, right? Global traffic had grown since 1940, 1930, every single year. This was a 5% forever long-term growth industry. And then in 1991, we had the the the first golf, or as I say, the the global economic crisis, traffic declined. Um, you know, Pan Am, Pan Am and TWA TWA had ordered A320. No, Pan Am, not TWA. Pan Am had to cancel its orders, Oryx picked them up. Um, you know, Airbus went through a very difficult time. Boeing also reduced production on the narrow body side. Recovery occurred, everyone was reducing production as recovery occurred, the old cycles used to go on, you know. We had the currency crisis in the mid-1990s, white bodies struggled a bit because Asian drive to a bit of a pause. Then we got you know, then we were things were going great. Things are going great, they can only get better. Future's so bright. We've got to wear shades. Um look it up as a song. And then 2001, right? The the happens in 2001 I remember we'd set up a little group, I was at DTR, we'd set up a little group of of European and UK aviation analysts, right? It was Fiammer and FAMA. FAMA was just a UK. We'd get together and talk about stuff. We had a meeting in August 2001. The agenda item was Sonic Cruiser. Will Sonic Cruiser affect wide body markets? Because Harry Stone said in April that year, who cares about the cost of fuel? It's all about the cost of time. Sometimes I paraphrase, but that's what he said. Yeah. And we went, really? So we met to talk about Sonic Cruiser and whether Sonic Cruiser could could affect Airbus wide body sounds. And then of course 9-11 happens and what we stopped caring about Sonic Cruiser and start caring about demand. And every single day I used to write a a sit rep for the government every single day through September, October, November 2001. I vividly remember uh this is a slightly heretical thing to say, but that was such an exciting time for an aviation analyst to think about what was happening to airlines, what was how many aircraft were parked today, tomorrow, what was going to happen, what was the future? A whole generation of aircraft got parked, and then you know, the first generation narrow bodies never came back. And then, of course, things start to get better again. Airline business models changed, low-cost carriers see a see an opportunity, Southwest Burgeons, um, you know, all those other value jets and Morris Air that got snapped up myself. My my screen savers are Morris Air 737300, not my picture because I'm I'm vain sometimes. But you know, uh business models changed, Asia started to grow, Asia saw an opportunity, blah, blah, blah. So another cycle starts, but it was quite a short cycle until the Lehman brothers' downturn. What happens then? You know, another generation of aircraft get parked and never come back. Because Airbus and Boeing, in the meantime, you know, see fuel prices go up. By the way, Harris Stone Cypher was wrong. We care about fuel cost. We care a lot about fuel cost. 20% of our overall cost, 25%. It matters a lot. So we launched, we then we launched the NEO, and the Max has to Boeing respond with the Max and blah, blah, blah. And so it carried on. But cycles, long, short, whatever drives them. The pandemic, when the pandemic came, I remember vividly standing up in 2020 at the LN Economics Conference in Dublin and saying the cycle's coming to an end, right? Something's gonna happen. No one expected the Spanish Inquisition.

Courtney Miller 37:34

You could have, you could have told us, Rah.

Rob Morris 37:35

Yeah, you could have warned the world how big it was gonna be, didn't we? Because but then Corney, I I said for years afterwards, if I stood up at that conference and said, we are gonna lose two-thirds of demand this year, we'd have gone, gee, we're we're we're dead. We're finished. Right. The industry can't survive. And, you know, then but actually I remember I walked out of my presentation and uh I will name check name-check in a guy called Sid, Sid Phillip, who was at um I think he was uh which which of the news wires he was at, walked up to me and said, What do you think about this virus thing in China, Rob? And I went, Well, I've not heard much about it, Sid, but I'll go and do a bit of reading and come back to you with a couple of uh couple of thoughts. And I kind of went, Oh yeah, this looks a bit like Spanish flu or whatever, bird flu. And I came to I came to Eistat in Austin in March of that year, and I went three years ago in the UK, seasonal flu killed a thousand people. Right, but seasonal flu is just what happens. This feels a bit like that. Whoa, whoa, how naive was that, right? Because I got out of Austin on the flight on the Wednesday, and I think we went to lockdown at UCAN on Friday.

unknown 38:53

Yeah.

Courtney Miller 38:56

There was no there there there was no point of reference. No, right? I mean, oh well, I take that back. There were point of references that were wrong in hindsight. So remember we had uh just all the animal flues. So bird flu. Yeah, exactly. No, it wasn't like that, right? Ebola is very different, but that would come up every once in a while. Uh remember swine flu? Yeah. Right? Again, nothing. So, so so looking back had absolutely nothing to do with like there was it is the black swan of black swan.

Rob Morris 39:28

Exactly. So we so we then flipped to, okay, we we we we shouldn't predict. And I think I started using the quote. I, you know, I I hate forecasting because forecasting creates the illusion that I know the future. Right. And I I do not that needs to go on a bumper stick. Yeah, it came it's a quote, it was it was some it's it's a US, it's a US psychologist. I can't remember his name, but he's a he was like uh an organizational psychologist. And he made that quote, and that's brilliant because that's spot on. So I started to say, let's talk about projecting, but let's talk about monitoring as well. And and the one thing that that was brilliant was I AI was working for Cyrium by then, and Cyrium had data, right? And Curium had been a very acquisitive business. It was still called Flight Global, but it had it bought it bought innovators, so it had a schedule. And it had bought flight, I've never which one, a flight aware, I think, but it had bought flight aware or flight tracker. It bought one of those. So we had the tracking stats. Flight stats. It bought flight stats. Thank you, Courtney. I have these moments, and my brain is so full of crap that I can't remember what's good and what's bad. Empty. You know, you will eventually, you will eventually get older and older and you get more and more stuff. Um, you get flight stats. We got and so we we have tracking data. So we kind of go, this is br and and and actually I could I could ask my colleagues, did this flight happen today? So we could then start to track, you know, we'd we started building these charts that said, these many aircraft were trapped today in the US, and then it went like this, and it went. So where's the inflection points? Let's use the data to track the inflection points. And you know, everybody, it's quite funny because everyone wanted to talk to us because they wouldn't pay us, but that's just we'll just talk about the data, and we'll sell the data by implication. So we did that, and we spoke on loads of web, you know, podcasts, webcasts, all those kind of things. And it was really, again, quite an exciting time. Because we didn't have skill in the game. People were still gonna buy our data, so there was no real risk for us. And we were part of, again, CRM is part of the Relx group. Relics is like 140,000 people, 50 billion euro market cap. Yeah, it's yeah. It's a massive company, so we were never gonna forgive me, people will lose their jobs, but we were never gonna lose our jobs. We were always gonna be able to survive. So interesting time. Um we got through that. There were some surreal times. I remember, I vividly remember uh I've got a name tech Philip and Victoria Tosa Pennington who invited me to speak at a lot of their events, they were very kind. Um, asking me to speak at the New York event, which was, you know, New York was in October of a year. We couldn't come to New York in that October. So, Rob, will you do will you do the the opening presentation? Um, so yeah, I forget the time it maybe it wasn't opening because it was about five o'clock UK time, so it was must have been middayish New York time. So I did this presentation to my laptop in the corner of my dining room at the time. I hadn't converted my office at the time. Um so I've got my laptop, I do the presentation. In the old days, people would come and talk to you about the presentation, they would you'd interact and get questions. Finish at like 10 to 6, land the laptop down, turn around and have my dinner. It was soulless. It it became soulless. That that lack of interaction was was I I I I I said before COVID I would do this job until the day I die. During COVID, I went, uh unless I can start to interact with people again, I just can't do it. It's just it just it lost that passion.

Courtney Miller 42:48

But there was nothing unique about your reaction to that. And I think this is what was missed during COVID. I mean, whatever. Hindsight's 2020, we can all look back. But I remember the people saying, uh, and I'm very proud to say I was never one of them because I felt that same thing. We'll never travel again. We will never meet in person again. You remember that? There's no need, right? We're all gonna do Zoom, it's all zoomed. It's all Peloton. You know, you you just you just stay in-house and do the things. And I remember thinking exactly what you did, which is, well, I don't want to do that. And I'll bet other people don't either.

Rob Morris 43:25

It's it it's spot on code. And actually, there was almost there was there was uh almost like a case study for that. Because back in back in the 1990s, when video conferencing was in its infancy, there was a huge concern amongst forecasters then that video conferencing would replace business travel. That we would all start to talk to each other like this, and we would not need to travel. In fact, it generated more travel because people could meet more. So, you know, fast forward to COVID, and I remember and I won't name checking, but uh a good friend of a former colleague of mine who was Then working in a leasing company were trying to talk Tommy. He was trying to sell an aircraft, or lease an aircraft, sorry, to a new customer in North America. And he got the video call, he did the calls, he did the these Teams calls, you know, spoke to the guy. There's the deal, there's the term sheet, there's and the guy said, It's really great, but I don't want to sign with you because I've never met you. I need to meet you before I can really do a deal. Because I need to know, I need to feel you, I need to know who you are. So it came back, Corney. It came back, and yes, it was slow to come back, and there was a residence. I remember coming to the first iStack. Again, the next iStack US was in Austin. I think it must have been 2022. The last and first, right? The the old world and the new world. That's it.

Speaker 2 44:41

Yeah.

Rob Morris 44:41

But but but that on that flight, we had to wear a mask for the entire flight, right? It's like, and that was horrible, yeah. And it was like, do I really but but within a few months we were travelling like we'd never traveled before again. And yeah, there was a bit of distancing for a while. There was, you know, maybe the the the amenities were coming in plastic when they weren't before, but but but it's all gone, it's all back to where it were again. It's like COVID never happened. Um by the way, my wife was a COVID, she was a nurse, she's retired as well now, but she was COVID vaccinating, so she couldn't work remotely. She was having to go out every day. Oh, yeah. Um, and during, you know, she was they were COVID vaccinating at in the outdoors in the winter when it snowed. People would drive up, put their arm up through the window, but she was wearing gloves, scarf, hat, mask. Doing that. So, yeah, we had it, we had it good, some people had it tougher, but we got through it. I think if we'd said we'd survive as we did, we'd have been called nuts. But we did. And the industry's come out and learnt a lot. It's stronger for it, I think. Airlines are more robust for it.

Courtney Miller 45:48

Yeah, I think so too. And and look, the what what fascinates me about that time, again, in in retrospect, is so the hunch, for lack of a better word, that you had is not based on historical aviation data, because it never happened, but it's it was based on human psychology, just the idea of how we sociology, how we interact together. So it would just required the outside aviation, even if we didn't know that's what it what it was, um, the idea on just how we as people are gonna interact. And I'll tell you, for me right away, it was the realization, like talking to my parents who live out in the country. Um, so they're not in the city where where it's really bad, and just how quickly they would forget. Not like be forgetful. They're just like, oh yeah, well, no, we're gonna go somewhere now. Okay, that's natural.

Rob Morris 46:48

We we traveled because we could. We traveled because uh as we forgot there was a privilege. So as as in as industry grew and grew and grew, and as price came down and down and down, travel became democratized. You know, back in when I was growing up and I saw those airplanes flying over my house at Woodley, travel was a dream, right? It was for people who wore three-piece suits and had silver service on their on their flights, etc. It was a dream. But travel is now a reality for anybody, for many people anyway. Uh that's not true for everybody. There are people who are in poverty, you cannot travel. But the majority of people, well, more people can travel than ever could before. And that became the privilege became almost like not a right, but it became like we just took it for granted. And then it was cut off like, you know, binary, switch went to off, you couldn't do it. There's a lot of other things we couldn't do. We could do those first, because he goes to the cinema again first, he'd go to the restaurant again first. But when travel became available again, we all kind of binged on it a bit. We went, well, we've been cooped up for two years, so let's travel. And it's it's affordable. Actually, it became a bit more expensive because many of us went, I've saved some money over COVID, I'm going to put myself in a better class of travel because I want to really enjoy the experience again. I'd forgotten what it was like to travel in economy for eight hours, nine hours, ten hours. I've remembered because I went to Florida recently in economy. Wasn't great, but I got there. Um but actually we were putting ourselves in premium economy or business. You know, my work we can't in 2023, as an aside, my son did a my son's a baseball geek, very rare for a UK guy in a UK. My son decided in 2023, he hadn't been on travel for a while. He's a teacher, I told you he's got six weeks off in the summer, he was gonna do the 30 baseball parks. Wow, okay. He did it in 35 days. He did it in 35 days. He did it, he wrote a book about it. 30 and 35. But during that, he's a he's a he's a giants fan. He said, You must come to San Francisco, Mum and Dad, and come to a game with me. So we did. So my wife and I went, we flew to San Francisco, then we went up to Vegas and did the Grand Canyon, blah de blah. But we went first class because we could, because we hadn't travelled for such a long time. We wanted to treat ourselves. That's the kind of thing people were doing. Now they're doing less of it now because that travel's more expensive again, but they're still doing it. We've got back to it. And, you know, I think, well, we know back. We're in a difficult position right now. I think the geopolitics certainly are affecting economies to some extent. There's a bit of uncertainty. Demand has softened. I think airlines are trying to manage supply to demand to keep price up, because I can't find many cheap flights these days, but I do see lower, lower, lower demand effectively. So I think, you know, that we talked about, I mentioned cycles earlier. It feels like this cycle might be over before it properly ever began. But it feels like it might not be a proper cycle, it might be a W and we might have a bouncing, we might go back. Because I think once we have once we have the OEMs producing more output, which they will have to inevitably, they'll fix their issues with the NGs if they have to. Then I think um I think you know, by the way, once the geopolitics settle as they must, presidents come, presidents go, things change. There's there's really only kind of one problem. Yeah, yeah, but I mean Putin too, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So interesting development, yes, let's let's see what comes out of that. But um, you know, I think things must settle eventually, and I think uh we have to have faith in that. We have to have faith in yeah, human nature gives you faith that that that things settle and um you manage through. So I think the industry will resume growth.

Gueric Dechavanne 50:37

Yeah, uh, I mean it's it's definitely interesting how um I think also how how I I I don't know if what's the right wording, but if it's desensitized to global events, how the industry's being. Like I feel like as soon as the attention is taken away from what's going on in one area, people forget so quickly. Like I, you know, we were just talking about this last couple days, right? It now the the shift in the US has been you know kind of focusing on the potential trade war with Canada, right? Nobody talking about the war in Iran, right? The fact that it's still there, that the the you know Strait of Hormouth is still closed, there's no resolution, but now all of a sudden you look at the news and it's like how many items are talking about that? Not very many. So people are like, oh, it must be it must be over. We're not talking about it, but it's not, right? And it's yeah.

Rob Morris 51:24

And and and and actually the one thing that that it must be over, we're not talking about it, that we need to start talking about, I think, is is sustainability.

unknown 51:31

Right.

Rob Morris 51:31

And I'm in Europe, right? You're in North America, we've we perhaps come from sort of different lens, but uh, you know, in UK here, we've just been through the hottest summer on record. Right? I now I'm not a climate scientist and I don't have a particular formed view, but but it certainly is getting hotter. I I retired to spend a lot of time in my garden, which is I've got quite a big piece of ground out there. Um I've given up in the garden this year. I can't, I can't beat the climate, I can't keep things alive, I don't have enough water to do that. Um so I think I think you know, whether aviation contributes to that or not is is it is a debate to be had. I think the one thing we haven't done very well in this industry is is is explain why aviation is so important to the global economy and to the global society, because it is, right? It does generate wealth. We talked about it earlier with the DTI stuff. Um we think about our travel, right, broadening horizons. We all want to go and see new things, see new experiences, something that my parents' generation couldn't do. They couldn't travel travel once a year in Europe if they were lucky, they could never dream of coming to the United States, or I can get my son to come to the US three or four times a year. So we've got to think about how we tell the story about how important our industry is, how important travel is to the global economy and global well-being. But then also how we are working really hard to mitigate the emissions we generate through our travel, because the reality is we're gonna generate CO2 for a very, very, very long time in this industry. We're probably the hardest industry to decarbonize of any industry globally, you know, because the the laws of physics make it very difficult to lift these huge structures off the ground through anything other than carbon fossil fuels.

Courtney Miller 53:26

It's a brand uh not a branding problem, but it's a messaging uh problem. Now, granted, I'm saying that from my home office in Texas. Um, but I I I I truly think that it's it's a case of missing the point whenever they talk about whenever people talk about sustainability, it's always, well, we have to or it will never work. Like it's just those are the two, those are the two arguments. No, no, I I don't care if it'll never work. We have to. And then the people are like, yeah, well, it well, it'll never never work. But the reality is, I mean, in the middle, right? Not even not even in the middle, not even assuming that's a spectrum, because it's not. They're both just kind of off to the side. Um, but what's so fascinating from my perspective is I look at this, not as a guy who lives in Texas, but as an aviation guy. Um, one, there's definitely a tragedy of the commons. That there's so much attention paid to remember acid rain. Remember that? That was fun. Yeah. Um, and we fixed it. The problem with acid rain was it's a local phenomenon. So it falls more or less on the people who are polluting. I mean, it moves, but but still it's it's a local phenomenon. The problem with carbon is even if Europe continues to do what Europe does, China's still gonna pump carbon into the atmosphere, and it's all the same atmosphere. The Middle East is gonna do it. Uh, Texas, they we apparently love to do it, uh, right, because whatever. And then you have a messaging thing. But aviation is both doing incredibly well and not great at the whole sustainability. Obviously, it can be better, but I always ask the question when it comes to sustainability uh from an aviation perspective. Dollar for dollar, should we be spending money on aviation sustainability initiatives, or should aviation be investing in power in dollar for dollar, more carbon can be taken out. But they should go buy a coal plant and just turn it off. Um but but again, that's not I that's not the solution either, right?

Rob Morris 55:38

It's a debates in me have though, Corney, because you're you're right. Okay, uh my my point earlier, this is a very aviation is probably the toughest or one of the toughest industries to decarbonize. Right? I I'm looking out of my window uh at two cars with two retired people, but we've got two cars sitting on on the driveway, one of one of which is uh purely petrol, the other one is now a hybrid, but it's petrol hybrid. I haven't taken the leap to full electric yet. But you talk about China, right? China's seen the opportunity, it's in the leap. China is starting to dominate electric vehicle sales. And if we can take all of those all those fossil fuel-powered vans, trucks, cars off the road and generate the electric vehicles in an environmentally sustainable manner, environmentally responsible manner, then then we can offset it. We can offset, we can find ways of mitigating the limiting. Because everyone says to me to say, oh, aviation is 4% of CO2, Rob, I say, Yes, but if all those other industries are decarbonising more quickly, how long before aviation is 10% of CO2 Burbably, or 20%, or whatever, or 100%.

Courtney Miller 56:44

Because I am what a great problem to have. Like I'm here for it. I agree. That means that they all the the 96 came down.

Rob Morris 56:52

That's great. I agree, but I'm certain the last barrel that gets pumped will go into an aeroplane. I'll be gone by then. I'll be long gone by then. But the last barrel that gets pumped goes into an airplane.

Courtney Miller 57:01

So we need to think about that. We've stopped talking about it.

Rob Morris 57:05

In 2020, at the conference we did speak about it a bit, but we stopped worrying, and we don't really talk about it very much. And we're we're 2026 now, we're six years further on towards the net zero pledge. And if you look at the data, the data says that yes, there's some efficiency, but actually emissions globally from aviation last year were greater totally than they were in 2019. Okay, traffic was like five or traffic was probably eight percent up, emissions were three percent, there's a five percent efficiency in there, yeah, but it's not enough, given that we've only got twenty-four years to twenty fifty.

Courtney Miller 57:42

Yeah.

Rob Morris 57:42

So you know, we've got to do something about it because we've got to we've got to stop the branding point you make, we've got to stop talking about it. We've got to either say the reality is we can't do enough, we've got to use other industries to help us do enough. Um, what was that?

Courtney Miller 57:59

I think. I'm not convinced the economic, like what we get for it is the right solution. And the reason why, like making the argument, well, look what what it does for the economy for two reasons. One, uh the best way to show how valuable something is is just turn it off. And we just kind of did that. Yeah. And people were like, oh, wait, I kind of like that. So whatever. So the value's there. But the other thing, the argument inherently is hey, it's okay if we're destroying the world. Look at how much money we get to make off of it. Like, that's what the that's that's what that economic argument is. And I totally get the sustainability side of that argument.

Rob Morris 58:39

Like, so but it but it but it's flipping back to what we do with the money, right? It's it's like what what because and so I actually I have the I used to have this debate at home, right? My wife was a nurse, my son's a teacher, right? They're both they're both relatively poorly compensated for doing jobs that make a difference to people's lives. Right? Me, I just advise people on how to make money out of aviation. That's it particularly well. I mean, this is so this is almost like a political point, but but you know, I don't really make a difference to people's lives other than help them make more money. But it's what you do with that money, it's how you it's how you apply it. It's almost like a socialist point, it's how you apply that money. How you help people and so if we make more money in aviation, can we help people decarbonize with it? Can we improve their improve their uh health, their education, their social wellbeing, their housing? I think you know, now that's not what capitalist systems do. But to some extent a capitalist system will destroy itself if it doesn't think about that. And that's a very European point of view, probably. But it's how we have to think about things in the future. I mean, otherwise, if we don't do that, I mean I I I come from Europe where they they take the stick approach, right? The stringency approach. If you don't do something about it, I'll make you do something about it by charging you a huge amount of tax or limiting the amount of emissions you can make, will try and stop you growing, and that's not a that's not a good healthy thing in the end.

Courtney Miller 1:00:04

Well, people naturally push back. I'm not making this argument, but people will naturally push back. So if you think about what's happened, forget the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2026, if we really think about what's happened, I I would say the world or humanity, the people in the world, our collective psychology has shifted from, hey, we need to work together, which is a very pre-pandemic mentality, pre-Ukraine, pre-Gaza, pre-Iran mentality of we need to work together and solve this. To the mentality now is we just gotta get all of it that we possibly can because somebody's gonna come try to take it from us. That's quite dangerous. And then you then your garden dies. You see, you see the Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Rob Morris 1:00:58

We've we've we've become we've become parochial. We've become we've become we've stopped being global and started being nationalist, if you like. And and and and that's where, well, if one thinks about the politics of I'm not okay, I'm not hate- I hated history at school for various reasons that but but think about the history of society and think about you know colonialism. I come from a country where we were, you know, we w we're not having to apologize for all of our colonialism over the years, but uh you could argue that our colonialism has helped societies to do to evolve. Now, if we'd left them alone, would they have evolved? Who knows? So big argument to make, but it's but you know, we've now gone back to that again. It's like just grab what we can for us, you're right. And that's not it's not globally helpful.

Courtney Miller 1:01:41

No, it's no, it's not. And and we're getting we're getting things like food production and farm farming and like the UK, what Europe, all of Europe just went through, I say, as I sit here with all my window shades drawn, because it's over 100 degrees for like the 50th day in a row, you know, here in Texas. Um but from an aviation perspective, it is both, you know, I really, I I'm very critical of of how aviation has approached this because not because of the attention paid to it, but because it was all hollow. It was it was messaging. So here I'm here I'm making the argument that our messaging is wrong and that it's messaging at all. Because remember, remember hydrogen? Remember, I mean, like they're just like, oh yeah, wait, never mind. Which we all knew it would happen. Yeah.

Rob Morris 1:02:37

You're right. So that but that's understanding the issue. That's that's knowing that what because I've seen those messages delivered at conferences, events where the person saying it clearly isn't body language gives them away, right? So you go, well, what are we gonna do? Well, what are we gonna do? Well, we're gonna um back to the technology point. We're gonna we're gonna try and burn 15% less fuel by delivering leaps and GTFs, but we can't get the technology to be to be robust yet because we're really pushing the the field of physics to to make these things be more efficient. Uh the biggest issue for me there is though, we we we gave all that we've been we've been preaching efficiency for well, at DTI in the 90s, right? It was about efficiency, that technology. That technology delivered efficiency. What did we do with the efficiency? We gave it back to the customer to generate more demand. So instead of instead of chasing yield down the yield curve the whole time, we possibly should have kept yield a bit more stable and let demand be a bit lower and not had to go for growth all the time. But that's what people do, right? Businesses want to generate more wealth, they want to generate more money. It's human nature. It's human nature. It's human nature.

Courtney Miller 1:03:44

Not only that, I I'll say probably the most heretic, well, I say a lot of heretical things, but you know what would really help with aviation emissions if fuel price doubled again. Right? And not even just aviation, right? Think about think about China, which you mentioned with the electric cars. Suddenly, it's now twice as valuable to China to continue to push that technology because the price of oil was is is double what it was months ago, right? Like it it sometimes it's it's it's just gotta stink enough for us to to fix it, right?

Gueric Dechavanne 1:04:21

Yeah, but that seems to be the trends, right? I think you need to it needs to get really bad before people do anything about it, right? Um, which is kind of like we really shouldn't be going into it that way, right? Because otherwise, you know, you're always gonna have politicians are gonna figure out a way to try to when it get when it starts getting really bad, it's like, oh no, we'll try to, you know, solve it over here, and so then it it it's less bad. And then you get back into the stage where people forget about, I mean, you know, for the longest time, right? People are talking about like ESG and sustainability, right? And then the last couple of years, that kind of went away. It wasn't as big of a deal because now all of a sudden fuel went back down. And you're like, okay, well, you know, we have to be on that that path to keep going rather than like go strong for a couple of years and then you go back down and then you, you know, you take two steps back, and then you have to, you know, it's kind of like it it just doesn't get you anywhere.

Rob Morris 1:05:10

No, no, no. And and and the issue for us is time, isn't it? Right? Because then there's it industry technology development is a it takes takes a long time, right? Look at look at how long the GTF was first doing, what, 2015, we're in 2026, 11 years on, we've still got the problem. So technology takes a long time to develop, and and and c climate scientists tell us that we we have less time than we used to have. Listen, I used to, I'm I'm not uh I'm rubbish at art. I felt my RO level at school, which is which is sort of my primary level. But I wish I could have drawn this cartoon many years ago because I used to talk about this. The dino two dinosaurs talking to each other. What are we gonna do about these comet things? Well, yeah, we could put up some, but let's build some roofs, let's do this. By the time they took us took a decision, the comet got them, right? What are we gonna do about climate change? Is it too late? That's a bit of a doom mongering type statement. I I'm sure it isn't too late. I'm sure technology we can do things, but actually we really do need to pick the pace up because you know they tell us that next year's going to be even hotter. Frankly, I retired to enjoy my summers. I really haven't enjoyed this summer very much because it's been too hot. By the way, Courtney, it's been 100 degrees here for quite a few days. We don't have aircon. So we really struggle with it. So yeah.

Courtney Miller 1:06:22

That's that that's a you problem. I mean, look, that's easily a solved problem.

Rob Morris 1:06:26

Well, yeah, it is it is Courtney, but you know what? In the UK right now, they're trying they're encouraging us to stop using gas for our boilers and start using you know heat heat pumps. Um, I hear now heat pumps can't get the house on above 18 degrees on a cold day. It gets pretty cold in the winter here as well, though. Maybe it won't anymore, I don't know. But it's just a there's a lot of inertia. A lot of inertia. That's the final point, actually. Technology inertia, right? Even though we're we're burning 15% less fuel on every Neo and Max, we've got more COs and NGs and we'll have still for three, four, five years and more. Yeah.

Gueric Dechavanne 1:06:57

So what I'd imagine. What do you think drives the what's going to push the next generation of airplanes? Because they're there, you know, you're if you talk to the manufacturers, right, they're they're happy to hold off because they need to make, you know, they spent so much money on these airplanes, they need to figure out how to make it back, especially on the you know, the engine guys, too. So they'll wait as long as they can, but there is gonna be a push that where they have to do that. So what what do you see as uh as kind of that next push to make them have to come up with something new that's that much better?

Rob Morris 1:07:33

It's a great question, Garrett. I think I think the the the the push, whatever it is, could be climate or it could be economic, what it probably economics we're gonna want economic change. But the but the issue for me is technology, right? What technologies do we have that we're starting to mature now that could bring us another 15-20% step change in efficiency? Because you know, we know that airlines tell us that we don't we don't want to go new unless we get a proper efficiency gain. And so what could that be? You know, we've been we've been building cicar tubes with wings for you know a long, long time. So aerodynamic technologies are coming to to to to the edge. They're probably not no much further to you. Now we're looking at geometries, but we've been talking about geometries for 50 years. Blender wing bodies were flying during the Second World War, but they just didn't work. So you know, we've we've tried all sorts of things like that. Is there much more you can get with the thermodynamic route? I don't know that you can. I'm not a you know a technologist, but I'm not sure you can. I don't know what there could be. Manufacturing will give us some efficiency, but that's a price efficiency.

Gueric Dechavanne 1:08:43

Right. Yeah.

Rob Morris 1:08:44

Not necessarily a sustainability efficiency. So I don't I don't know, Gary. I can't I can't see a revolutionary change, which is why I therefore would be confident in advising people investing in Neos and Max's because or 350s or 87s, because I don't see alternatives.

Courtney Miller 1:09:05

I mean, if you think about it too, there's an incentivization problem. I I'm thinking about that more behaviorally than than mono money-wise. Um who actually wants new technology right now? Like everybody will stand up and be like, oh yeah, no, absolutely. That's exactly what we want. And the and the engine OEMs and the aircraft OEMs go to the airlines and they're like, awesome, guess what? We found another 15% fuel burn. And they're like, uh-huh. Like, I listen, I'm sure you did. I'm sure you did, but how much more is this engine going to cost just to hang on wing? Right? So now we have that perception. That's a long perception. And so the airlines are hesitant to make to make the the deposits for these programs that need to happen. The engine OEMs are like, well, if we don't do anything, then we just make more money longer on this stuff anyway. The aircraft lessors are like, don't like just just freeze everything technologically right here, um, because that maintains our residual values. So there's we're not getting the push from the operators that we used to get.

Rob Morris 1:10:15

That's almost backing to where I started when we talked about what I did at DTI many, many years ago. Because then because the market was failing to invest in far from market technologies, government intervened and government tried to sponsor. And that's a again, that's kind of almost like a socialist policy rather than a capitalist policy. Capitalism says, you know, market leave markets to themselves. And UK government shifted to that way. That's why our industry is in such a mess right now. We haven't got any manufacturing because we we stopped intervening. Other parts of Europe did intervene, China still intervenes. Um, yeah, so we have to think about whether there is a role for government or quasi-government type funding of some mechanism that helps these technologies develop where where the the near market says all we care about is price, right? And all we care about is making more money. Because again, as consumers, all we care about is price. When I when I sit and watch the news today, I hear the government and we have a we have a regulator for energy in the UK, and they set a cap on which the private companies may charge every quarter, and they look forward, so they just they just set the price cap to go up in the next quarter because energy prices have gone up so that so you know the profit margin can stay the same. That's nuts. Why have we got a regulator stepping in and telling the market what price it can set? The market should be competing against itself and setting price.

Speaker 2 1:11:38

Right.

Rob Morris 1:11:39

Yeah. But because we've let that go, the genie's out of the bottle. We do that. So the government kind of needs to intervene, but shouldn't intervene. I don't know, I don't know how, I don't I don't have any political view on that, but to some extent, government needs to help the technology if the market won't.

Courtney Miller 1:11:56

And it's it's I mean, look, I mean, purely from a philosophical level, government is social, right? So it's not just a question of, oh, is it a socialist government or is it capitalist government? No, no, it's it's social. That's what a government is. So it's just a question of where you you decide that is. This is what government is set up to do, to be the collective uh regulator, you know, will of the people, kind of uh generally. Um, but we're in those massive cycles. And right now, the massive cycle is one of nationalism, which by the way, is is on the very front edge of coming out of a massive cycle of globalism, uh, globalization. And so it it it's probably gonna be a while. I mean, if we just go by if we go by that.

Rob Morris 1:12:43

Yeah, this is this is almost this is a very heretical thing to say, and maybe I shouldn't raise it, but I will. You can't back down now. But I can't. This is about democracy now, right? So we live in democracies, we're privileged to live in democracies, but the problem with democracy is that the people that run democracies get elected. So they need to they need to win votes, right? So they need to do things that are populist, because they need to win votes. And that that that that mitigates against long-termism, because they did they need to do things that get people's imagination today. If if one thinks back to one thinks back to the the the the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, not saying it was a great place to live. I don't know much of it. I've read some of the history, but when it was all centrally controlled and managed, people knew what to expect. They got enough, they were happy enough. Okay, it should have been better and it could have been better, that was a bad thing. But actually, they didn't have to be no one needed to win their vote, so they could manage for the greater good if you like. Not saying it's good or bad, but you know, the fallacy and the other problem with democracy is the fallacy of democracy is it a bit like forecasting. Democracy assumes that I understand every issue. Again, you know, there's a wide cross-section of intellect that may not understand every issue, but they all get a vote.

Courtney Miller 1:13:59

Not some issue. But the problem is they think they understand it. Exactly. Or we we think that's what we're doing.

Rob Morris 1:14:06

We have to include ourselves in it, right? But the media helps us understand, and the media has a vested interest. Correct. You forgot to do the air quotes. Sorry. Sorry.

Courtney Miller 1:14:17

But uh the comparison there together. Like to like today, I I think the the very appropriate examples is China. They're the long-term, like, they're they're they're just playing, they're playing the long game, right? And doing it, doing it very well and and and rightly so. But in like I mean, let's let's face it, the US is what a what a dumpster fire, right, from this this perspective, right? But it's a four-year cycle.

Rob Morris 1:14:44

Four-year thing. Like, let's come back to China for a minute, Courtney. You said come back to China. I get asked about Comac a lot, right? And Comac, when I was at SURIM, Comac were clients of ours, right? And they were I've got some good friends at Comac, got to know some good people. But Comac has that very, very long game in mind, right? When people talk about Comac, I mean when when I hear a CEO of a leasing company say last year, well, yeah, it'll be ABC by 2030, it'll be that they'll be a third player, and they go, Really? Really? They've delivered, what, 12 aircraft this year? Okay. Their aspiration is to build 100 aircraft a year by 2030. Airbus aren't probably going to do a hundred a month before 2030, you'll do a hundred a month now. So, you know, but long term, I used to say, don't worry about the C909 or the what was the RJ21. Right, that was about designing and building an airplane. Don't worry about the C919, that's about certificating and putting it into service, but locally. Don't worry about the wide body, worry about the next one. Because rather like electric cars or rather like uh solar panel technology or or wind technology, they're they're they're they're making great strides behind the scenes we don't know about. Now, this is a very difficult industry, you know. The the the last, the toughest thing of all is to is to as as as as Pratt and Whitney and GE are discovering still now, is to is to build uh a large turbofan engine and Rolls Royce and make it robust in service with 99. something percent dispatch reliability, flying 150 cycles a month or whatever it is. That's that's the most challenging technological issue this industry f faces, and I don't know that China is any more able to do that than the you know, GE or Pram Whitney or Rolls-Royce or or or MTU. So I think that's why China's gonna take a long time to get there.

Courtney Miller 1:16:41

But they they're okay with that too, right? I mean, that's the it's that long game. But so what I find so interesting about Comac in particular, um so all uh aircraft listeners are probably not the they don't have the right perspective to consider the long game for Comac, right? Because they're looking at liquidity, market liquidity, and and that will probably not never be there in our lifetime from Comac, the the type of market liquidity that we think of. So to have A, B, and C in that context globally, it'll probably never get there. But consider that C has a captive market, yeah, and it's themselves. And it's and if you just take away the China market from A and B's forecast, it's enough to make Comac very, very successful. And it still puts a a crimp on on everything else. They don't have to be liquid, they don't have to be able to do that.

Gueric Dechavanne 1:17:45

Well, they don't have to be global either, right? They they they they can serve their own their own markets, but also I think they have enough allies or relationships or anything that they'll be able to go to different places, but it's still a disruptor, right? That's the thing. At some point, it's a bigger disruptor for both Airbus and Boeing.

Rob Morris 1:18:01

I think I might I might disagree with that, though, Garrick, on this basis. So when I think back to again when I started out in 1990, when Airbus were manufacturing a handful of HV20s a month, um, and the and the key manufacturers were Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. The argument that Europe used to run was that that the US, which was half of the market at that stage, has this huge captive market, which is Boeing and Douglas. And that is where Boeing and Douglas are making their money. And Airbus needs to break into that or use Europe to become that other player. And it took Airbus probably 30 years from 1990, when I started to 2020 to become the market player that led the market, 50% market share. Douglas was taken out by Boeing, blah, blah, blah. So it took 30 years, and Airbus became the predominant player. And the US is now what uh 20% of the market or less. China is not at the moment 20% of the market. Yeah, the the whole of Asia is 33% of the market today. So I don't think they give China enough in the long term. They have to break out of that market. Now, I get your stuff about Belt and Road in there and that the markets they they they can influence to some extent, although I still think back to the MA60 that was delivered to Nepal that never flew because they couldn't get captains trained because they couldn't get manuals that weren't in Chinese, right? So you've got to learn a lot. You've got to learn about support, you've got to learn about 24-7-365 support and 99.7% dispatch reliability, spares holdings that facilitate that. You can't just do the old and the Russians did this as well, you know, ring them up front on Friday at half past three and say my aircraft's AOG and pull them back on Monday morning as weekend. Goodbye. That doesn't work. They've got to learn such a lot. So that takes a long time, and that I think, you know, that's why I say building an airplane is fine, building and certificating is fine, building and certificating and delivering is fine, building certificating and delivering supporting. Wing hearts and minds, even right in China right now, it is a nationalist thing to get on a C919. If you're a passenger, you get on a C1919, that's what you do still in that society. But I talked about this the other day in a LinkedIn post with someone, he was looking at it, looking at the inducted fan. I said, Hearts and minds again. That looks to me, if I'm uninitiated like a turboprop. I'm not getting on a turbo prop because I know they're not safe. That's what I think of as a passenger, right? And so there's lots of things, hearts and minds, and it's going to take China a long, long, long, long, long time.

Courtney Miller 1:20:35

I I don't think they're necessarily in conflict. I don't think either of those ideas are necessarily in conflict with one another. The difference between kind of what Garrick and and I guess myself were saying and what you're saying is simply time. Yeah, time. You're right. Right. Um, but but the engine is is that's that's really good because that extent. If they don't have the leap one C, if they don't have access to that, yes, they're building their CJ1000. CJ1000, yeah, yeah. Uh but this is where I lean more towards Europe. Like, there's just there's no way because that because it it's just gonna take it's just gonna take so long. Um but but but in the end, like does that really like to to China, does that really matter? I don't think Airbus is the right analogy to make. Because they had just different different needs. I think with China. I mean, and not to mention they are so emboldened after BYD and what like I wow.

Rob Morris 1:21:37

But but then I but then I come back to that sustainability point. So, you know, if I think back again to 2021 and 22, when everyone was saying we've got a huge imbalance of demand and supply, right? We've got this demand has recovered quickly and we can't get supply back quickly enough. And everybody said, Oh, don't worry, 2025 will be doing 75 and Boeing will be doing 55 and blah, blah, blah. And it'll it'll supply will correct quickly. And I and I was standing up at conferences then and saying demand could come down as much as supply could come up, right? Don't don't take demand for granted. Now, I didn't see I didn't see what you know what was happening with the geopolitics for sure. It was just like make the point rather than forecast it, because I don't forecast it anymore. But guess what happened? Demand softened. Now, in the long run, we talk about 20 odd thousand new deliveries in 20, or 40,000 new deliveries in 20 years, fleet with this big blah blah blah blah blah. That's based on 4% per annum growth, used to be 5% per annum growth. Don't take 4% for granted. It might start with a 3, it might start with a 2 because of the sustainability point. Because if the planet, if the climate scientists are right, if, if, if, I know it's if, and we can't do something about that, demand and and by the way, we've become more parochial, more nationalist. Talked about why people want to travel still, but perhaps we're told not to travel, perhaps we don't need to travel anymore. Perhaps it becomes a bad thing to travel. Don't spend your dollars in Europe. Spend your dollars in the US. Don't spend your euros in the North America, spend your euros in Europe. Maybe I don't know. So I I think we all think that or we all take for granted the long-term growth. And I do think it's a long-term growth industry, because 1% growth today is worth a lot more than 1% growth was worth 30 years ago. But we've we shouldn't even take that growth for granted anymore. We need to be conscious of the risk.

Courtney Miller 1:23:28

Especially considering the point of reference. So this is what I find so fascinating about the industry today is is it a long-term growth industry? Yeah. And it will probably continue to be. Um, but what's your point of reference? Like, what do you think normal is? Was it the middle of last decade? Because I would argue that was just insane. Yeah. Right? We can't, there's no way it's a long-term growth industry at five plus percent, like it was like it was in the 2010s with negative interest rates and all this stuff.

Rob Morris 1:24:00

So I mean, so what so what was Airbus? Airbus and Bond talked about Dublin every every 15 years, right? I've I've I've had a 35-year career. I looked at the numbers, right? In in in in May 1990, when I first went to work at Hatfield or British Aerospace, the global fleet of commercial passenger and turbops in service was 10,700. Right? Today, or when I looked at it the other day, 28,000. So it's nearly trebled in 35 years. It's doubled in 15 years, it's doubled in but it's slowing down a bit. But it but you know, that 28,000 will be will probably be 40,000 in 15 years' time.

Courtney Miller 1:24:38

It will be greater than 28,000.

Rob Morris 1:24:40

Absolutely, absolutely. Because again, you know, there are 18,500 narrow bodies in service today. When we came out of the pandemic, it was 15,000. So there are three and a half thousand more narrow bodies in service today than there were. Lots of them were stored and they've come back. Lots have been delivered. Um, yeah, I think, and and and by the way, the final point, and this is a this is a point for investors, I think, is that I do think economic life does risk becoming shorter. I do think that for now we're operating older aircraft for longer because we can't get enough delivery from Airbus and Boeing. But that that will flip in the next two or three years. And when that flips and Airbus are Airbus will do 75 at some point, I have no doubt about it. Just when. Boeing will be doing.

Courtney Miller 1:25:24

At exactly the wrong time.

Rob Morris 1:25:25

There are the history of this industry, accordingly. But I think this industry has got better at that. I think it has got better at it. Because by the way, if there are if they are putting out 75 and Boeing are putting out 60, and there's 18 and a half thousand Arab bodies in service, then we're not if we're not growing, it's wrong time. Just replace them. Right? Well, I used to look at I remember putting this chart that when I first went to to uh to Ascend in 2012, I I was looking at capacity metric measures then, and I was looking at replacement versus growth. I tried to look at the Curium data as it is now, the fly global data then, the Ascend data then, and just measure how many deliveries each year were for replacement versus how many were for growth. And it was cyclical, of course. And and and there were there were times when every delivery was for replacement because there was no growth. So it's just it's it's basic arithmetic on numbers. It's it's it's and we'll have that again. But I think, you know, when I started, 40% of deliveries or less were for for replacement and 60% for growth. Now it's 50-50. I honestly believe in 10, 15 years' time it'll be 60-40. There'll be more for replacement than for growth, because there's going to be 20,000 narrow bodies in service in three years, four years' time, and they'll they'll have an average age that's gone up by two years. They're gonna need replacing. Shame is they've got very, very, very robust technology, well under economics, plenty of shops that can maintain CFN 56-7s or V25s or 5s, but they burn too much fuel, and by then, who knows where fuel price will be.

Courtney Miller 1:26:54

You know, uh the engine OEMs could have solved their own problem by if if they have a time-on-wing problem with the new technology, they created it by having such great old technology. That's their own fault.

Rob Morris 1:27:09

I mean, then by those promises, right? This gear turbofan or this leap will have the same maintenance costs as your CFM 56 or V2500. The whoever said that and made those calculations, frankly, should be shot because they just got it so wrong. But their point of reference was those engines, and they believed they could be robust. Um yeah, they got it wrong.

Gueric Dechavanne 1:27:38

Yeah, yeah, and it's it I don't think it's gonna get any better in the near term either, right? I mean, yeah, you know, we're we're we're talking about this earlier today in terms of like, yeah, you've got the existing technology that's out there that will only probably get uh less expensive to maintain as you start to see more retirements, more part outs, more stuff that kind of normalizes that market again, while the new tech is getting more. More expensive every every year, right? And it's still not performing as it should. So you still have those two dynamics that are going on that makes the older stuff still look very attractive for quite some time.

Rob Morris 1:28:11

Derek, I fondly remember the debates I used to have with my appraiser colleagues. And um I I'm not an appraiser, right? And I'm not smart enough to be an appraiser. I never I never studied to do be an appraiser, but we used to discuss, we'd be in conversation with clients, and my one of my appraiser colleagues would say, Well, yeah, the GTF's got problems, but the advantage will solve it. We believe the advice, and and I would go, hang on, why do we believe that? Because because Pratt, when do you say so? Well, hang on, proud of what you said, this would work. You've been to their briefings, and you know, I know, but we all I come to their briefings. I've got to say briefings and they're very convincing. Then we go to the other guy's briefing, they're very convincing, but they don't actually deliver. The same leaders say, if I work for if I was in fleet planning for an airline, I'd I'd hate that job because in fact I'd love it really, but I'd hate it for one reason. Airbus come and tell me they've got the best airplane in the world, and I believe them. I look at the announcements and I believe them, right? They leave, Boeing come through the door and tell me they've got the best airplane in the world. Oh yeah, they're right as well. What's the truth in all of this? Right, yeah. What's the truth in all of this? So getting it and the truth is what you just said that actually these things are going to take a long, long time to fix. We we we shouldn't believe the briefings we get, we should question the briefings we get. Because actually the proof it's an old old English saying, I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating, right? The recipe looks great, but if it tastes dreadful, and it's not that they're lying.

Courtney Miller 1:29:32

I I think I think that's the difference. It's it's that they don't know. And uh that's even unfair because they have their engineering projections, they have their wear projections and stuff like that. And this is why that that podcast we did with Steve Becker, I need to figure out how to better ask this question. I want to know how long it's gonna take before we can actually know. By that I mean how long before there's even enough data. Because if you put in a fix today and you want to push, let's just say you want to push cycles from 7,500 to to 10,000, well shit, it's gonna be it's gonna be four years before we even hit it find an airplane that hits that.

Rob Morris 1:30:12

I and that's the point, that's the point, could it? We live in this, we live in this data-enabled world. We've got big data, like we've got we've got more data than we can eat these days. Um, but but but we only have the data that is either real time near time, real time or historic. And so, you know, back to that point in April 2020, what's going to happen? Well, the best I can do is monitor and try and spot inflections. The best I can do is use the data. We can use that data. As we build the operational data up, we can see if things, we can see if if if if EGTs are getting better, we can see if if if you know we can examine some material and see if it if it looks like it's not developing crap, or whatever we do. But we won't know until we're there. Um and there's gonna be, well, I I love a band in the UK called Dismiss, they're a bit a bit a bit black, but I have a song called How Soon Is Now? How soon is now? When do we know when now is? Because we won't know when now is until we're there.

Courtney Miller 1:31:05

That's great. Yeah. That's really good. And that so what you just laid out, Rob, you without uh you may you probably knew it, but but without explicitly saying it, you just laid out the case for gray-haired forecasting aviation analysts. And and it's coming. Like I'm I'm working on it. But especially, and this is a topic for a different time, especially with AI, we haven't even touched on that. Really, what what you're talking about is looking back with all the data we have, it still takes, it still takes that forward-looking vision um to do the job of just improving things. And that's kind of what we do.

Rob Morris 1:31:49

Yeah, exactly. We we try and bring clarity. We try and bring clarity to confusion. We try, I mean, I think my I would say my whole career, and there's nothing special, no qualifications in this, right? It's about a passion to take the complex and try and reduce it to the simple for people who cannot quite see the same level of complexity or understand that we could. That's what it's all about. It's helping people to understand so they can then better do their jobs.

Courtney Miller 1:32:17

I love it. I I think that's poignant.

Rob Morris 1:32:20

It's been fun.

Gueric Dechavanne 1:32:21

It's been a crack and age.

Rob Morris 1:32:22

You know what?

Gueric Dechavanne 1:32:23

I I think on on that note, I think we might that might be a great point to to wrap up. It's been uh you know, I've been at it for an hour and a half. So but um yeah, I mean I think that's that's probably a great way to end before we get into something else that takes us for another hour and a half into something in another direction. I'm gonna do in that if I know Courtney. Yeah. So I get into AI, we'll be there forever.

Rob Morris 1:32:42

I'd say one thing about a time and so don't rush to it because actually uh I had a vision and the vision's not quite the same because I miss this. This is what I miss. It's the interaction. If I I love my time, but I miss the people. I miss the team I work with daily. I have to work hard to interact with them, and the interaction at events is something that at the time feels hard. Work. I remember you know going to Buddhist and having 35 meetings in two days and thinking that's knackerin. But actually, in hindsight, it was energizing, it was exciting. Yeah, oh yeah, it was a privilege, and there are people who could have done jobs that never got anywhere close to what we get, so this industry is just something else, it's magical.

Courtney Miller 1:33:20

Listen, Rob, as it just so happens, we have a podcast, and we're gonna have to do this again because I think there's a whole second, third, fourth set of discussions for us to have. Uh yeah, this was fantastic. Thank you very much, uh Rob, uh, for your insight, experience, interesting way of by the way, the the most underappreciated aspect in this line of business is just your ability to communicate it um and and to take those ideas and and pass them on to other people. So yeah, thank you for that as well.

Gueric Dechavanne 1:33:57

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for taking the time. It's been been fun. And well, like I say, yeah, we'll definitely have to have you on again, um, especially you know, now that you're just kind of looking at it from you know from the outside in and you can just kind of give your views based on what you're keeping track of, which is great. Um, so so we'll we'll do this again for sure. But thank you very much. Thanks, Turnham. Have a good rest of the day. So sorry, I'm all stuffy. I don't know why, it's really annoying. Uh you know, it's just I always get stuffy just when I start talking to you. So it must be you.

Courtney Miller 1:34:34

I must be allergic to you and your bullshit. You know the you know, that's what they call me, old Courtney gets the mucus flowing, Miller. We've definitely met our quota of British guys with chemistry. Yeah, between the graduate degree. Yes, right. Chemistry stuff between the BAE stuff. So BAE's everywhere, man. You can't get away from those guys.