Podcast: Gulf Air CEO Martin Gauss On Leadership, Strategy And Change

Martin Gauss, newly appointed CEO of Gulf Air and recipient of Air Transport World’s Joseph S. Murphy Leadership Excellence Award, reflects on nearly 14 years in charge at airBaltic and the leadership lessons he's learned. Gauss also shares his early priorities after taking the helm at Gulf Air in one of aviation’s most competitive regions.

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David Casey (00:10): Hello and welcome to Window Seat, the Aviation Week Air Transport Podcast. I'm David Casey, editor-in-chief of Routes. Welcome aboard. On this episode, I'm joined by my colleague, Victoria Moores, European Bureau Chief at Air Transport World. As we sit down with the new Gulf Air CEO, Martin Gauss. Martin spent almost 14 years transforming airBaltic from a smaller regional player into a leading carrier in the region, an Airbus A220 operator with 50 aircraft and a network of around 140 routes from five bases. In November, 2025, he started in his new role as CEO of Gulf Air, Bahrain's national carrier, and if that wasn't enough, he's just received Air Transport World's Joseph S. Murphy Leadership Excellence award. Martin, welcome to Window Seat and congratulations on the award.

Martin Gauss (00:57): Thank you for having me here on this podcast. I'm very honored to receive that leadership award. I'm in this industry now for 33 years. I'm leading airlines for 21 years and it's a leadership award, which I received as a person for doing the job as a leader. But of course, I had to be recognized as a leader, which was by the people who I was leading, and I give a big thank you to the team in a Baltic, which enabled me to have the success together with them. I'm now moved on and this gives me additional wings for doing the new job because if you get recognized as a leader in our industry, you come with that recognition into the new job. And of course, I want to continue a success story where I paint a vision going forward and then we execute a business plan following a vision. So this is my intention, what I want to do in Gulf Air, and I'm early, I'm six weeks into the job now, but I'm working on this. And then I hope that we in due time can talk about the details, but again, I'm very honored to be recognized for my leadership.

Victoria Moores (02:08): Let's reflect now on your time with airBaltic. Like you say, coming up with a long term strategy for the airline that you're working with, which is variable based on how circumstances evolve during that time. And that's a strategy that you've successfully rolled out at airBaltic across your 14 years there, transitioning over to a single fleet with the Airbus A220, which you've been a very strong advocate for. I'm wondering what would you say was your most challenging moment or a moment where you would change a decision during your time with airBaltic?

Martin Gauss (02:41): Definitely, I think for all of us in the industry, it was when COVID hit and the airline was grounded, we had to take a decision, what do we do? Because we didn't know at the time when we would fly again, and the biggest change in decision was to ground the turboprop fleet earlier, not use it anymore, and to accelerate a decision to go to a single Airbus A220 fleet. I think that was the biggest change in decision because the business plan called for a gradual phasing out of the existing fleet and then COVID bringing the airline to a stop changed that. But at the end this was a very successful decision because when COVID was over, we came with a fresh fleet and it helped actually building the product you have today.

Victoria Moores (03:26): And that really does reflect the kind of way that you're going into your leadership with Gulf Air. It shows that there's that ability to have a plan, but also to dynamically change the plan as circumstances evolve.

Martin Gauss (03:39): Yeah, I do believe that you can have a vision, but you cannot say how you get there. You will always have on reaching your vision moments where you're deviating from it, which are outside factors, but if you keep the vision, you can go back to be on that line you used to be, and I draw this sometimes as a graphic for younger people who ask me and I say, there will be many things happening to you which you can't influence and you can decide to give up on where you want to get to or you go back on that line, which is a straight line to the vision, right? It will have lots of these downturns, but as long as you believe that what you have planned makes sense, you just focus on it and fight your way back. And this will help any company.

(04:27): What we're missing a little bit today, not only in our industry but in general, is people who have a vision, a long-term vision and don't get disturbed by things which happen from the outside. And I do this, I do this already for a very long time and it has been very successful. So I intend to do the same, come up with something which is long-term and I'm talking here about 10 years plus, and then go into the individual year, do a budget, do a business plan, and live with the things which happen and deal with them but not lose where you wanted to get to.

David Casey (05:03): And as a leader, you touched on some of the challenges that you faced at airBaltic in terms of the pandemic, we saw the Russian airspace restrictions. There's obviously been other geopolitical issues and challenges. Did some of those issues change you as leader? Has your leadership style changed within the last few years in response to those challenges that you faced?

Martin Gauss (05:26): No, it didn't. It didn't change me as a leader because again, closing of an airspace and a very dramatic situation was a war next door just forced us to do something with the aircraft. We had surplus suddenly and what we developed, which wasn't part of the vision, was a second business model, wet leasing aircraft out, which became a more successful part of the business today. If we look at EBITDA numbers than what we were doing before, over time, of course it'll equalize following two models, but it didn't change my leadership style, it just confirmed that you're confronted with a situation and you make something out of it, which you didn't know that it would be ending up as being the financially better option of what you do with aircraft at the time. So my leadership style has not changed. I have not deviated from the tools I use in leading a team and I'm doing, for example, weekly town halls. I did that in airBaltic from the very beginning. I have introduced this in week one in Gulf Air now, and it has been received very well because it is something which is my leadership style.

Victoria Moores (06:37): So far we've focused on the executive side of your time with airBaltic. Obviously after having transformed an airline over the course of 14 years, that's a personal achievement as well, and you'll become the people that you've worked with, the team that you've established. How has it been personally to leave the airline after 14 years?

Martin Gauss (06:59): Not nice. So I do miss the comfort you have when you work with a very professional team, the day-to-day understanding of the other. And I had a very strong team, so I leave a very strong team behind there and I miss them from a professional point of view. And what I try to establish a strong team where I'm now looking at who is there and with the tools I have, trying to identify who are the leaders who can do again a success story with me. And that's a process which I'm in now. But looking back, of course, you miss one morning going into a management meeting where you'd exactly know even the small talk which would be happening if there's a conflict between two of the leaders. And you would exactly know who and who would say what. This is now being new in the job, not there yet, but I'm identifying already key players, which I want to work with going forward.

David Casey (08:02): And as you said, you've been at Gulf Air now for quite a relatively short period of time. Has there been anything though that's surprised you since going into the airline, anything that's been radically different from what you knew at airBaltic and what you've seen in other airlines that you've worked in in the past?

Martin Gauss (08:19): Yes, definitely on day one, entering the headquarters and there's a lot of pictures on the wall from the history, 75 years history, first in the Gulf, having incredible history and all of that is pictured on the wall. So I went there in the first day and took photos of that just to understand the potential of a brand. Gulf Air as a brand is known in some parts of the world as an iconic brand, but I think it's not used today to that extent. And if you ever thought about running a strong brand, then you would go there, see this and you would see a lot of opportunity. So that surprised me because I didn't know that because I hadn't been in the headquarters before. It gives me a lot of pleasure every day going in and seeing the history of the airline because there used to be a very well respected airline globally, and I want to bring that back.

(09:15): And that surprised me because I was expecting more an airline where you come in and then you fix only the airline issues. Here I have a brand, which is as an example, I was in Nepal the week before I started and I was in a taxi and I said I would be going to Bahrain to start working and the taxi driver said, and I said, where I will be working? And he said, wow, Gulf Air, that is a strong airline. I didn't expect that. So there is a very strong name out there and I want to bring that name back, but I want to also connect it to the kingdom of Bahrain because I think that has not been done with all the growth around us in the region. It looks more from the outside, at least when I ask people in Germany, then they say Gulf Air, I don't know, they fly to Abu Dhabi or they fly to Riyadh, which we do. But people would not say, okay, they are flying to Bahrain. And that is something of course as Bahrain is our home airport. I want to bring back as well to change a little bit, what is the [unclear audio] serving

Victoria Moores (10:18): You mentioned there about brand identity and really bringing back the Gulf Air brand. Obviously in the Middle East we've got some very, very large, very powerful brands. How is it going into Gulf Air knowing that in the neighboring states that you've got these mega carriers, particularly Saudi Arabia, which has got a very, very ambitious aviation growth strategy?

Martin Gauss (10:41): I do recognize in a very short distance from us is Qatar, then we have in Dubai Emirates, we have it in Abu Dhabi, we have Saudi, we have Riyadh Air setting themselves up in Saudi Arabia and many more around us, all larger than Gulf Air today. But Gulf Air was actually the first airline in the Gulf 75 years ago while some of the other countries were shareholders. And then while Gulf Air was still there, they exited, they set up their own airline, Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, they were all set up while Gulf Air was there once and then they outgrew Gulf Air. And now if you look at Saudi Arabia and they announced growth there, this is all opportunities having a mega carrier like Emirates next door in Dubai, which is what, 35, 40 minutes flight time away. There's a spillover effect of this positive energy, which we see now in the Gulf States.

(11:36): And the same with Saudi Arabia. We have a bridge connecting Bahrain to Saudi Arabia with a population much, much larger than the one in Bahrain. And it is only a few minutes to the airport. We have a brand new airport in Bahrain, which allows you to connect within 10 minutes if you transfer via Bahrain, but it also allows you to go through security in 10 minutes and you can come from Saudi Arabia and go there. So this is kind of a home market as well. And if we get the brand back to what it used to be, I'm pretty sure that we will have a fair market share in the region just because there's so much growth compared to other regions where you don't see the same growth figures.

David Casey (12:19): And in terms of that growth, I realize you're still new to the airline and you're still working out the network strategy. I know you've just launched a new route to the U.S., you've launched other new routes in other markets this year as well. What is the priority? Are you going to be focusing on more point to point traffic from Bahrain? Are you looking still at the transfer hub through Bahrain airport?

Martin Gauss (12:42): I will definitely focus and get the organization to focus on strengthening Bahrain as a destination that is a very clear target, which means we will see more points being connected direct to Bahrain. If you talk about connecting the latest destination, New York, JFK has been a big success without a lot of preparation, the aircraft already flies with load factors above 90%. So you can tell that that was a route needed. It was 30 years not served and there will be other points connected, but of course we keep also the airport as a hub because the advantage we have now is I think is the fastest way to transfer if you fly into the Gulf now in Bahrain, because of the way how we have set up the hub and we are smaller, so being a bit smaller than the others gives you an advantage on speed that advantage I want to leverage.

Victoria Moores (13:38): This summer we saw that Gulf Air confirmed an order for Boeing 787s. I heard you recently mention that perhaps the potential with the growth means that you might need further aircraft. What kind of thing would you be looking at for that fleet strategy? I know that it's a bit early in your tenure just yet, but you do see a need for further aircraft.

Martin Gauss (14:00): So the decision was taken before I came. It's a good decision because we fly today ten Boeing 787-9s, the order which was negotiated before I came in, but I was then closing the order calls for 15 firm and three aircraft of the same type, which means on the widebody side I'm very well set with an aircraft. And going into the future, I cannot yet say anything about the narrowbody side, but on the widebody side, very happy that an aircraft, which is the backbone of our long haul operation, has already a firm order going forward.

David Casey (14:37): We're recording at this time at the CAPA Leaders Summit here in Lisbon. A lot of the talk this week has been about challenges have been about engine issues, aircraft delivery delays. Is that the biggest challenge facing Gulf Air at the minute? Where do you see the main sort of pinch points and where are the challenges that you need to address immediately as you take over in your new role?

Martin Gauss (15:00): Yes, I would say engine. So this is obviously following me like so many other colleagues because I had engine shortage in the previous job and now I have also engine shortage, different manufacturer Rolls-Royce. And yes, that is the thing which has to be fixed firsthand because it impacts our regularity and punctuality. And one of my colleagues, [unclear audio] yesterday said something very good. He said that the task as an airline is to fly at all and then to do this on time and ideally deliver then your bags to the passengers. And if you are not as regular and not as punctual, then you're not seen as a good airline. So the first focus is with the shortages, we have to deliver what we are selling, which means fly people from A to B on time. So that is the first thing I focus on. And the reason why is because we still miss engines on the 787. Once that is done, then we will be focusing also on other issues. But that's the first one.

David Casey (16:04): Thinking back then to where we started on the podcast, talking about leadership and talking about your journey so far, what advice would you give to any aspiring CEOs? What is some of the biggest lessons that you've learned or maybe you wish you knew when you were starting out at airBaltic 14 years ago?

Martin Gauss (16:23): When you have ideas, you should talk to people who you trust who can judge on that idea and develop your vision. But check with others. If you have a mentor, if you have your parents, whatever, test your ideas, talk about them because you will always get some kind of feedback. And if you take that feedback into consideration for building what you want to build, you have a better outcome than if you say, I write this down for myself and now I present to the world. So when I have an idea, I talk to close people and say, what do you think about the idea? And I get very good feedback. And if I look back, I had a lot of people I could talk to who always gave good feedback and I still have that today. So I still can reach out and say, what do you think about this idea?

(17:10): And I do it every day, so I'm going forward every day. I want to see feedback, honest feedback on what I think so that I formulate my vision, my plan in a better way. And so this, I would recommend to people to just go and ask for feedback about their ideas to make this idea even better with an input from the outside. But you should trust the person's judgment and that person should be so close that they also can tell you, I don't think that idea will fly and you need to accept it. Right? So

David Casey (17:45): Listening to others then and having that support network around you. Well Martin, we're just about out of time, so I just want to say thanks again for joining us on Window Seat this week. It's been fascinating to hear about your leadership journey and we look forward to seeing where you take Gulf Air in the coming years. So thank you for being with us today. Thank you to our producer Cory Hitt. And remember, if you enjoy this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you listen. Until next time, this is David Casey and Victoria Moores disembarking from Window Seat.