Airlink CEO Steve Smith, a passionate advocate for redefining disaster logistics, sits down with Karen Walker to talk about how his nonprofit supports communities in crisis as it marks 15 years of operations.
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Transcript
Karen Walker:
Hello, everyone. And thank you for joining us for Window Seat, our Aviation Week Air Transport Podcast. I'm ATW and Aviation Week Network, Air Transport Editor-in-Chief, Karen Walker, and I'm delighted to welcome you on board. Now, joining me today is Steve Smith, who is the CEO at Airlink. Steve, welcome. Great to see you again.
Steve Smith:
Thanks for having me, Karen. It's great to see you too, or hear you on this podcast.
Karen Walker:
Now, Airlink, if you don't already know, is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization that delivers critical and urgent aid to communities in crisis by providing airlift and logistical solutions to nonprofit partners, and that literally changes how the humanitarian community responds to disasters worldwide. Its network includes more than 200 aid organizations and over 50 airlines, and it's celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Airlink has flown 13,500 relief workers and transported some 18 million pounds of humanitarian cargo, directly helping some 60 million people impacted by natural and man-made disasters. It's truly an amazing organization, and Steve, you've been just central to this and how well Airlink has done over the years. So it's always wonderful to catch up with you, and congratulations on reaching the 15th anniversary. I'd like to start, if I may, with this year, and maybe if you look at events around the world these last few months especially, political, geopolitical tensions, lots of things changing all the time, does that impact first of all the types of crises that you're seeing and how you can get the sorts of support that you do to these places?
Steve Smith:
Sure. Well thanks, Karen, and I'm exhausted just hearing all the numbers that you've just mentioned, 15 years, so we're very excited to be at that benchmark. Yes, wow, what a lot of changes this year. So many different changes in terms of geopolitical landscape. You've probably seen the dissolution of USAID, the biggest funder of humanitarian and international assistance ever. The magnitude of that, around about I think it was like $30 billion, that amount is more than the next 10 countries in total. So you can imagine how much of an impact that's had on the sector at large. But it's not just US government and USAID that's pulled back, it's also other European governments as well, and so we're seeing a real big sea change in how governments are acting and approaching humanitarian needs.
The problem is that humanitarian needs are not shrinking, they're expanding. We're now at over 300 million people around the world that need ongoing humanitarian assistance. And these cuts to funding are absolutely detrimental to some organizations, a lot of organizations, and so the entire sector is going to have to reinvent itself, the humanitarian sector. For our partners and for Airlink, our partners are anywhere between the loss of $100,000 dollars to $40 million in terms of contracts all around the world. Airlink itself also had a contract canceled for some of our responses in Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia Pacific, and so we need to figure out how to plug that gap. And so yeah, lots and lots of changes around the world.
Karen Walker:
It's a tragic meeting, if you like, of these cuts happening and people withdrawing from helping to fund these activities, while, as you say, the crisis seem to come more regularly as well, and in surprising areas in some time. And you are dealing with a whole range of different things that you're getting. And Airlink, I think, the real golden part about what you do is that you get the stuff that has to get there quick and fast, yeah?
Steve Smith:
Yeah, that's right. The role that we play, and no man, no organization is an island, but Airlink, with our built-in, our innate aviation airline support base is in a strong position. However, if you can think about, that's the supply side of how we do it. But now you think about the impact of all the nonprofits and the response organizations moving those relief supplies in, or now they don't have the funding to go buy the relief supplies, not all of the relief supplies anyway. But I think there's going to be an increased demand, there clearly will be for what we do, and this is an amazing opportunity for the aviation sector. I'll say step up, but they've been doing that for decades, but now there's a lot of conversation around not just within aviation and around the model that Airlink has, but other sectors about how commercial organizations can support humanitarian relief and international aid in the way that Airlink's model has worked for the aviation sector.
So we're really leading in that sense, and so again, we're pretty well poised, however, the response of the humanitarian sector in general is still undefined and it's going to take a long time to figure out what that looks like in the future.
Karen Walker:
Not surprising to me, because I've been watching the work you've been doing for so long, but it sounds like you've become a standard bearer, if you like, for how to do this, how to bring communities together. It's about having the right communities, isn't it, and making sure that they are credible, vetted and all that, and then letting them work together.
Steve Smith:
Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's a big part of it is the nonprofits that we work with, we spend a lot of time to vet those organizations, so that when an aviation company, airline, or a donor, individual donor supports us, I really do think we fly around, maybe not literally, but with all those logos and those brands on our tail, and so we've got to be very careful the partners that we put up in front of them and support. And so we spend a lot of time vetting organizations, and that's one of the key things that we do and spend a lot of time on.
Karen Walker:
And it's also a great thing for an airline for their brand to be attached to that sort of work. I'm a big fan of airlines, and I say the good that they do is it goes way beyond just connecting people and getting them to a to B, that's important, but they do so much good, and this is a really great way for it to be seen.
Steve Smith:
That's right, this is a real bright spot. There's lots of discussions around whatever it is, air traffic control delays, there's always these negative stories, emissions, but this is something really fantastic that's been happening within the airline and aviation community that probably doesn't get as much coverage, so thank you for inviting me to the podcast, but it really doesn't get as much coverage as it really deserves. Because whether it's through Airlink, it's not just through us, airlines are supporting individuals, humans on a very basic human level every day to make their lives better, connect them, connect communities, but they're doing it every day and so people should realize that.
Karen Walker:
Absolutely. Also, this year, you have three new members of the Governor's Council, of the Airlink Governor's Council, all big names in the airline industry as well. Just tell us about those.
Steve Smith:
That's right. Yes, we're very excited. We have three new individuals that have joined our Governor's Council, which is a group of aviation airline CEOs that really support and endorse what we do. Sean Doyle, the CEO of British Airways. We have Badr, the CEO of Qatar Airways, and also Rob Watson, who's the CEO of Rolls-Royce. So those are great organizations, they don't need any introductions, and they're great individuals for supporting what we're doing. We're very excited.
Karen Walker:
Excellent, excellent work, and really important that people understand just what airlines are doing through this organization. Just talk a little bit about the big things that you are doing right now.
Steve Smith:
Sure, I'd be happy to. So we all follow the media. We've been responding in Sudan, in the DRC conflict, sending relief workers, responders, cargo as we do, mostly medical supplies. We've even sent some things to Yemen, to Haiti, to Syria now that they've had a change in leadership there, we've had our first shipment to Syria. Now, some of these places are very complex places, embargoed places, so again, that vetting is really important. Spend a lot of time on that. And I think that the other one I would mention, I may have mentioned Myanmar already, but just to give an example, that one's very much ongoing right now. We saw the earthquake recently, coordinating with over 20 different NGOs. We actually sent a charter flight in, which is the only non-governmental flight that I believe has arrived so far, it'd be a very difficult place to get access to.
And so we've had a couple of staff deployed, and one of the things we don't talk about too much is the coordination effort. So we've got 20 different NGOs that we pull together. We've got coordination calls to share information about how to get access, what are the right things to do, how do you get customs clearance, all these different things. So some of these things are perhaps not the most exciting things to talk about, but absolutely critical. That's Myanmar and Sudan. Again, we are setting up air bridges and sending new flights to Chad near the border to send things in. So that's one of the things that, again, that Airlink does.
Yes, we use the Global Aviation Network, it's put up, stitch them all together, and create a super network, but we're also stitching together carriers and legs that may not naturally fit together. They may not have interline agreements, we're making those things happen. So we may fly on a partner we'll come up with in a second, but Qatar Airways, for example, may fly something from whether it's US or it could be Dubai into a central position, and then we'll charter the last flight to get it to where it needs to go.
Karen Walker:
And that illustrates just how complicated all of this is. It's big enough saying, "We're going to first of all find the aid, find the medical people, find the water, find the stuff that's needed, and then we're going to find the planes that can get there." But it's much more complicated than that, and I think that's the magic of Airlink is that you're gluing together all the complicated behind the scenes stuff.
Steve Smith:
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And listen, yes, of course, our name is Airlink, but I'll tell you for Haiti right now, with the unrest there, none of the US flag carriers can go in. So actually now we need to think about, okay, we'll put things on the ocean. We can't put it over the road, we did that for Ukraine, so we're looking at other modalities as well. Not quite ready to change our name yet to all modalities Airlink, but we've got to be creative and think about how we can get things done.
Karen Walker:
You've just mentioned Ukraine, can I pick that up with you? I just had the privilege, I was at the Roots Conference in Seville in Spain and met an executive at Kiev Airport. Incredible story, it really is. How they have no passengers, no people, but their staff turn up and keep that airport operational so that it can one day just start again. And they're checking everything, running everything every day. It's an amazing story. You've been involved, Airlink's been involved in that. What's going on there right now in terms of what you're involved in?
Steve Smith:
Sure, so Ukraine, we were operating within a couple of days of the initial outbreak of the conflict, and we worked for probably a couple of years actively, and it became our biggest response that we've ever been involved in. Over 1,000 tons of relief supplies, 1,000 responders, and we still get some requests to fly things in. Now, it's obviously a very well connected place to Europe, and the resilience of the Ukrainian civilians is really amazing and your story is really, really great. But we still continue to respond and help where we can. Obviously airlift is a very expensive way to move things, and so we also try to be a bit careful and responsible about that, but where it's saving lives and where it's really important, we'll get involved and we'll do it.
Karen Walker:
Excellent. You mentioned Qatar Airways a little while ago. I know that they're a very important partner in all of this, and just a little bit of news here as well. I'm also delighted to say Airlink is a partner with ATW on one of its awards, it was a new award we launched last year, and it's called the Humanitarian Force for Good Award. And the whole purpose is to really highlight an airline or an aviation company that is really stepping up on that side and that aspect. And this year's recipient is Qatar Airways Cargo. Steve, tell me a little bit about what they do with Airlink.
Steve Smith:
Yeah, sure, I will. And listen, Karen, we're so honored to partner with you and ATW on this award, and they're a really well-deserving organization, a very big partner for us. We've now been in partnership about seven years, and it first started with our Cyclone Idai, which was in Mozambique in 2019. And the partnership has really grown to really become somewhat of a backbone of our responses. They have such a tremendous network with such a broad span, and oftentimes we don't do a lot of PR about some of the moves we do. Because it may be getting something on the first leg and then we're figuring out a second leg, or usually the whole way through, they have such a good network.
But working together now, we've saved about almost $8 million in transportation costs for humanitarian organizations. Because remember, Airlink rallies the aviation community, and so the NGOs pay no cost. So all the things we're doing is for free. It's almost 1,000 tons of aid that's been sent. And we estimate those programs. Every time we send a shipment, we get reports back and say, "Okay, these pallets of X have helped Y many people for this amount of time. And so when you aggregate all of that information, we're at about 15 million people that we've helped through our partnership with Qatar Airways Cargo, and so that's across 36 countries all over the world. And again, I say they're so well-deserving, we really appreciate them, their support. And they're a very dynamic organization, I don't know that there are really many requests that we make of them that they say no at all.
Karen Walker:
I know it's something that's very important to them. As you said, they're very well situated where they are geographically, and they have a great network. They also have great cargo capability as well, but I also know that it comes from the heart with them. They really want to be actively involved in this. So I think it's been a great partnership so far, and I'm sure that will continue. By the way, thank you very much, Airlink, for partnering with us on this. It was a good conversation we had, wasn't it, about, "Well, what can we do here? I know, an award." And United Airlines won it last year, another very deserving partner, and this year we'll be doing the gala dinner for our winners in Lisbon, Portugal on December 11th, adjacent to our CAPA Airline Leaders Summit and the GAD World. If you're not sure what that is, it's the Global Airport Development World Conference. So it's going to be a great event. Steve, I hope very much you'll be there with us.
Steve Smith:
I can't wait to join you, it's going to be a great event and a great night.
Karen Walker:
It is. With that, Steve, thank you. Always great to catch up with you. Wishing you every success, if that's the right word. I know it's hard work that you do, but keep on doing it. And I hope you have another good year, I'm sure you will. You'll get to the end of the year and be able to look at everything that you've achieved again.
Steve Smith:
That's great, thanks so much. And yeah, we've had a good 15 years, so we're on track for another good 15. So it's certainly rewarding and tiring work, but that's what we do, and that's when we can make a difference. So that's really motivating and exciting in that sense.
Karen Walker:
Well done. Thank you very much. Thank you to our producers, Guy Ferneyhough and Cory Hitt, and of course, a huge thank you to our listeners. Make sure you don't miss us each week by subscribing to Window Seat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen. This is Karen Walker, disembarking from Window Seat.
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