The airline industry will not be the same, says Jerome Cadier, CEO of LATAM Brasil

Cadier spoke during the Aberje Trends 2021

The airline industry has been one of the most directly affected by the pandemic -that goes without saying. Due to its exposure and visibility in this current scenario, LATAM Airlines has increased a more significant effort in communication and dialogue with all its different audiences, whether by increasing the volume of information, changes in internal policies and guidelines, government decisions, or movement restrictions. For Jerome Cadier, CEO of LATAM Airlines Brasil, the airline industry will no longer be the same after the crisis. These and other considerations were made during the 5th edition of Aberje Trends – Communication Trends, organized by the Aberje, in an unprecedented 100% digital format and mediated by journalist Roberto D’Ávila.

“The pandemic has exacerbated the complex scenario that changes all the time, requiring us to be constantly connected, making everyone feel more worn out, more tired,” he said.

The executive emphasizes the importance of understanding that the change in behavior of meetings at work is not new; it is here to stay. Before the pandemic, about 30% of passengers on a flight traveled for work reasons and the other 70% for tourism, figures that may take a while to get back to that level. “Business travel will recover much more slowly, and I think he will not return in this proportion since the sector will be much more sensitive to price in the future. Therefore, airlines need to prepare themselves to be much more efficient, as the decision of the tourist passenger will be for the lowest price. The airline sector is going to change radically,” he said.

Challenged by the pandemic, the role of CEOs has expanded further into the social and environmental areas, in addition to earning a greater charge for governance (ESG). “The crisis accelerated this because everyone was deeply concerned with sustainability from the point of view of health and the environment, and how companies contribute to the development of society.”

As for the main communication challenges with the company’s employees and customers, Cadier stressed the difficulty of guaranteeing the veracity of the information in the face of a scenario with information that changed all the time. “We have brutally increased the frequency of meetings and communication videos and always with a narrative and reference, with a lot of repetition,” he said. “Another thing that helped to engage employees was to recognize positive examples giving visibility to people when sharing their efforts daily.”

The current amount of data and information to digest and manage is here to stay, according to the executive. “I would love to say that everything will be back to normal, that people will be back to their offices and that everyone will be back to travel, but the truth is that the last twelve months have shown many of us that digital tools are a bigger complement to that we were using before. Part of these face-to-face meetings will, instead, be replaced by digital meetings without the need to travel,” he said.