Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Arnaud Martinez: As a Saudi Arabia, that's the place for new technology.
There's no better place.
How crazy is your ideas?
The funding, the end user, the operating model?
All planets are aligned for coming to Saudi Arabia, investing in Saudi Arabia with any crazy IDE that serves the purpose.
[00:00:25] Intro: Welcome to HangarX Studios where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across the aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
Our guests include aviation experts, pilots, financiers, military leaders, and innovators of all types.
Buckle up for another episode of Hangar X.
[00:00:55] John Ramstead: All right. Welcome to the Hangar X podcast and we are live at Verticon where we interview the leading minds and this is where you get to find out the information before they make the news. And I'm excited today to have the CEO of the helicopter company, thc, Arnaud Martinez. And they. They call you Captain. Your team calls you a captain?
[00:01:14] Arnaud Martinez: They call me Captain. Yes, correct.
[00:01:16] John Ramstead: That's right.
[00:01:17] Arnaud Martinez: You can call me Arnaud, no problem.
[00:01:20] John Ramstead: I'll call you Arnaud. That's fantastic.
[00:01:22] Arnaud Martinez: Please.
[00:01:22] John Ramstead: So tell us about what the helicopter company is, thc, and your mission and what you guys are doing and where you're based.
[00:01:28] Arnaud Martinez: Look, thc, the helicopter company is a unique company, not because I am the CEO of it, but because it has been unique growth and unique segment of operation and unique ramp up since six years. And I think we have unique employees as well. So why unique growth and ramp up? We have started six years ago with a very single mandate is to bring air mobility support to the GEGA project. What we call GIGA project in KSA are the Red Sea project and NEO mainly.
[00:02:02] John Ramstead: Okay.
[00:02:02] Arnaud Martinez: And from this very specific support that we were supposed to provide and we move into a way larger scope of operation. So we are unique with the number of segment of operation that we have. We operate on the tourism, we operate on aisle work, we operate on the sports, entertainment, filming, la, Hollywood, production, movie. And we are one of the biggest segment that we have. It's our medical segment, Emergency medical segment.
[00:02:31] John Ramstead: Yep.
[00:02:32] Arnaud Martinez: We do some search and rescue as well. So it's a very large scope of operation in terms of growth. We have been in the past two or three years growing at an average of 15, 20 aircraft every year, which is requiring a focus on safety, focus on process, on procedures, on having the right discipline. It's very challenging. But the growth and the biggest challenge was to onboard not two aircraft per month, it was to onboard 30 people.
[00:03:02] John Ramstead: 30 people a month, every month.
[00:03:04] Arnaud Martinez: So when we started six years ago and where we are today we are 1000 people and we have.
[00:03:10] John Ramstead: How many people did you have six years ago?
[00:03:12] Arnaud Martinez: We were three, four.
[00:03:15] John Ramstead: And how many aircraft?
[00:03:17] Arnaud Martinez: One. We had one, we were four or five people. We had one operating base, now we have 60 plus. We will be way more at the end of the year. We have an average of one base open every six weeks. So we have 15 base right now covering 70% of the Kingdom and it's a huge country, believe me. So we have 15 bases and we onboarded 30 people average every month. We have 51 nationalities in the company. So all these exciting.
[00:03:51] John Ramstead: That's a very diverse culture, isn't it?
[00:03:53] Arnaud Martinez: Yeah, we try to and I think so far we successfully embedded one unique DNA and we always talk what's that unique DNA. So we always talk about branding, naming, naming and branding and marketing. But I think the best marketing tool you have is your employees. And the DNA of THC employees is really sky is the limit. Any crazy ideas or any.
We are solution focused, deliverable focus. We are committed.
I'm extremely lucky to have such at the management level and below and at my board level a very consistency focus, commitment and discipline around all these things. So of course we do mistakes but we feel very much embedded in the Saudi vision and this is our main.
So whatever we need to provide, we need to provide it by yesterday because this is what we feel and we go through in Saudi Arabia. It's a fantastic country on the high speed train change and we have to provide a solution by yesterday. And the employees are every day providing solutions and trying at least their best to provide the solution.
[00:05:09] John Ramstead: Yeah, and you talked about the Saudi vision. What is the vision that brought you from three people in one airplane to a thousand people in 70 airplanes over six years? That must have been quite a mandate.
[00:05:21] Arnaud Martinez: It's exciting but at the same time you need to focus on the core. The core is to be safe.
So you have to approach that with. I know we call ourselves the helicopter company but still we need to approach that humbly.
You stay humble, you try to onboard know how people.
In the meantime I have a very experienced team around myself. You never grow so quickly alone. You need to onboard people who knows plug and play with a clear mandate to develop mentor Saudi talent as well. So we try to bring both the expertise and the plug and play people with experience on this helicopter fields and also the open mindset to develop Saudi talent. And this me I love. That's my favorite place. And as a CEO my favorite focus is how to develop people, how to mentor them, how to invest time on developing them. That's what I love.
[00:06:25] John Ramstead: So it sounds like people is your.
[00:06:26] Arnaud Martinez: Real product because at the end of the day, we are down to people. If you don't have the right people, you don't deliver the right level of services.
Aircraft are very reliable.
We onboarded aircraft that on the best aircraft, for the best missions, there is very limited doubt on the capacity of the aircraft. But if you don't have the right people to maintain the aircraft, to fly the aircraft, to sell the aircraft, you don't do anything.
[00:06:52] John Ramstead: Yeah, I love that. And you know, you mentioned, you know, one of the segments that you're focused on is helicopter emergency medical services.
[00:06:59] Arnaud Martinez: Yes.
[00:06:59] John Ramstead: And I'm sure that that's very important. I'm actually the people again. Yeah, well, my life was saved from a life flight 10 years ago. I would have died had the helicopter not showed up. I was at a very remote loc. But I'd love for you to talk a little about what HEMS is in the kingdom and your mission there.
[00:07:16] Arnaud Martinez: I could talk about that for hours.
I'm CEO and board member and I think that the main, I would say the main comment I would have is that at the board level, this is the number one priority. How we impact the life of the people and how there is no bigger impact than saving them. And when you save a life, you save the life, but you impact the life of the people around them.
You're saving the son of someone or the sister of someone or the father of someone. So you impact.
[00:07:46] John Ramstead: So here's an interesting step for you. I read after my life flight, when life flight saves one life, 71 lives are profoundly impacted and I'm not surprised. So think of the multiplication effect of that.
[00:07:55] Arnaud Martinez: Hopefully you will come one day in the. What I have been establishing on the HQ is to make sure everyone understand this objective of saving life as quick as possible to deploy and at the same time was very important for us, but to do it safely and to take, take care with the right level of care. On board we have a live, live dashboard where every day a live dashboard is showing you how many life we saved and how many mission we did. And I want everyone to be driven by that TV that we have in our hq.
[00:08:29] John Ramstead: Yeah.
[00:08:29] Arnaud Martinez: Understanding that whatever you do at the end of the end it's the helicopter will be airborne on time, the maintenance will be fixed, flying safely, training has been done, equipment is on board and you come on the scene, you save life.
I'm proud that since we started we saved up to 4,500 lives so far in six years.
No, we started three years ago.
[00:08:54] John Ramstead: Oh, in three.
Phenomenal.
[00:08:56] Arnaud Martinez: In three years.
And number two numbers that I'm very proud of is that we had zero death. And we are only going on a very critical.
It means that our level of care onboard, the level of professionalism of our paramedics, the level of equipment, the level of care of these people that we are going on scene to fetch and to bring to the right hospital, we bring them safely and we had zero death ratio. So I hope I'm touching wood. I hope it will continue like that. You're always dreaming and hoping that you will not have to take off because it means that people, they didn't face a crash or didn't face. But life is life. You have accident happen.
[00:09:40] John Ramstead: Well, you know, it's pretty incredible. You're taking what could have been the worst day of a family's life, of course, and turning it into a miracle that they'll talk about for years.
[00:09:48] Arnaud Martinez: The best reward I personally receive as a CEO, when we saw one day on Twitter someone who just tweet the following sentence, thanks God, thanks our leadership. His Royal Highness Crown Prince thanks THC for saving my brother. Wow. And this sentence became a court. We put that on the wall. And because that, that was the best reward. It's better than money or bonus and stuff like that. You know that you are. You wake up every morning and you say, okay, I'm useful, right? I'm doing something that impact people. So that, that's.
[00:10:25] John Ramstead: Well, I can feel your passion there. I can tell this is very meaningful for you personally.
[00:10:28] Arnaud Martinez: It is personal.
It is personal at the board level, it is personal. At the chairman level, it is personal for our shareholder. Look, we are owned 100% by sovereign fund. You would imagine that we are financially driven. We also are financially driven. But that's not the main KPI. The main KPI is how many life we save. The main KPI is how safe we are. And the main KPI for us is also how we engage our employees, our human capital.
So that's very clear at the board level.
[00:10:59] John Ramstead: Yeah, well, and I know you're continuing to scale and grow, so share with me a little bit about your current fleet and what does your plans look like the next year or 2?
[00:11:07] Arnaud Martinez: For the EMS segment or overall?
[00:11:10] John Ramstead: How about both? Let's start with Overall.
[00:11:12] Arnaud Martinez: On the EMS segment, we are covering right now 70% of the Kingdom. And the objective is to quickly, within the year, year and a half, is to cover 90% as you open More bases? Yes, more bases, more aircraft. The objective is 90% because the 10% remaining are always a compromise between is there a need for what we call the empty quarter?
There's no people there, it's desert. So there's other 10% remaining that we don't plan to cover. But 90% means that anything happen to you, anywhere you are within the kingdom, you should have a THC aircraft able to search you, find you or rescue you.
That's the plan.
At the broader level at the fleet, we will have another 26 aircraft delivery this year and another, I would say up to 15 next year.
[00:12:00] John Ramstead: And I think is that adding to service or are you retiring some?
[00:12:03] Arnaud Martinez: So we do both. We are trying as a fleet strategy to always keep aircraft with the right aircraft for the right mission, with the right equipment and keeping it on the, with the right support of the OEM and the right warranty. So when we have to focus on our core, our core is to operate. I don't have always the capacity to maintain all the fleet on the major checks. So we try. We have our leasing and trading branch with rototrade that we own at 100%.
And so we have a way broader approach of our fleet strategy that with a fleet committee where we know every year how many aircraft will really exit and how many aircraft we are onboarding with an average of, if you look at the past five years, it's an average of 100% growth business wise, revenue wise on an annual basis. So it's of course we are adding on segments and missions and bases. So we on board 26 aircraft this year, 15 aircraft next year. I think the kingdom capacity for THC would be around 100 aircraft at the end of the day.
[00:13:14] John Ramstead: Okay. And you had mentioned before because I'm just curious about the vision for the Kingdom.
[00:13:19] Arnaud Martinez: Saudi vision?
[00:13:20] John Ramstead: The Saudi vision. You have the vision for thc. How do they fit together or how are you supporting the Saudi vision?
[00:13:25] Arnaud Martinez: We are perfectly embedded. The Saudi Vision 2030 that we are. Maybe you heard that Saudi Vision 2030.
It's not something, it's real.
People who never visited our beautiful country should come and you, you come and you come back six months later and you understand that how quick the country is moving. I'm used to say I left my country 25 years ago and I don't know two country like that. It means that a country with a desire, a vision, the capacity to execute the vision and the focus from the leadership and with clear KPIs.
I'm not working in Saudi Arabia. I'M working in the company Saudi Arabia where we have a clear, clear KPIs and deliver in THC. Our KPIs is very complex and simple at the same time. We are the operating supports, helicopter operating support to any vision. Sports, entertainment, hospitality program, tourism development, medical services program. We just have to support the Saudi vision from this perspective. We have to do it safely and we have to do it with a brand new technology as well. So we are designing.
It's a bit like you stand up and you run.
[00:14:44] John Ramstead: Right.
[00:14:45] Arnaud Martinez: Usually people stand up and walk. We had to stand up and run.
[00:14:49] John Ramstead: You just kept going, keep going and.
[00:14:52] Arnaud Martinez: Then until there's no more fuel in the tank. Right. We fly. So.
[00:14:56] John Ramstead: And you stop and refuel.
[00:14:57] Arnaud Martinez: I'm a fixed wing person. So as a captain. So we call that a rolling takeoff. Yes, it's a rolling takeoff. There is no lineup, weight, parking, brakes. It's rolling takeoff.
[00:15:08] John Ramstead: It sounds more like a navy takeoff where you just get on the catapult, one and a half second later you're 50 knots.
[00:15:15] Arnaud Martinez: Business wise, we did that as a helicopter. It means that we vertical lift, vertical takeoff. And since we started, we never stopped climbing.
[00:15:24] John Ramstead: Love that. Now you talked about new technology. So as we wrap up share and there's a lot of technology that we're here at verticon.
[00:15:30] Arnaud Martinez: Yes.
[00:15:30] John Ramstead: Right. There's all kinds of new technology coming out. There's new platforms, there's new powered lift is a whole new category of aircraft. How important is innovation and how are you as CEO thinking about innovation as THC grows and scales again?
[00:15:44] Arnaud Martinez: Let's park THC for a moment.
As a Saudi Arabia, that's the place for new technology. There's no better place.
How crazy is your ideas, the funding, the end user, the operating model, all planets are aligned for coming to Saudi Arabia, investing in Saudi Arabia with any crazy IDE that serves the purpose of. In our case, in the. Of course we designed a roadmap on how to, as I mentioned, stand up and start working a bit. It means operating conventional helicopters. So we did it with very reliable platform and with two very solid partners on both oem Leonardo and Airbus. But immediately we designed for what is next. And the what is next is our evtol technology.
And it's coming very soon. It means that the question is not anymore should we or should we not. The question is when and how and how. But the how we still I think we see it. It means that we started from zero in Saudi Arabia, but on the helicopter point of view, it's a fixed wing Lens. But on the helicopter side, as a commercial operator, we were the first one. So of course you face a lot of obstacle regulation, airspace restriction, infrastructure. But that's the only place, again, where you can put everyone around the table, innovate quickly and make it work.
And you will get clear instruction. You have 90 days. Make it work. You have one year. Make it work. Now try that on IASA, on FAA. It's not easy because you have a huge infrastructure legacy.
And in Saudi Arabia, there is one clear direction, which is the Saudi vision.
And everyone, including THC as an operator, needs to make it work.
[00:17:37] John Ramstead: Make it work and make it safe.
[00:17:39] Arnaud Martinez: Because I know that's important. Make it safe first and then make it work. And EVTOL job is in front of us.
I was visiting them in San Francisco 10 days ago.
Seeing is believing.
I'm not a dreamer. I am very pragmatic person. So I visited them, and I have to be honest, I went there a bit backwards. I said, okay, evtol, come on, guys. Maybe I will retire before I see it very clearly in the sky of Riyadh. In the sky. And then I visited there, and I saw the platform flying, and I saw how ready they are in the certification phase, and I saw how ready they are in the manufacturer side of it. And I dealt with visionary people.
And the connection is immediate, not only with Joby, but with Archer, with EV and all these kind of EVTOL OEMs where again, I always passing the same message to them. Saudi Arabia is your market. Saudi Arabia is the land to come and test the platforms and invest and look for investment and local content and moving, even the production there. Because at the end, the would be the end user.
[00:18:48] John Ramstead: Yeah, love that. Well, Arnaud, thank you so much for your time. I'm so glad you came.
[00:18:54] Arnaud Martinez: Okay, I can continue like that for an hour.
[00:18:56] John Ramstead: Well, you know what I would love after verticon, I would love to have you come back on, talk about what you learned, where you guys are going, because there's so much more. Yeah, we just have limited time here, but this has been fantastic. And I would definitely just have the door open for you guys to come on anytime.
[00:19:12] Arnaud Martinez: Appreciate that. Come to visit us.
[00:19:13] John Ramstead: Well, our team is going to be going to the Middle east in, I think in the next three months.
[00:19:18] Arnaud Martinez: So forget Middle East. Come to Saudi Arabia.
[00:19:20] John Ramstead: So I know we're going to Dubai, but we'll have to make a trip to Riyadh.
[00:19:23] Arnaud Martinez: You might never leave again. It's come to Saudi Arabia. Okay, thank you.
[00:19:28] John Ramstead: Wonderful. Well, keep knocking them alive and keep up the good work.
[00:19:30] Arnaud Martinez: Pleasure. Thank you.
