EP 148 Sky High Standards: Protecting Brand, People and Planes with Nigel Williams Global Head of Security for Virgin Atlantic

“In aviation security, there are no true competitors — just allies in the air, all working toward the same goal: keeping people safe.”

Nigel Williams — Global Head of Security, Virgin Atlantic

Nigel has extensive intelligence, investigative, and corporate security experience, having worked in both the public and private sectors, including business intelligence, UK counterterrorism and global aviation operations.

Nigel has been with Virgin Atlantic since 2016 leading their global security operations and developing their security management system into a world and industry leading capability.

He was an officer in the British Army with 25 years of operational experience, and he retired as a lieutenant colonel. 

Following his military career Nigel was engaged in 10 years of counter-terrorism operations for the UK Government; renowned for breaking down the intelligence barriers between Governments and Industry.  

Prior to his role in Virgin Atlantic, he spent 3 years in the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), providing security guidance on numerous thematic threats to the highest levels of the UK and foreign governments, the intelligence community, law enforcement and industry. 

 He continues to represent the aviation security sector at the National Aviation Security Committee, the IATA Security Council and is an advisory board member of the TingG terrorism information network. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigel-williams-400694240/

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a fab review We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays. Hi, I'm Yolanda And welcome to the Security Circle Podcast, produced in association with IFPO, the International Foundation for Protection Officers. This podcast is all about connection, bringing you closer to the greatest minds, boldest thinkers, trailblazers, and change makers across the security industry. Whether you are here to grow your network, spark new ideas, or simply feel more connected to the world of protection and risk, you are in the right place wherever you are listening from. Thank you for being a part of the Security Circle journey..

Yoyo: 1:15

Okay, so I have with me, what can I say, esteemed. All of my guests are esteemed, but some are just a little bit more esteemed than others. Yes, I have with me, Nigel Williams, global Head of Security for Virgin Atlantic. Nigel, welcome to the Security Circle podcast. How you doing?

Nigel: 1:35

Good morning. I'm doing very well. Thank you. Great to be here and, uh, delighted to have a chat with you this morning.

Yoyo: 1:40

Well, look, we're thrilled to have you. Only the best for the security circle. You've been in the security industry. Quite a long time, haven't you? But let's ask the question, and I ask many security professionals this, especially security professionals that have such great jobs, you know, was the security industry something that just attracted you? Did you join with intent or did you just kind of fall into it by accident? Like a lot of people.

Nigel: 2:04

Um, so I guess there's a, a little bit of both, if I'm honest. Um, my, my career started in the military, so there was an inevitable, sort of route there, which, which gradually brought me towards, the security environment. Some of the jobs I did, when I was in the military had, um, very much, uh, were focused on, on that sort of, More, uh, in depth security analysis, piece of intelligence and things like that. I worked in it in Australia for a bit, on, uh, in fact working with Australian, intelligence agencies. And that kind of got me interested in that environment. So, when the opportunity came, to leave the military, I was so drawn towards in those days, initially towards some counter-terrorism. And I did counter-terrorism for a while. I, and I guess once you've got into that, there is only. There's any one route that you go, it becomes, ingrained in you. And you start to become driven by that 24 7, way of life. Much to my wife's frustration, I hasten to add. I'm constantly, either on a phone, near a phone, looking at a screen, reading a newspaper or just trying to keep up on events. Um, and so,, from there, the sort of draw towards the more, commercial aspects of. Security were, again, almost inevitable. I'd been working in the government space, around, some of the threats that, aviation faced. And so it was a natural progression. And from that into, the industry and, the. The lucky bit was that people have always ended up moving aside at just the right moment to make the space for me to move into. And so that, that was more the luck bit, I guess, um, that at the moment I was ready to make some of those moves. The opportunities came up. But it does become addictive, you know, at, um, kind of, uh, that. Observation of world events, and then the thinking about how you mitigate that and how you do something about it, you, you become hooked. It's like a bit of a drug.

Yoyo: 3:52

Yeah. And I do think that there's a certain characteristic, I ask this of all guests who have what we call very prominent positions. IE they are very senior with a very well-known brand or location, you know, like Stadia for example. I always say, look, you know, if anything, in the security industry, when anything goes wrong, especially if it's associated with a prominent locational brand, it just gets in the press straightaway. And it like look at Wembley for example, a classic example of how something you know didn't go well and it was just all over the newspapers. And I've always worried about that myself, having worked for some prominent companies thinking crack as. You know, not on my watch, so to speak. When you leave and you move on, it's easy to look back and go, oh my God, that didn't happen when I was there. But it is a bit of a pressure, isn't it? Does it keep you awake at night? The pressure.

Nigel: 4:45

I think if it kept me awake at night, I'd never sleep. I, it's funny, I often get asked that question about, you know, what keeps you awake at night?, To be honest, nothing because I have really good team, that I work with who you know, and, uh, and help keep, um, the company safe. Um, but, but it's interesting what you said about brand. When I started in Virgin, I used to think about, you know, you'd think, think about physical security and you think about keeping our people safe. That was always my most important thing. You'd keep, you know, you think about securing our facilities around the globe, you think about, protecting our assets. And by those particularly our aircraft, you know, they are very expensive bits of kit, which our insurers, are very keen that we look after at all times. And then. Obviously, since I've started, information then has become more important as well. So we had this kind of, you know, looking after facilities, information assets and people, and I didn't really focus on brand, but as time has gone on, my realization that anything that happens to the brand and you see it happening to others, you realize that actually protecting the brand is also a big piece of what we do. And that might be as simple as just making sure that the right things aren't going out on social media, to making sure that. When an event does occur, that our response to that event is cognizant of how that's going to look in the public eye. And that I think is particularly important when you're talking about moving millions of people around the world, on a daily basis, not millions on a daily basis. Over the year we move millions, but, moving tens of thousands of people on a daily basis around the world. You can't afford to lose their confidence in what you do because as an airline, you know, if we look back over the years at the airlines that are no longer with us or no longer, the brand is no longer as strong as it was, that's often as a result of events that occur. And we often measure in our industry, particularly in the aviation industry, events, buy. The airline, you know, we don't talk about an event happening at a location we talk about. So, you know, the most recent one being obviously, India, you know, we talk about engine airlines, we don't talk about so much about where it occurred. Whereas other bits of industry, it tends to be more kind of geographically based. And it's an odd, it's an oddity that comes, you know, if somebody blows up a hotel somewhere, it's not often the chain that people consider it's the location. But with an airline, those events are always about the airline.

Yoyo: 7:01

Yeah, I agree. In fact, brand is important. I know I'm one of the women who absolutely loved the virgin, advert, Virgin Atlantic adverts, where the women and the captain were walking through the airport with their red high heels. And I love how the brands developed and how the brand was aspirational. So as I. Went through my career. You know, I started off as most people do with the budgets, that's what you can afford. And then I started realizing that, budget's just not me anymore. I can't do it. I can't be on that same flight to Malaga with a flight of very excited. Very drunk people. I feel that when we select where we fly now, it's more of a reflection of who we are as individuals, more so now that there's such a sort of a big bandwidth isn't there, of budget right through to high end. And Virgin's always done a great job of protecting that brand quite rightly. So I think the aspirational element is probably what's protected. You don't want any old riffraff on you. Although I should imagine there are a couple of exceptions.

Nigel: 8:11

Yeah, we, you know, it's a again, um, uh, you, you can't, you can't prejudge who comes on your flights. And I think, you know, a big part of protecting that brand is making sure that, you know, there are 350 people on an aircraft, and I want every single one of them to have the very best experience and to enjoy the virtual experience. Often it's their first time. Many people, you know, as we know. We'll save up for these events. And it's really exciting and, you know, when you walk on board and you see either the social space or the bar, sadly the bar is going, increasingly we're losing those from our aircraft, which is a little sad, but equally reflects I think, you know, the changing demands in the industry. Um. Also reflects the fact that, interesting enough, you know, one of the biggest challenges we have is, unruly passengers. You know, that's something we do deal with on a daily basis and, you know, sometimes one or two passengers on onboard an aircraft can absolutely ruin it for everybody. But equally those events are now filmed by everybody as well. And so those events have an impact on brand and, you know, quite regularly we'll see on social media something happening on board. And there's two aspects to that. One is we need to be seen to be acting upon those events. So that you as a passenger can ensure that you enjoy your, your time at the bar and you haven't got some drunk slurring over you. Or being rowdy when you are trying to sleep in your very comfortable lay flat bed that's, three feet away from that bar. We want people to enjoy it, but we want everyone to enjoy it. But equally, on, on social media now, you know, those events play out to our staff as well. And, when, whenever I'm, whenever we are dealing with security events in the company, we're always thinking it through two lenses. One is for the customer and the other is through our staff who, both deserve, uh, and need to have a safe environment in which to operate. And that of course then extends. Beyond the aircraft in terms of the crew, because, we need to put'em in safe hotels. We need to transport'em safely around the world, sometimes in relatively high risk locations. And again, any event that occurs because we are virgin, it attracts a bit of press interest as well and attracts a bit of social media interest, more so than those. It plays both ways though, to our advantage. We are. I think, last time I looked was something like the 25th, biggest airline in the world,, which is a long way down the list, but we're right up there in the top punching well above our weight. In terms of how we are viewed, by the, by, you know, generally, viewed, as an airline. Um, you know, kind of when you think, we we're a, you know, a quarter or an eighth, the size of some of these, large airlines.

Yoyo: 10:31

And regardless of size, everybody's still got the same responsibility, haven't they, to protect people and information. In fact, in the airline industry, we discussed in the pre-check, you know, you've got aircraft to protect people, which include current press, passengers, passengers, brand. There's an awful lot that comes under the remit for global head of security, isn't there?

Nigel: 10:53

Yeah. And it is sometimes, that's quite daunting, you know, when you talk about this. How do you, how do you sleep at night? It is daunting because, inevitably problems tend not to, you know, they don't sequence themselves in a convenient manner. They'll often come, with multiple events occurring over the top of each other, or one event leading to multiple other events, as well. But equally that's one of the enjoyments of the role for me. The variety that comes with that. So not only, is it a global, role, um, which ensures that, you know, we pretty much touch every, every corner of of the world somewhere with our, our flights and our. Our activity. Um, but it also means it's 24 7, operation as well. Which means there's always an aircraft somewhere in the air. There's always crews somewhere in the world on the ground, that we need to look after. And there's always an event somewhere every morning to wake up to, that needs dealing with that on that particular day. But that means that we have to have a really efficient., System for managing that threat and risk to the airline. And it means we need to be able to prioritize that in the right manner. So over time, we've built up some really effective management systems. And, you know, I'm lucky that Virgin is now. A brand leader in that space. And we're very proud of that. We worked very hard. We were what's called a Perth Pathfind Airline with the Civil Aviation Authority when it brought out its, security management system. I think that started back in 2012. We joined the program in 2014. And we were the first airline then to be operating effective under that system, which just, it provides a structure and a guideline from which to operate and helps you prioritize those risks and threats to make sure that you are dealing with the right thing at the right time, with the right resources and, but also that you've got the right resources there to deal with it. And then just this year we've, now been IR to recognized, for their new stems program, which came out in 2024. I think one of the first airlines to do And, I again, you know, hopefully a testament of what we're able to work and what we're achieving. I have to say through an extraordinarily effective and amazing team, I have a couple of, you know, managers who really are top end of their game and, that, that helps enormously as well.

Yoyo: 13:01

It is really lovely that you give credit to your team. It's a really good platform for you to be able to do that as well. And Peter Sel Drissell did as well. He's, for those that don't know, is the director, aviation security, the Civil Aviation Authority. He gave us a great podcast about, oh, I don't know, a hundred episodes ago. And he was so cool to chat with and I know that you know him. One of the things I asked him, because I think. COVID was an extremely exciting time for the aviation industry. I'm gonna give you an opportunity to talk about how Virgin Atlantic literally became a cargo airline overnight, and there is no better example for an agile approach to a crisis. Take us through, I mean, do you remember this rolling out? Do you remember the passenger numbers dwindling and stopping and what was going through your mind?

Nigel: 13:52

I mean, thank, thank you for Peter. He's a great guy and he's been a great, friend of Virgin Atlantic over the years, and very much a driver for that, stems process that we've been involved in. Yeah, going back to the COVID, it was an extraordinary interesting time and, every airline runs a crisis cell and, we, like every other airline, have a, had a particular, room back in our old base headquarters where we used to run crisis from. I never expected to spend three months of my life in there. Normally it was sort of a maybe 24 hours, four J at most, that we'd spend, but I think we are nearly three months in crisis at the beginning of that. it was really interesting to see it unfold and actually. I think because we were so close to it, not least because as an airline we were flying into Shanghai in those days. Sadly no more, for various reasons. But, that became apparent that this was something that was spreading quickly. And I think, because we were so embedded with. Events at the time, we could see, you know, you could see this sort of slow car crash coming. But as a result of which I think we had a, in our leadership team at the time, and vice our CEO, was really, quick to recognize, the potential for what could happen in terms of how the airline might play. It might play out for the airline. And we very quickly went into survival mode, and we had to, we're an airline that's partly owned by Delta largest airline in the world as our major shareholder. But of course, because of the way that, COVID was playing out, unable to financially support us. And so as an airline we had to stand on our own, and refinance. Which shy and the team did, fortuitously shy, had previously been the chief financial officer. So that, that helped enormously. It was the right time to have a CEO who was, through and through from a finance background, but it also meant operationally to reinvent the airline. And that's where the cargo piece came in. And we very quickly, started to recognize the. Benefit we could take from having, a wholly long haul fleet of aircraft. So,, all our aircraft are wide bodied, which means that they've got a large cargo capacity, which is rarely fulfilled when you've got passengers on board because of, you know, problems of issues of weight. But that meant we started flying to all sorts of interesting and unusual places as well. So everything from, I think we have, we still hold the record for a cargo. On an A three 50, which was flying something like 50 tons, of frozen salmon, off an ice strewn, runway in Norway directly to New York, to feed the, insatiable appetite the Americans for smoked salmon, and flying into, Xing in China, via Korea. Um, so. Everything was different. Everything was new., And Heathrow, which had always been, you know, a primary hub for us anyway, very much then became our primary home during that period with our major car, primary cargo operation going on there, um, and getting almost daily sort of, you know, questions from the cargo team. Okay, we've got this great idea to. Pick up this product here and take it here. Can we do that? And myself and a small, a very small and much reduced team, then trying to, to look at how we could, operate in a different way. And so during the COVID, much of our security function became one of intelligence, and actually emphasized the benefit that you have. Of having an intelligence background because we were feeding in and able to feed information into the company, about what was going on, trying to predict where each country might go. We became experts in regulation and, and what each country was putting in place in terms of, you know, whether we could stop over in those locations. Whether the crew could get off the aircraft, what the restrictions might be. So yeah, it was an incredibly interesting time and reinvent. But, but many of the things that we learned at that time, the agility, of the airline, the way that we were able to. To manage risk, and the way that we operated as an intelligence function. All of those actually have continued and played out, post COVID as well. So, you know, we've not thrown out any of that learning., We've changed it, used it, developed it, and it shapes how we've function as a security team now.

Yoyo: 17:44

It was a remarkable time, and I found certainly Shoreside, shore based on land. A lot of security professionals have started to major in health and safety. I mean, the two have always kind of been, you know, lockstep with each other, but health and safety became a primary focus, didn't it? And what you've just described is how the focus did become on health and safety as well as intelligence.

Nigel: 18:07

Yeah, well, um, we've been quite lucky in that respect in that, so even geographically in the office, we've always sat next to the health team, health, safety, security, and, um, our HSE all sit under the same directorate. And so there's always been that really close, liaison and association between the two. And often, um, you know, there's a seamless. Um, uh, join between, safety, security, and health. And that that was, yes, of course, during COVID, that was never more so than having to understand, each other's capabilities to deliver information. And then having some clear boundaries about who, who did what, because otherwise you end up your health team trying to look at regulation. And, um, facilitation rather than focusing on delivering the safe operation of of, and making sure that crew was safe operating, um, wherever they were. And we still operate closely together now, you know, with around, often, you know, disruptive passages, for example, there's often a, mental health element to that. And so we'll work closely with them, around managing those sort of events and those sort of, issues when they occur onboard our aircraft.

Yoyo: 19:13

Let's talk about perception versus reality. Going back to, I mean, I remember. Hearing members of the public on soundbites saying, you know, right. The very beginning when we knew this was breaking out in China, why are the flights still coming in? Why are the flights still co stop the flights? We happen to have the world's largest airport in our country, which I'm sure now even our critical national infrastructure. Professionals are having a review of further impacts or further, uh,, pandemics. But it's not as straightforward as that, isn't it? I mean, if you put yourself in the heart and mind of somebody who is abroad and all of a sudden, let's just say they stopped for flights, how do you get home? And I know of one guy who took him 14 months to get home because of the different legislations and regulations around how he was vaccinated or wasn't, and. Big decision for any government, especially an inexperienced government dealing with, a pandemic to sort of turn around and say, oh yeah, we're just gonna stop all flights coming in. It's just not possible, is it? And I, I guess you would be the best person to, in some way reflect on what that's like as a big decision.

Nigel: 20:19

Yeah, it was a really difficult, um, time in terms of our decision making about when we ceased flights to any particular location. And that was twofold. I mean, one is, um, I mean, just one is the commercial aspects of that. And in many respects that was almost to some degree secondary to the emotional aspects of just, abandoning people, in countries, that were not their own. And you know, we know that. Whenever we could, we continued flying right up until the time that we were prevented from doing so. And I think that's the differences the UK took that attitude, we will allow everyone to try and return home if they possibly can. And for us it was. I guess it was twofold. It was one is let's keep flying in as long as crew are prepared to do so. And of course that was one thing we couldn't, you know, when the pandemic was really beginning to build, you've got to protect your staff. You've got to protect your crew, and ultimately, you know, they will. They'll say, enough's enough. We we're not prepared to fly there anymore. This is just too dangerous. There isn't enough. You know, there are enough, not enough, measures in place to protect us, at particular locations. And then of course, you know, you've got governments closing down, but, on the commercial side, for every passenger that we, you know, left somewhere. We then had a duty of care to continue to look after that, those individuals. So, what we call our away from home policy, particularly only some of the Caribbean islands when we couldn't get in to get people out, South Africa, I had, in fact, one of my managers was stuck in South Africa for nearly four months. Um, I'd say he'd gone, fortuitously, he was a South African, so I'm not sure he made too much effort to get home. No, he did. He made every effort he could, but we, in the end, we agreed the best. Place for him to be was down in South Africa, but once he was there that we had to make a conscious decision, you know, we're going to leave you there. It may be a long time before we can get you out. it was four months before he could fly back out of South Africa. But we have a duty of Care tour, those people. So we were paying for hotels, we were paying for, when our only income as an airline was coming from, those wonderful boxes, from cargo. So it is, it's always a balance and one of, one of our security roles was trying to predict what governments might do, and using all the intelligence, all the information and multiple sources to try and bring together, to put, on a daily basis to give the airline a picture of where you can operate. How you can operate, and then the limitations around an operation if you could operate there. So with those three sort of things in mind, we used to then work on a daily basis as to and do. And those are some of the things that we've kind of, you know, we carry on now when we're looking at new routes, it's what are the restrictions? What are the costs? What are the additional security measures that we want to put in place? How do those impact and affect our operation? How do we put those in place to ensure both our passengers and our crew, and our staff are safe on a daily basis? And we're using some of those exact same principles now, just refined for a, perhaps a less aggressive environment, you know, outside of the COVID.

Yoyo: 23:12

It is really nice to hear you say that because I should imagine a lot of people wouldn't really have understood that perspective. I worked for Telefonica at the point where Telefonica, merged with Virgin Media. What I experienced in that, m and a was basically, a very traditional, stoic business that had onerous, former governmental, you know, processes and a very new agile business, virgin media, who were able to make quick decisions and be a lot more agile in their thinking. And that was hard to become, uh, blended. And I should imagine. If you look at the aviation industry, I know you can't talk specifically to other larger airlines, but do you think because of Virgin Atlantic's size and because of the modernization of the business in the sense that others were a lot older and more rooted in more onerous processes, do you think that's it was the size of the business and the age that was enabled you to be a lot more agile in your approach to crisis?

Nigel: 24:14

Yeah, I think it's, it was a hundred percent down to the fact that across the whole business there is always this, view. We can do anything, we can achieve anything. It's just, you know, it's just about how difficult it is to do that and how do we then overcome those problems, for an end result. And that's always been that sort of can do attitude and that's one of the things I've loved since I joined the company. I came out of government and it was quite, a culture shock to come into, you know, out of government, into something like Virgin. There's also an amazing teamwork. You know, you, you mentioned earlier that I mentioned my team. That's because everything we do is about teamwork and it's the smaller team, the bigger team, the overall team. It doesn't matter whether it's the senior leadership team, there's always, this view that we're all pushing in the same direction to achieve something. And whilst we won't cut corners, um, I think that's another thing is that we're always trying to achieve. The very best, but doing it within some, you know, very clear boundaries to make sure that what we're doing is robust. It will have longevity and that it's done within regulation and appropriately. So we have this sort of, you know, very juxtaposition sort of, between being, too good is on the one side and absolutely following the rules, but wanting to be, wanting to tread a very fine line sometimes. And the finest line you can between that and, and I think that's, that's a really important, and particularly on security, that's important because often, you know, the regulation that we face, and we are a highly regulated industry, particularly on the security side, whether it be from our own department of transport, the CAA, you know, we, there's a, there's an enormous set of rules out there that we have to follow. But if you can follow those in a meaningful way, but at the still at the same time, still be agile enough, to work around those when they are an obstruction without throwing them out because they're there for a reason. So, you know, that could be as something as simple as flying over. Iraq, for example. We have an internal methodology that ensures that every single day we are reviewing, with our partners. We have some great partners who help us a lot, help us do this every day to look at where we're flying in the world to make sure that our aircraft are overlying conflict zones or areas, of the world that might be at higher risk in a safe way. And we do that with agility that allows us to make changes very quickly, and to be ahead of those decisions. So when something's building somewhere, our contingency planning is always really robust so that we can follow the regulations. So if something changes. Actually, we've already acted upon it before the regulator comes along and says, you, you've gotta stop flying over there. So if I get a call from DFT, the expectation, sorry, department of Transport, the expectation is that I've already taken the necessary. Action, the necessary response to keep us safe as an airline. And I'm not waiting for them to suggest this may not be a good place to be flying at the moment. And that's a really important part of what we do, is that contingency, that being ahead of, and that forward thinking, that horizon scanning. And I think it's why having, Having people with a, with an intelligence background, can sometimes be beneficial, rather than a pure security and risk background where, perhaps you are not you are perhaps, responding more rather than being. Preemptive in your actions. And that's really important because we've seen, and certainly recently there are really good examples of, you know, some large airlines who haven't got that quite right., And nothing looks worse than an aircraft turning around on flight radar because it was about to fly over a dangerous piece of, of territory in the world because somebody's firing missiles or somebody's attacking somebody else, that's not a good lens. It's not a good optic. And that's one that we as an airline have. Gone to great lengths to avoid, to make sure that we're keeping our, you know, our staff and our customers as safe as we can. But in a way that still allows that once things get, returned to normality, we're back over that piece of, airspace and we're back flying in the most effective, in terms of cost and in terms of time, routing that we can, and, that's always a challenge now because. Airlines operate to such tight schedules. You've gotta work your security, operation, around the schedules and the timings of flights.

Yoyo: 28:31

I look at a DBS quite a lot. I'm, most people know I'm a little bit nerdy, whether it's building, Lego constructions or looking at what's flying over my house. And one thing I did notice was, you know, as many people did is that there was, That the skies were very different during COVID. You know, we didn't hear planes very often, and it was, it's just some, the silence was something,, the roads nearby, the lack of transportation moving around, and even the dustman didn't come round as regularly as they would've done, so everything was quieter. But when you look at these flight tracker, apps, and there's quite a few of them, it's astonishing. To see when you zoom out and you look at the whole world, it's astonishing to see how many planes there are in flight at any moment. Like literally, it feels like there's thousands. It's a huge responsibility, isn't it? But yet still, thankfully the safest place, the safest way to travel.

Nigel: 29:29

It is very much still the safest place to travel. Yes. And part of that is, the organization that goes behind from both a safety and a security perspective. It goes behind every airline. It's a very, it's a very dominant part of. Our operation ev every single day. We have a series of meetings in the company, to not only ensure that we're operating in the most effective manner, but also that we're, operating in the safest and most secure manner. And when you see an event, like, you know, the recent events over Pakistan and India, the recent events in the Middle East, yeah, you very quickly, see that airspace clear, of almost all traffic. Oddly you'll sometimes see the odd, the odd aircraft still, trudging along through that airspace. Oblivious perhaps, or, unclear as to what action to take, to avoid that. Um, but yeah, I mean, e even in that in itself, when we end up with events like, airspace of Iraq closing, what that actually does is, put all of those aircraft. Into alternate routes, avoiding, the main conflict zone. But then you end up with something of a safety risk because you've got more aircraft increasingly traveling through, smaller and smaller pieces of airspace. And whilst the, whilst the airspace looks enormous, we are constrained by particular flight waves and route, in exactly way, as you know, you are on, you know, motorways or, or ships at sea. Yes, it's a big ocean. Yes, it's a big sky. That doesn't mean to say all of it's available to you. And we work very, very closely with our flight operations team, and our aeronautical services, teams who, uh, with us plan those routes to make sure that we're absolutely, operating through the most efficient manner. Because everything has a consequence as well. So, you know, if we stop flying over Iraq for as an example and we've gotta fly around it, that means we have to put more fuel on board the aircraft. More fuel, more fuel burn. Has two impacts. One is clearly obviously the inevitable sustainability piece. As an airline it's something that's really important to Virgin. So, you know, we never want to be burning more fuel than we have to. Secondly is the cost. You know, fuel is not cheap. Aviation fuel is not cheap. So we have to put it on. And then the third impact is that it reduces potentially, either passenger or cargo, that we can carry. And when you're talking about the reduction in cargo at a time when perhaps, the Red Sea or route through, sewers and others, ROS equally restricted, suddenly you are into that perfect storm of, aircraft doing more flying hours. Needing more maintenance, needing more spare parts, at time, at a time when, often when, Supply chains are at their most stretched, you are then stretching'em even further. So it's a, it's an interesting conundrum, as I said. It has multiple aspects. And so, you know, when we are looking at this and we're looking at the safe operation of our aircraft around the world, it's not. It's not just from a pure security perspective. We have to take and have to be cognizant of all the other aspects. You know, block times. So that's the amount of time that the aircraft plan to be in the air from maintenance. The landing and arrival times, you know, you, it was talking about how busy it is. You know, you only have to look at, the separation at heater airport to realize if you've got an aircraft that's arriving 15, 20 minutes late because it's had to put an extra. Some extra flight time in, that has a knock on effect. And if everybody who's flying from that part of the world is having that same effect, you know, a lot of aircraft suddenly arriving at different times. So the reason that we're trying to, you know, maximize and fly that route most efficiently is not just to keep it safe, but to make sure that operation can continue and you see that happening. In worst case, that means flights are canceled in a few, I think you've probably looked this year. The number of flights that have been canceled, particularly kind of us to Middle East, and us to Asia, and those flying over Europe, much of that has been down to the loss of airspace that they've been unable to use, or airports which have closed because of security. I can't remember actually my time, a year where that's been more prevalent and where the overflight, what we call the overflight risk, has been more active. As I say, we're very lucky. We worked some great, great partners on that. I'll name out one, which is Osprey, who we've worked, we work with a lot. We were their first customer and, we've put together some really good, and really effective, oversight programs using the tools that they have available. And that doesn't just look at the security risk, it also looks at compliance risk. Are we flying in accordance with regulation around the world? And we use those tools and without them, there'd be a lot of lic, observation that we'd have to do. But there's some great tools that alert us to and where we're flying, when we're flying safely. And working in partnership with them and with our aeronautical services and the rest of our operations team, it's a kind of a, yeah, we go around the circle every day, and come back and revisit it. And this year I would imagine, off the top of my head, I'd say we've probably had to make 20, 25 different decisions, about route alterations through this year. And normally we do that maybe three or four times a year., It's been a big part of what we do, security team this year.

Yoyo: 34:21

Yeah. And geopolitically, we all know where the areas of unrest are. In fact, for those that haven't ever looked at Flight Tracker, it's really good. Not flight tracker, but any of the flight tracker apps. It's easy to see where the flight routes are, the flight path, because they are usually aren't. This is how nerdy I am. They are, they run concurrently with things like the jet stream because the plane's flying a certain altitude. So basically you can, you know, have a quicker journey, a certain way by going on a certain route because of the, I'm not explaining it very well, but I understand it. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Nigel: 34:55

Yeah. A a atmospheric conditions are a big impact on those jet waves. Yeah, primarily, those are the, those oceanic, sorry, the sort of those across the Atlantic, for example. Yeah. For the land route, that's often, more about, what's available to you. So as an airline. We are restricted. We can't fly over Russia. It's one of the key reasons, for example, we don't fly to anymore. You

Yoyo: 35:14

so glad you said that, Russia.

Nigel: 35:16

But don't forget it's not, I mean,, with something like Russia, that's less about security and more about the politics of not paying. So, that's the other thing a lot of people don't realize. You know, you pay to fly over people's airspace. Yep. That airspace up to, you know, 40, 50,000 feet. We don't fly that high and we're generally about 32 to 35, is not free. And you can generally tell where the conflict zones are because as you say, there's, there's a great big gap, where nothing is operating, nothing much is flying. Those have changed a bit recently. But, you know, in the past you could, you know, if you looked over Syria, over Libya. Over, bits of Iraq, now still Iran, bits of Afghanistan. They were all, you know, empty space, on those flight tracking radars. Increasingly we're seeing a bit more activity there as we begin to open some of those. So, for example, this year we've started flying over Afghanistan, like many other airlines. It seemed to be much safer, than it was in the past. Who would've sold. Yes. But still, you know, still areas that we don't fly over,, we're either, you know, we're restricted by those or we wouldn't fly over them. And generally we make our own decision, but also we are regulated, as I said. The two regulators we specifically focus on are Department of Transport in the uk and. It's our own regulator and therefore we follow that. But also for us, the Federal Aviation Authority, the US regulator, we follow their direction because, as I said before, we're a partner. We're in a joint venture with, Delta, so we tend to carry, delta cochair. So most of our aircraft have a Delta flight number on them as well. And therefore we follow those, US regulations as well. Wherever we fly.

Yoyo: 36:46

I remember you telling me in the pre-chat that you Virgin Atlantic as the first airline to be accredited with IRTA and ccc. I'll get you to explain what that means, but you've always said that Virgin Atlantic tries to lead by example as a company with best practice. So what are the types of security regulations that you think just general, you know, Joan, blogs like me, wouldn't know about.

Nigel: 37:08

Oh, um, uh, well, hopefully, you know, you know about most of'em. I think, it's probably the other way round actually. Ironically, um, I think we often get blamed for things that are absolutely not our responsibility, um, um, but are more the responsibility of the airports that we fly through. So definitely airport security is one where, I'll often get, somebody will say something to me about, about an experience they've had going through an airport,,which, which isn't down to us. There, there are, there are elements of. A security within the airport that we do have responsibility for. And inevitably, I can't say too much about that, but, particularly flights to America, anybody who flies, there'll be aware that there's some secondary measures that we undertake, for those because they're deemed to be a higher risk flights, which occur at the gates. And there's often a bit of confusion about. That it's only on those US flights. Um, I think, I think the biggest, the biggest challenge we have though is the fact that, as technology develops and better security measures, become available to us through that technology and, um, CT scanning as a classic example of that, which it's changing the face of what we do. It, it has for a long time in terms of your hold baggage, but now increasingly, um, what you carry through in, at the checkpoint, at the airport, is changing. It means that there are growing differences between countries, and, i, I absolutely understand the frustration of any passenger who manages to, you know, now, for example, out the UK to carry two liters of liquid through some air airports where you are able to do so,, because there's CT scanning, but then when they get to the states, and transfer onto domestic flight, they're back to one liter, and 100 mils because the US hasn't applied that to all of its, checkpoints yet. So it's often, it's, yeah, it's the airport piece. Confusing. That gets confusing, which nothing to do with us in many respects as an airline, but ultimately, you know, you are a passenger and you will inevitably look to the airline, equally. I think probably one of my big challenges is always, our staff. Most accept that they have to go through exactly the same. And I think most people don't realize this, but you know, staff go through exactly the same measures, uh, as any member of the public at most airports. And there's no privilege. If I go to the heater airport, uh, I can go through security four or five times a day sometimes, and I get checked every single time I go through. And however frustrating that is, I'm mindful that those individuals, those that team at Heathrow are looking after me. They're looking after my security, and they're protecting not only me, but my airline and all my customers and passengers. So I think, Yeah, maybe I just have a little, well, I've got the opportunity to say a little shout out, to say, you know, don't be frustrated by that security. It may seem a frustration, but it's ultimately keeping you safe. But equally to apologize to the fact it's different around the world. But bear in mind part of that is because the UK's at the forefront and leading the charge to bring in more and more technology to make that journey safer, but also more streamlined and more efficient. Sadly not anyone else has caught up yet, but they will in time.

Yoyo: 40:01

Uh, in the pre-chat, uh, Nigel, we talked about what makes the aviation industry work in terms of how you all are all potentially competitors, but able to work together to everybody's benefit. How does that work in practice?

Nigel: 40:16

Yeah, it's, it's a really important part of, of what we do and how we deliver a safe function is the level of collaboration, across the industry. It recognizes two things. Um, one is that ultimately we're all working towards the same end, which is for aircraft to fly safety and security around the world. We're. Ever. We may be operating in whoever is operating. But it also, recognizes that there's no expert out there. And therefore the sharing of information and knowledge, across the various airlines means that somewhere there will be somewhere. In that network of airlines who understands the problem better than you do, or maybe on that particular day, you are the one that understands it best, and you can therefore share your experience with everyone else. So we work very collaboratively across a range of informal and formal. Groups, whether it be through recognized organizations like I ata, whether it be, working through, the, security executive group at, Heathrow, for example, where all of the, UK based primary UK based airlines work together., Or whether it be through, you know, the carriers group at the Department of Transport, or the regulation committee at the Civil Aviation Authority. All those, all in, all of those, groupings. We work closely together. We share knowledge, we share information, we share risks. We share threats, obviously with a, inevitably with a half an eye on the commercial elements of that because, you know, clearly nobody wants to overstep the mark, and get into commercial. Elements. But it's important that we all share that information. And one of our closest partners in kind of sharing information is actually British Airways. We, we will, we will contact each other and speak on a relatively re regular basis to understand that if one of us has made a decision about not operating somewhere or doing something, what's that base behind? Are we seeing the same information? Uh, and I was sharing for us, we're very lucky. I mentioned before, our joint venture with Delta that extends, that joint venture extends out to Air France, KLM. And you know, and inevitably, and if I look at something like, you know, KLM and Air France, they have incredible knowledge about lots of places in Africa that we don't fly to, but we do fly over them. And if we need to get in there and short notice for an emergency. You've always got that network of contacts to reach out to. And it's an incredibly close knit group. We enjoy, mixing with each others, both professionally but also socially. And when we get together, there's only one topic, it's aviation. We're all nerds in our own little way in that respect. But it is important that we can share that information together. A nonjudgmental way to ensure that, each airline is operating with the best information available to make the best decisions on any given day, and particularly when there's crises. Sharing that knowledge, also gives assurance and reassurance to each other that you're doing the right thing.

Yoyo: 42:57

Oh, that's awesome, Nigel. If only that was welcomely adopted across other industry sectors as well. Yeah. Which I'm sure it is to an extent. I know the banking industry kind of works together. They share a lot of fraud and intel. I think they've learned that they have to, otherwise, you know, they just won't survive collectively. But yeah. Great input there. You've been incredibly interesting to listen to. In fact, I think actually, you know, there'll be a lot of security professionals listening around the world thinking, well, that's a man I'd like to go and work for, and as a company I'd like to go and work for. And so in that sense, not only sharing how COVID has redefined the airline and industry notwithstanding. Virgin Atlantic's approach to COVID, the security challenges faced by airlines, all airlines, Nigel Williams, global Head of Security, a great brand ambassador. Thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle podcast.

Nigel: 43:50

Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure having a chat with you this morning.