We met with Mr. Axel in small Irish pub located near Frankfurt`s downtown surrounded by skyscrapers and white-collar workers.
He is innovation specialist in one of the world biggest airline and two-three beers after work would definitely bring more relax to this evening.
I have invited him for interview about cryptocurrencies about month ago and it happened that we managed to meet only on Wednesday 17th of January straight after market of coins fell down approximately by 40%. So the interview could be tough even for the most enthusiastic Bitcoin fan.
Mr.Axel how do you feel about latest crypto news?
Well. Still good. Nothing much unexpected. All we should understand that it is a rollercoaster. 40% down – 80% up and vice versa and few more times. Someone would need to puke, someone will stay all the way forward with his smile.
Is there any impact on airline`s business?
So far not. Unless some employees could lose their own Satoshi.
Is there a lot of talks in your team about Bitcoin, Etherium, etc.?
It is started maybe tree months ago. But there is a big field for uncertainness as some risks are involved. To be honest the structure of crypto web-pages, wallets is still complicated and suspicious for a lot of users. Especially here, in Germany.
Do you have some crypto investments?
Yes. I hold some coins. But I take it as a trial at the moment. Considering all falls and ups I
m still about the same amount of money I have invested a months ago. However Im curious about their status and checking my portfolio very often.Which coins do you have there?
I started with Bitcoin and Etherium as a basis. But after some investigations I gave my priority to Cardano and Verge. I expect them to be over 1 dollar in the end of January. They looks underpriced today. You know, from my point of view Cardano has great development background and Verge is very promising if we will consider their anonymity.
Let’s talk about airline business. Do you the future of coins as form of payment for the tickets?
Definitely one day it’s going to happen. Not in the nearest future, because a lot of rules have to be set up. First of all it is question of taxation and governmental approvals. Standard ticket price consist of certain parts. They are – fare, fuel surcharge, airport/country taxes and possible ticket service charge. From all these elements only fare, fuel surcharge and ticket service charge directly belongs to airline itself. That means that each air company is responsible for further transfer of costs to third parties as airport, government, etc. So all parties have to accept cryptocurrencies as payment method. We need to build a structure, rules, procedures.
What are the difficulties?
First of all internal bureaucracy. Each airline is big machine. In order to implement something new it has to be approved by many departments, it has to be tested by special team and only than presented to the customers. It is all about time and money. Second problem is jumping exchange rate of each coin. We need to plan the price of ticket and to be protected from possible market`s falls as it was yesterday. From the other hand I expect that some low-cost airline will offer this payment option very soon, because it is great marketing nowadays. People will talk about this. I can just anticipate a lot of bugs this airline will face, such ticket will be more like bonus program then source of income.
Not that much enthusiastic…
Don’t take me wrong, it is just opinion of insider when you see for a lot of years how major changes come. I consider this as real revolution in payment methods, so we have to be very careful with everything. But I`m very enthusiastic in Blockchain. Its gonna change all our business very much, I thing in 7-10 years it will be totally different because of Blockchain.
So Blockchain – yes, coins – no?
I didn’t mean that. But we have to keep an eye on coins, there is a lot of scam at this moment. Some of them are pumped and overpriced. I think this year will show us something more and it will be unique lesson for entire generation. So far I think it is way to make a money on something big what will come in few years.