UK’s largest airline by fleet has launched a new £4.5 billion investment program over five years; mulls Gatwick-Eilat route

British Airways is in touch with Israeli startups to keep the airline up to speed with the latest technologies, the CEO and chairman Alex Cruz said at a press conference Thursday, marking 85 years of the London-Tel Aviv route.

The airline, the UK’s largest by fleet announced this week a new £4.5 billion ($5.9 billion) investment program that will be spread over five years. The plan envisages the acquisition of 72 new aircraft, and upgrading of 128 existing aircraft with at-seat power stations and high-speed internet connections for passengers.

“I recognize the huge importance and the impact of the whole development of digital technologies in our industry,” he told a gathering of journalists over a brunch in Tel Aviv. “I had a delegation of Israeli startups come to my office about six weeks ago and I spent a full day with them and it was refreshing. It was motivating, and I am in touch with two of them directly because I enjoyed the session so much and I am sure that we will do more and more business together.”

The airline is on the scout for technologies in a variety of sectors, he said, mainly via the global startup accelerator program of its parent company International Airlines Group (IAG), called Hangar 51, which hopes to attract early stage businesses and fast track their ideas working closely with IAG.

Aircraft technology is on the top of the list, Cruz said, but also cybersecurity, online marketing and distribution and video technologies, he said. “There is such a wide array of offers that startups here in Israel have, that honestly we are looking at quite a wide range of overall technologies,” he said.

“What will actually dictate which ones are adopted faster is our own ability, within our own 100-year-old IT systems, to be able to assimilate all of these technologies,” he said. “That is where a great deal of my energy goes, so we can modernize our platform so we can work very fast with these startups that have really great propositions.”

Read More: Times of Israel