Your customer's logic.
On your side of the gate.
Your customer's logic.
On your side of the gate.
For airport boards, commercial executives, and infrastructure owners.
Airlines are airports' primary customers. The decisions that determine aeronautical revenue, gate utilisation, and terminal investment are made inside carrier network planning teams. Leith Salem ran that function at Qantas International. Three-year capacity, fleet, and network planning across US$5B in annual revenue. The COVID crisis response that reset every traffic assumption the network had been built on. That is the vantage point.
Where carrier knowledge changes the outcome.
Every area below is shaped by one fact: the carrier decisions that most affect an airport are made by network planners, not marketing teams. A new destination is never a single route call — it is a whole of network evaluation. Understanding what goes into that evaluation is the edge.
Air service development
Network planners evaluate capacity commitments on specific criteria: bilateral headroom, connecting traffic potential, gate economics and seasonal yield shape. The goal is not just winning a new service — it is building partnerships that hold. Leith owned three-year capacity and network planning at Qantas International, covering US$5B in annual revenue. The work here is building the case the way the carrier's own team would, so the right airlines commit for the right reasons.
Carrier capacity analysis
Route suspensions and frequency cuts are visible inside the carrier months before they appear in the schedule. The signals are there in load factor trend, fleet allocation decisions and network plan revisions. Leith was the COVID crisis lead who reset every Qantas International traffic assumption in real time, repricing the full network under acute demand collapse. That operational read is what airport teams need when tracking carrier exposure before it becomes a public event.
Capital programme review
Terminal investments are multi-decade commitments. The carrier decisions that validate the traffic assumptions behind it are made three years out. Leith ran the network planning that drives those decisions at Qantas International, managing the capacity and fleet plan that determined where aircraft went and for how long. The work here is an operator-side read on the traffic assumptions in a capital appraisal before the board approves the spend.
Concession and tenant economics
Aggregate passenger forecasts are the wrong unit for concession planning. What drives per-head spend is passenger mix: international versus domestic, long-haul versus short-haul, premium versus economy, connecting versus terminating. Leith managed route performance across the Qantas-Emirates Joint Business, accounting for more than 40% of Qantas International revenue. That carrier-level view turns a passenger forecast into a viable concession strategy.
Three ways to engage.
No fixed menu. No retainer minimum. Bring a capex assumption that needs a network planner's read, a carrier negotiation in progress, or a board brief that has to hold up under scrutiny. The engagement follows the question.
Direct Advisory
A specific call about a live decision. Direct access to Leith for a single session. No engagement structure required. You bring the question: a carrier negotiation, a schedule assumption, a board question that needs a network planner's view. We bring the operator context.
Project-Based
Defined scope for a specific decision. An air service development case built the way a carrier's network team would read it. A capital programme traffic review the board can rely on. A board brief on carrier exposure before a route suspension becomes public. Scoped to the question, not a day-rate estimate.
Fractional Engagement
Ongoing access structured around what the position requires. Useful for boards without a standing carrier intelligence function, operating teams managing active airline relationships, and infrastructure owners who need an operator read on traffic assumptions through a deal process.
Built from inside the carrier.
Leith Salem
Founder & Principal | 2010 Advisory
I understand what an airline weighs before committing capacity to a route, and what it takes to lead strategy when the pressure is real — across full-service and low-cost carriers. Three years running network planning at Qantas International, and corporate strategy at Virgin Australia. Send me one line about the decision in front of you and you will hear back the same day.