Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, NOV INC
Clay Williams joins the show to discuss Breeze Airways
Joining us now is airport executive Director Clay Williams. For more Local News from WLOX: https://www.wlox.com/ For more ...
About Clay Williams
Clay Williams, Chairman and CEO of NOV, discussed the company's outlook and the broader oil and gas industry in a podcast interview in April 2025. He stated that the industry is "continuing to recover" and that NOV's technology represents the "highest value add" for the organization, expressing excitement about the future. Williams also remarked that he believes the industry "couldn't function without this organization," and that the company has emerged from a "generational sort of difficult downturn" with a strong balance sheet and improved productsikuha. In a September 2024 appearance, Williams spoke about the addition of Breeze Airways to Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, where he serves as Executive Director. He noted that the airline would begin nonstop service to Tampa and Las Vegas in January 2025, and that the airport was working to recruit a direct flight to Washington D.C. to serve business travelers. In a separate testimonial for the IPTC 2024 conference, Williams described the event as a "great conversation about the issues facing our industry, about managing human capital, and about adjusting to the energy transition."
Transcript (12 segments)
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Narrator0:03
Coming to Gulfport-Biloxi: A new airline is coming to Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport. Breeze Airways will begin service in January with nonstop flights to Tampa and Las Vegas. Joining us now to talk about it: Airport Executive Director Clay Williams. Thanks for joining us this morning.
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Clay Williams0:18
So this was exciting news announced. It gives the people here just another option to travel to popular destinations in Florida and Las Vegas. We're thrilled to have Breeze Airways entering the market again starting January 12th. Two very exciting cities, great opportunities for residents of South Mississippi to take advantage of both Las Vegas and Tampa. Also good inbound options for us for visitors that want to come to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Breeze is a highly sought-after airline, started about 2.5 years ago by David Neeleman, who was the founder of JetBlue, WestJet, and Canada, and also South America. Established Breeze and again, they've been growing at a rapid clip. They are servicing 38 cities, and we're now the 23rd. Very excited to have them. They're going to be flying an Airbus A220 brand new aircraft that's built in Mobile, Alabama at the Airbus facility. There are 137 seats, and we need people to take advantage of this opportunity because it's very competitive right now recruiting airline service. And so when you look at air service competition and how keen it is, you have a national pilot shortage. You've also got high labor costs, high fuel costs, and so that makes competition exceptionally keen. And so very fortunate to have them here and look forward to people being able to utilize that.
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Interviewer1:44
That's right. I'm sure there was research behind it. Is there an appetite coming from those two locations here to the Mississippi Gulf Coast? And is that part of the equation?
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Clay Williams1:51
So when you look at it from an inbound standpoint, people that want to come to the Mississippi Gulf Coast: the Tampa marketplace is a high retiree demographic. We've had service from Tampa historically, so again, they have some familiarity. Whether it's a short-haul flight, just a little bit over an hour, up and down. And how about from Las Vegas? I was intrigued. Is there a reason with the casino connections? Is that a potential business reason that people with the casino industry want to go back and forth? So the flights will operate on Fridays and Mondays. So it's great for a long weekend for the leisure traveler, but it's also that Monday-Friday rotation, so you have individuals that work for one of the 12 casino resorts here on the coast. They may need to conduct business in Las Vegas, but the same holds true for those who would be coming this direction. Multiple opportunities there, and I don't think people realize this, but the casino charters are coming in and out of the airport almost every day. The Beau Rivage is bringing in people from all over the country almost daily.
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Interviewer2:53
Correct. Yeah.
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Clay Williams2:54
Privilege has an incredibly robust charter program. They utilize Sun Country Airlines. They bring in visitors from 90 cities around the country. I don't think people quite realize the significance of that, of bringing in visitors who are spending dollars here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
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Narrator3:12
Mississippi Gulf Coast. Hera's Gulf Coast also utilize your son country and they have a charter program where they're bringing in visitors from the walls. Two cities as well. And those are people coming in consistently all the time.
We just heard talk in the last month about a potential for a direct flight from here to Washington, D.C. Federal program making that possible. We think that Washington D.C. makes a lot of sense for South Mississippi, if you look at Keesler Air Force Base and Naval Construction Battalion, Stennis Space Center, Huntington Ingalls all have a lot of business synergy with Washington D.C. It's our third origination and destination market that doesn't have a nonstop, so we want to make that a priority and try to recruit that service to South Mississippi.
We are in receipt of a U.S. DOT Small Community Air Service Development Grant, which is a great recruitment tool. It actually gives you a little bit of an edge for a market that's highly competitive. For instance, Washington Reagan National Airport is slot controlled, so they have some restraint capacity. For an airline to pick you up, they actually have to drop someone else and put you into that slot. So having the grant, we are greatly appreciative of the work of our congressional delegation in helping us obtain that. That gives us a little better seat at the table.
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Interviewer4:27
You had positive responses. I'm sure you're actively looking for a carrier there. How soon could we see a carrier come in and actually start? Really pinpoint an actual date.
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Narrator4:34
But those discussions are underway and there are a few different options. You look at American Airlines has a hub at Washington Reagan, you've got United Airlines with a hub in Washington, Dallas. You have some of the other low-cost carriers that have a presence either in Dallas or BWI. So there are some options there. Again, trying to figure out what's the best fit for us in particular, since much of that travel is going to the Pentagon, with our industry mix that we have in South Mississippi. So yeah, no definitive timetable. We're working towards that and pleased to have the grant to be able to do it. Potentially you would be looking at a couple of times a week. Probably think well with that. Ideally with it being more of a business travel, you would like to be able to get that four to five times a week. So that's a little different than some of the things that we pursue that are more of a Friday, Monday, Thursday, Sunday type rotation. And real quick, you do have some RESTORE Act funding coming in, $6.6 million allocated to construct an aircraft maintenance facility. So we're really looking at what the future of Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport looks like. We're the second largest airport in the state of Mississippi, and we're trying to maximize other non-airline revenue opportunities so that the property that's located next to the air traffic control tower and some of our corporate hangars, looking to try to build a spec maintenance hangar there. That's something for maintenance, repair, and overhaul of aircraft. That's got some benefit, ultimately for the military, potentially also possibly for commercial operators.
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Interviewer6:08
Okay, so some big opportunities there. Clay Williams.