Mark Pilling: September 2005 Archives

Start-up UK regional carrier Alpha One Airways will take to the air by the end of October, founder Martin Halstead, a 19-year-old entrepreneur trying to fulfill his dream of launching his own airline, told Routes Daily News today in Copenhagen. Airline Business is producing its daily during the annual network planning event.

From his seat in the OAG New Airline Hall, Halstead admits that some have been cynical about the prospects for Alpha One. However, "the reception here at Routes has been very positive. The airports we're seeing are taking us very seriously and want to see us succeed.

"Particularly at first people seem nervous of my age," says Halstead. "They take a step back. But as soon as we start talking they realise that we are doing this properly. Age is just a number and has not got any say in how successful an airline is."

The aim is for Alpha One to start with a single 8-seat Piper Chieftain, but this will be replaced within three to four months with a 19-seat BAE Systems Jetstream 31, he says. It will fly an intense daily schedule, piloted by Halstead and other members of the airline's management team.

The network will include a service between Bristol and an airport in the northwest of England, a service between Oxford and Cambridge, and a rotation between Oxford and the northern UK airport. This is likely to be either Liverpool or Manchester.

The start up funding for his airline comes from the proceeds of a simulations software company Halstead founded when he was 15 and sold last year. This will fund 70% of the operation, with the backing of a private Oxford-based investor providing the rest.

Alpha One plans to sell about 80% of its tickets via its website, which should go live next week, he says.

But can it survive? Halstead certainly has the confidence and the resources to at least give it a go. "We have more than enough money to operate without a single passenger for six months, but beyond that they're right," he says of the doubters.

The Airline Business delegation travelling to Routes in Copenhagen - the annual route planning forum that brings airline planners and airport marketing teams together - found an intriguing brand initiative underway at Danish low-cost carrier Maersk Air.

We were puzzled to find each seat labelled M, L or S on the headcovers, seemingly randomly scattered throughout the cabin upon boarding. When ordered correctly - S,M,L - the puzzle is solved - Small, Medium and Large, referring (as the Fly As You Like literature Maersk has adopted does tell you) to the size of the seat pitch.

When booking - online of course - you pay a little more for 32in pitch (medium), compared to the small (29in), and quite a bit more for large (35in).

It is a direct branding style, reminding us of the name Richard Branson first dreamt up for his economy section for Virgin Atlantic - riff-raff.

It was a testament to the genuine popularity and indeed affection that Rod Eddington has won among the British air transport industry that his final public engagement - an address to the UK's Aviation Club on 22 September - had a waiting list.

The club even squeezed an extra seat onto each table to enable over 200 members and guests from around the UK and Europe conduct the usual networking and listen to the outgoing chief executive of British Airways. He offered his views on five years at the helm of the carrier, airline consolidation and survival, US protectionism and the opportunities driven by growth in China and India.

The top table at the lunch was surely one of the most impressive ever assembled at the club. Apart from Rod himself, and AvClub president Mike Skinner, the chief executive of Focus Aviation, the list ran as follows:

Sir Michael Bishop, chairman, bmi

Sir Ralph Robins, former chairman, Rolls-Royce

Martin Broughton, chairman, BA

Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, secretary general, Association of European Airlines

Jim French, chief executive, flybe

Keith Mans, chief executive, Royal Aeronautical Society

Sir Michael Jenkins, former president, Boeing UK

Lord Hesketh, chairman, bmed

Lord Marshall, former chairman, BA

At the end of the speech Rod won a standing ovation, a rare feat indeed at a business event. And Rod is certainly not taking a break. Just days after handing over to Willie Walsh, after a several-month transition period when the two worked in tandem, he moves straight into advisory role for the UK government as it looks at its future transport policy.

When Airline Business first received the news that AirAsia, the Asia-Pacific's pioneering low-cost airline brand, was to become the official low-fare airline for UK Premier League football team Manchester United, we were, as the slang phase goes: "Gob-smacked." Just what is a carrier with operations in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore doing in bed with a British football club?

A glance at the AirAsia press release offers a few clues: "The partnership enables AirAsia to kick off with innovative marketing and creative sponsorship activities," says the carrier. "As the official low fare airline for Manchester United, AirAsia would collaborate with the club to mutually promote its presence in Europe and to the 3.6 billion populations in Asia." The value of the deal has not been announced, but is said to be in the region of ｣2 million ($3.6 million).

Some might remain to be convinced about the commercial logic of the deal for AirAsia. But who cares about commerce sometimes. We're sure that on 10th September, when the deal was unveiled to the 68,000 spectators at Man Utd's local derby against Manchester City, the carrier's ebullient head Tony Fernandes would have temporarily forgotten the dollars and cents rationale for the deal and was concentrating on the pure, unashamed joy of football.

The first photo shows Tony Fernandes with Mancheter United commercial director Andy Anson, while the second shows, from left to right, British football legend and Manchester United director Sir Bobby Charlton, Tony Fernandes, Datuk Azalina Othman Said (Minister of Sports & Youth, Malaysia), Kamarudin Meranun (executive director, AirAsia), and Raja Azmi (chief financial officer, AirAsia).

The word on the street was right - UK low-cost carrier easyJet has gone outside the airline industry to recruit its new chief executive. In fact it seems it wasn't really interested in hiring an "airline" person at all. But the new man does have a transport background.

From 1 December, Andrew Harrison, 48, who was the chief exeutive of UK-based motor services group RAC, will take up the reins being left behind by the retiring Ray Webster.

Since 1996 Harrison has transformed RAC (then called Lex Services) from a vehicle distribution company into a "strongly-branded, consumer-facing services company with 6.5 million members".

Harrison will feel instantly home with easyJet's orange branding. As Andrew Lobbenberg, lead analyst at London-based ABN AMRO notes, one of his key moves at RAC was to rebrand its old red, white and blue roadside assistance vehicles to, yes, you've got it, bright orange.