Thanks
Thanks Woomera,
I just want to point out a couple of things.
Firstly, my comment referring to "airline out of a box" is probably more to do with selling the concept of a packaged airline product to an investor. That is complete with business plan, operating procedures and people that can run the airline. Acquisition of aircraft is simply part of the plan and it is hatched with the right amount of money. Investors appear to like this concept.
That is all good and well and it takes a heck of a long time to get that information together. We set about to keep our work original, revisiting industry regulations, getting the assistance of the aircraft manufacturer and suppliers. However, there is more to it than making sure the financials and technical issues work out to be competitive. This brings me to my second point.
Part of the big picture is asking yourself, why are you doing this? How is this model going to be placed geopolitically and aeropolitically? What is the centric market focus and how is that going to be achieved? How will the other airlines react? Does the public really want this or is it just that we think it wants this? It would have been very easy for us to follow in the shoes of Ansett Australia because we were passionate about finding a replacement for it and the public were clearly affected by its collapse but, had we done so, we'd be just another statistic in Australian airline failures. Wrong model and wrong model for the new marketplace. We had to challenge the whole concept of the way Australians believed airlines should operate in Australia. This meant also challenging our own reasons for deciding to do something in a particular way. I know we did on many occasions come to the conclusion that if the numbers didn't stack up we'd scrap the plan and start again.
Regards
Jens