Interview With Jet2 CEO
1st Of April
Interview with Jet2 CEO on how he made a fortune small
In a rare interview with Yorkshires leading Aviation magazine
Tyke International the CEO of local airline Jet2 tells our reporter C.Antright why he set out to change the way forward for his successful company.
I met up with Jet2 CEO at HEYUPLAD HOUSE their Leeds HQ. From the outset it was clear that this was a driven business, I was offered a free cup of coffee which I thought was generous, however I had to pay £2.50 for the cup, a pound for the milk and 50p for the sugar, plus a further £1.00 as a fuel/CO2 surcharge to cover the air miles that the beans had covered from Columbia, still I didn’t think a fiver was bad value and handed over a £10 note but didn’t get any change. The CEO explained that had I booked it on line I could have had it half price for £8.50, when I looked a little puzzled, he quickly reminded me that 50% off plus the £3.50 credit card fee was £8.50.??
Moving on I asked the CEO how it all started, “well we had a very successful transport business making stacks of cash, one day I was getting dressed in the afternoon and my girl friend or was it my ex wife called me a fat cat business man, I was shocked. I looked down at my gut where my feet and willy used to be and I thought by god she right.
When I was next in the office a couple of weeks later I ordered a strategic review of our business to see where all this cash was coming from, we quickly found that we were running a fleet of 200+ tractor units that were modern and fuel efficient our drivers were making around £22k a year and were on the road 18 hours a day 6 days a week.
Things were going to have to change if I didn’t want to become an even fatter fat cat so I put my master plan (MP or PM in short) into place. We went out and bought a fleet of old fuel inefficient aircraft. Painted them battle ship grey and stuck a load of leather seats in them, this knocked a big hole in our cash, but not enough so we hired load of people to fly them and this is the clever bit, unlike our trucks you need two drivers and you have to pay them an average of £60K each!! What do you mean by an average?
Well the guy in the left seat is normally older, goes sick more often and moans much more than the guy in the right who younger better at the job and gives you less lip, so we pay the guy in the left £80k and the other guy around £40k, I sort of see.. Please continue.
Like most diets you get set backs and i was still getting fatter, so my next master stroke was to order some even older bigger aircraft that used even more fuel and dot them around Northern England at airports no one new existed, the really clever bit was that despite them being made by the same people, the same drivers can’t drive them so we need another set of crews and this at last started to help me slim down. And what other steps have you taken?
Well Cantright, there have been many. where other companies have employed agents and out sourced we haven’t, we employ the lot, pay their sick pay, maternity leave and we need people to manage them, which all helps us slim down plus we have now changed are business model again (the old one was starting to make me fatter again) so we now included inclusive holidays where we sort out the hotels the transport have local reps all over Europe. And do you think this will be enough?
It not an easy question but we do have a back up plan to start flying to the US if we are still getting fatter, the really clever bit about this is that we can’t fly direct from LBA because the road or is it called a runway? I forget isn’t long enough, so we would have to stop on the way over in somewhere called Gander, I admit we did panic when our pilot people told us we wouldn’t have stop on the way back, unless it was foggy at Leeds (which it nearly always is) so we can use up more fat bussing people back from Manchester then fly the aircraft back empty after the fog lifts. Well in winding up it you seem thought of everything, just a few more questions, did you meet any resistance from your Co Directors, were the happy to become thinner fat cats?
I did meet some resistance from finance and planning, but they have moved on to become even fatter elsewhere, the few objectors remaining soon found that the effort required in moving their homes and family from the warmth of the South coast up North was too much for them, it seems not everyone wanted to slim down. Do you see any risk that you might slip back into your old ways?
1 year
Source: Reuters
In any business there is always risk and the graph above shows how far we have come in the last year alone, but yes if oil was to fall back to 20 dollars a barrel then yes we could get fatter again, but we have options on a fleet DC10 aircraft should that happen. I must admit when you first showed me the graph I thought that was the glide path on 14 at Leeds.
Finally as an inspiration to others, can you reveal just how much you have lost?
Well its sensitive information and I am planning to write a business book about it, but at my fat cat fattest I was worth about a £100 million and now it’s well below £20 million.
When will your book be out and do you have a title for it?
Yes it will be out on the 1st of April and called “Six easy steps to stop making money and destroy shareholder value” I will be signing copies out side Greggs near tent B at LBA until noon on the 1st of April
Well there you have it a fascinating and candid insight into the low cost aviation business, next week we have an interview with the MD of a local sports car dealership and why old ugly fat bald men buy soft top sports cars.
C. Antright
Feed back and right of reply to. [email protected]
In other news Harrogate Council Chairman Imam Atof has confirmed that following protests from the 680 pilots living in central Harrogate that high intensity cat eyes will be installed from the Prince of Wales roundabout to Pool in Wharfdale and red stop bars are to be set in the tarmac at all traffic lights, other measures will include pilot only parking spaces outside the towns estate agents, flat screen TV retailers and wine bars.
The Pilots group spokesman Luke Atmistripes said he welcomed the move and was confident that the plan to build a 15 room CC Bed & Breakfast unit would go ahead, he said it was important that cabin crew should not be forced to drive home after being bedded by pilots simply because they could not afford to buy property in Harrogate on their wages and it was a long way to drive to places like Birstal, Holbeck, Lysterdyke and Kirkstal when lashed.
Harrogate Cabin Crew spokewoman Wendy Shagnasty declined to comment
Happy 1st of April to all my ex work mates at Jet2........cargo doesn't complain when your late. Let the APU take the strain!!!!
Last edited by Facelookbovvered; 31st Mar 2008 at 21:09.