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Brad Coombe goes quiet on new crowd-funded airline after limited support

By ROBYN IRONSIDE
AVIATION WRITER
JULY 19, 2021

Plans to launch a new crowd-funded airline called “brad” appear to have gone by the wayside, with Perth-based creator Brad Coombe going quiet in the wake of the failed attempt.

After falling drastically short of the $2.9m target with just under $4000 pledged, the crowd-funding page was pulled and Mr Coombe’s mobile phone switched off.

The former airline pilot had hoped to take advantage of low prices for aircraft leases and a surplus of skilled aviation workers to get a new “people-friendly” carrier off the ground.

On Monday Mr Coombe would only say via email that the crowd-funding page had been taken down “for maintenance” and would be up again soon.

He previously described his commitment to setting up a new airline as “very serious” despite scepticism within the airline industry about the approach and timing.

Adding to the doubt was Mr Coombe’s promotion of several aviation industry identities as “key advisers” to his project.

Former Virgin Australia group executive John Thomas and Solomon Airlines CEO Brett Gebers both said their names had been used without consultation.

As ambitious as it might seem to launch a new airline in a pandemic, several overseas carriers have managed to get off the ground this year, including Avelo in the US, Play in Iceland and FLYR in Norway.

Funded by multiple investors ranging from friends and family to large private equity firms, the airlines have low-cost models with only a couple of aircraft.

Speaking at the CAPA Centre for Aviation forum, Avelo founder Andrew Levy said there had been a “nice build of traffic in the US” as demand for domestic air travel soared.

“I think that one of the things that is really important for any airline is to try to do something that is different and serve markets on routes that are simply being unserved,” said Mr Levy.

“Our real focus is to make sure we’re doing something that’s unique and different, trying to serve airport pairs that are unserved today.”

Play CEO Birgir Jonsson expressed a similar sentiment, saying the “leisure low-cost airline was trying to dance around the big boys in the market”.

“Our brand is supposed to be relaxed, comfortable. We don’t have high heels (for the female cabin crew), we have white trainers and people can pick and choose what kind of clothes they want to wear,” Mr Jonsson said.

“We don’t have very strict grooming standards.”

He said two public funding rounds had raised $90m, with almost 4000 individuals investing along with pension funds, private equity funds and other institutional investors.

“In fact we had an eightfold oversubscription of our share offering,” said Mr Jonsson.

Tonje Wikstrom Frislid, chief executive of Norway’s FLYR, said the airline was built in nine months to service domestic routes using two Boeing 737s.

“We start small; our strategy is to grow slowly,” said Ms Frislid.

“We have seen a lot of examples of new start-ups that are very eager to grow and spread their wings and unfortunately haven’t been that successful.”

While “brad” might not be taking off, Regional Express made the leap into Australia’s capital city market this year after securing $150m from PAG Asia Capital.

Although state border closures and lockdowns have played havoc with flight schedules, Rex was expecting to expand its Boeing 737 fleet for six to 10 by the end of the year.

Deputy chairman John Sharp said more routes would be added as they took delivery of more jets.

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