Well, I never wear a tie in the office. But we have a house rule about being smart for clients, so I keep a tie in my drawer and my suit jacket is always on a coat hanger nearby.

Fortunately accountants don’t have to walk round with a cap and lots of “brass bits” hanging off us!

As for pilots – it is important for them to look professional, as passengers need to have confidence that they are indeed professionals.

But certainly, there is no need to go overboard with caps and blazers or even corporate ties (why? what other profession makes everyone else wear the same tie, apart from the military?). Just a bog standard suit would do fine I’d think. Quality of grooming (ironed clothes, clean shaven or trimmed beard) is more important than wearing a company blazer.

Cyprioteagle – a very good post! Which universities offer air transport courses?

The other area I would look at is insurance and financial management. If you go to your normal insurer and ask for a quote to cover your airline, they’ll have a laugh. Say, £10m a year premium and a £100m excess level per claim made. Most big companies do not go to insurers these days, for such reasons. They instead resort to “captive insurance companies” which is basically where you set up your own insurance subsidiary which only insures you and nobody else. In the US, the dreaded IRS is fretting about it a bit (for various techincal reasons such as transfer pricing, which would be a digression too far), but basically half of corporate America is covered with captives and they are here to stay.

Financial management – well, most of your funds will be borrowed and you have to manage that well or people will get nasty to you! You have to chase debtors (travel agents, credit card companies and so on) and be mean with creditors (fuel suppliers, airports and so on) to give yourself some slack. It’s known as the “working capital cycle”. But do it too much and it could all go wrong. You will be mega-susceptible to interest and exchange rates, and will need to hedge your risk with investment banks.

If you go to a venture capitalist, they will vet you thoroughly and insist you stay at the job for 7-10 years. They will have lots of power and will interfere at the drop of a hat.

Then, your pilots will demand pay rises every week 🙂

I’m at a loss – why does no one fly to Australia? The market seems to be there. Are there any Aussie government issues you’re aware of (protectionism) ?

The meal/no meal decision is not purely about the cost. Granted, you will save money be scrapping the meal. But it sends a message out to passengers:

– we’re struggling;
– we’re rich;
– we believe in service whatever the cost;
– we waste money;
– we’re careful about costs

So it is at least a psychological decision. If your key market segment is “we want cheap” then probably a meal is undesirable. If you aim for bargain hunters, then the decision could go either way. If you like to be seen as affordable yet high quality, you would serve a meal. If you want to be seen as excellent, you will serve a great slap up.

(cheap) Ryanair – never a meal
(middle) BA – nearly always a meal, even if in a doggy bag
(quality) SIA – always a high quality meal

I suppose there might also be turnaround time considerations when time is tight on the ground.

KLM must make half their profit on connections! They are perpetualy Britain’s 2nd choice for long haul travel, because of the very good, frequent and inexpensive flights to AMS from nearly every major UK airport.

I actually reserved a ticket with KLM yesterday, but cancelled it after 2nd thoughts. I was flying MAN-AMS-NBO-LUN but firstly it was operated by Air Kenya and 2nd there was a short layover in Nairobi. I didn’t feel safe/comfortable with that, so I paid £50 more to fly direct from LHR with BA.

Originally posted by Moondance
Correct – how do make a small fortune in aviation? Start with a large one.

Didn’t The Grinning Wonder say that?

They say the jobs will go through natural wastage – ie. no compulsory redundancies.

Nice if it were true, but to lose a third of your staff in 3 years through natural wastage? That’s a very high staff turnover rate!!