Revealing some secrets behind airline's plans (From The Northern Echo)

Revealing some secrets behind airline's plans

7:33am Friday 28th August 2009 in News

The executives behind Excelsis Airways broke their silence last night to answer The Northern Echo’s questions surrounding its plans to launch a regional airline. Lauren Pyrah reports.

Revealing some secrets behind airline’s plans WHY has there been so much secrecy surrounding Excelsis?

Andreas Blass: “This a project where we don’t want to put too much information (out) to our potential competitors.

We are still reviewing our business plan. We need to polish many details.

“Being a start-up airline, not everything is definite. We are trying to be open with you, but I hope you will respect it will not be in our interest to reveal too much information which will be in the press too soon.”

WHY are parts of the website a copy of the Porter Airlines’ website? Why does the website use no capital letters?

Victor Bassey: “I am a great admirer of Porter Airlines. I didn’t particularly want to use the wording of Porter Airlines, but it has happened. I have put a call through to Porter Airlines to try to smooth things over. There won’t be any action – they were, in fact, flattered with someone using the wording from their website.

“We have endeavoured to change the similarities where it happened. As you can see, the website has evolved now we have a full team, people will be able to make suggestions as to wordings.

“That (the omission of upper case letters) is my own style. For consistency’s sake, we haven’t used upper case letters. (I thought) we should use it across the board.”

WHEN will the airline be taking bookings?

AB: “We will be taking bookings two months before the first flight. To take bookings, we have to have a system in place which is reliable.”

WILL the airline be able to hit its operational deadline of next month?

AB: “September is a little bit optimistic. We have a clear objective to start flying before the start of next year.” WHY did London City Airport (LCA) say it had only held one brief conversation with Excelsis?

Why is no agreement with LCA in place?

VB: “I did speak with LCA – in fact, I spoke to them several times. We have had draft agreements sent back and forth. LCA, before October this year, was an airport where you go to the airport, you sign a commercial agreement and get your flight slots.

From October this year, that is changing. It is now fully with London Heathrow and London Gatwick, which means you have to go through central flights (booking system).

We have to go and get flights, then we go to London City Airport.”

CAN you reveal the airline’s backers? AB: “We have a commitment for £10m start-up financing.

We cannot, at this moment, reveal the investment and capital risk investments behind that simply because of strategic reasons. It is international funding – European, including UK.”

WHY has the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) not received a formal request for an operator’s licence?

AB: “We are preparing that right now. The request is a process that takes a couple of months. It requires directors, which we have now. It also requires aircraft, which we are about to have.

“(We will be looking at requesting) an ACMI – aircraft crew maintenance insurance – which allows us to fly under another operator’s licence.

From now on, we will start preparing this.

“We have been talking to them (the CAA), but we have not presented anything to them because we are not ready.

“We have (talked to) two operators.

We haven’t decided which one we will take. In this case, we are thinking of having them to grow a medium term relationship with the operator. EasyJet started on the same basis. EasyJet ran on that basis for two years until they had their own licence.

Look at what they have achieved.”

WHY is the company headquarters at Morton Palms, in Darlington, unoccupied and why has no formal lease been signed?

VB: “We have got a lease which says we can move in.

One of the things it doesn’t allow you to do is make changes to the structure.

There is some cabling work which needs doing before we move in. The lease has been going back and forth from the conveyancers. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.”

THE LCA route has been tried before by several regional operators out of Newcastle, Belfast and Liverpool.

Every time the services have failed. Why will Excelsis be any different?

AB: “The team we have got together has experience in start-ups and operating airlines at low cost. I am not saying we will be a low-cost airline, but we will be operating at a low cost.”

Jim Knight: “We want to offer a fare which is competitive with alternative means of transport which gives value but offers a level of quality.”