Alex Cruz is the founder CEO of clickair with a long career in air transport behind him. A US-educated (Ohio State University engineering degree) Spaniard, domiciled in London, his calling started as an operations analyst at American Airlines in Dallas, followed by a stint at Sabre, at that time a division of the airline. He founded the European technology delivery unit of Sabre before taking up a partnership at Arthur D. Little, leading their European travel and transport consulting practice. Prior to Clickair, he was head of aviation and travel for Europe at Accenture.”It feels like it was yesterday and yet a year has passed. It was 1 October 2006 and a hectic six months of preparation were being put to the test. We were about to operate our first revenue flights from our base in Barcelona and from Seville.
In the run up to our launch, I had made a point in all media interviews to state clickair”s goal to become Spain”s premier new generation low cost carrier (LCC) and the overall leader at Barcelona”s El Prat International Airport by early 2009.
It was an assertion that elicited more than a few raised eyebrows. I must admit that at 05:00 that crisp October morning, even I felt a sudden twinge of doubt while I scanned the meagre check-in queues for our 06:05 maiden service to Seville.
A year has passed and I can happily report that my confidence was restored, and in fact elevated to a new level, by the end of that inaugural day after uneventfully transporting 3,339 passengers on 24 flights of five routes.
And it remains there a year later, when more than 14,000 people fly with us each day on 110 flights on 51 international and domestic routes. As clickair celebrates its first anniversary, that optimism is both supported and tempered by hard facts.
Not only have we attained so far our objectives but exceeded them. Our business plan called for a fleet-strength of 17 Airbus A-320s by the end of 2007, but we actually reached that number in June and we now expect to operate 23 by the end of the year.
This affords us the luxury - quite unique in an airline of our size - of having not just one but two aircraft on stand-by to shore up delays - ever more a problem in Europe's crowded air-space and airports. More importantly, it has allowed us to accelerate our route expansion to the extent that just in August, we flew 600,000 passengers which took our eight-month total to 2.65m. We believe that we are well on track to achieve our stated goal of 4.5m passengers by the end of 2007 and 10m in 2008.
After 15 years in the industry - half of which were spent analysing what makes LCCs successful and what makes them fail - I've learnt a number of things that my team and I have been able to apply at clickair.
But one, simple beyond all others, is that only those who consistently maintain their cost structure at the lowest possible level survive. Simple but not easy: relentless discipline and stubborn determination is required.
That 2008 will be a tough year is no longer a possibility; it”s a certainty. With crude oil prices in a positive climb towards a $90 mark, with an overcapacity that gets worse every month (according to official figures LCC capacity grew in Spain by 62% in the first half of 2007 while demand increased only by 35%), filling aircraft and being adequately paid for it will become a tall order both for incumbents and challengers in our industry.
I strongly believe a ”low cost carrier” ” even one like clickair that seeks to incorporate many new and unique features so far unheard of in our segment ” must permanently embody what those three letters ”LCC” mean.
Over and over again, we”ve seen how in times of plenty, many in airline management seem to overlook this fundamental fact. The result is either bankruptcy, a takeover or, at best, a drastic restructuring. At Clickair, we don”t intend to allow the acronym LCC to become an oxymoron. That”s why, despite the storm clouds gathering, the optimism I felt a year ago is still very much present. We”re bigger, stronger and wiser than we were a year ago. And most importantly, we”re prepared.