Tomislav Lang, the Croatian-born CEO of Swiss carrier Sky Work Airlines, talks to ABTN about his desire to bring back the golden age of flying...
Tell me a bit about the history of Sky Work...
Sky Work was founded 27 years ago by the Swiss family Gribi. Originally it was basically taking care of executive passengers with taxi services out of Bern to the mountains of Gstaad. I joined the company three and a half years ago. Before I was working as a co-pilot in Germanwings for four years, and for the airport of Stuttgart before that.
I came into this company finding myself in a situation with two turboprop business jets. We did some flights for a charter in Bern, mainly in the summer season, and we were flying hardly at all in the winter. We had the feeling we could do more, but the problem was always money and economics, which were not so great in the last two and a half years, but I always believed that there is potential in a company like ours.
Luckily nine months ago we were flying Mr Daniel Borer, who nowadays is our owner, and he liked the aircraft – they were all painted in different ways. There was nothing whatsoever known about us in the industry, but he decided to buy us, to invest in the company, and he did me the favour of making me the CEO of the company at just 30 years of age.
We founded this new Sky Work Airlines with a new claim: “The personal way to fly.” That’s because I see myself and our employees as very personal in the way we communicate. The whole product is built on being a hybrid carrier, as an alternative to other carriers in Switzerland.
We are serving the capital Bern, as the Swiss capital’s airline. We are the home carrier of Bern, with ambitious plans for the future.
[Skywork Airlines started flying between London City airport and the capital of Switzerland in March. It currently operates flights daily Sunday to Friday, and from September 5 will increase to 11 flights per week.]
What is it like onboard?
We have a high-class product. In the cabin we have all-leather seats. We have only economy class - there are no different classes. As long as I am CEO we will not have different classes. This is again my personal way to fly. There is no better or worse in the cabin. We are all on the same level. For everybody we have the same seat pitch. We have about four or five inches more than a comparable aircraft in the low-cost segment. Twenty kilos of baggage is included. We have something to eat and to drink for free. We also have something which you can buy. And we have nice boarding music after and before the flight.
What you see is what you get. You see 149 bucks, you will pay 149 bucks. There are no additional fees. It’s not too complicated, and it should not be too complicated. This is operating on a low-cost level, making it easy for the company. As soon as it gets complicated, the more expensive it will get.
Passengers will find themselves in a highly comfortable cabin with enough legspace so they are not treated like a piece of baggage. We really want to give back some kind of Pan Am feeling. The old romantic times of flying, the golden age.
I am from an aviation family. As a small child, at three years of age, I was already sitting at check-in counters. My father was a general director of four aviation companies. He started with Yugoslavian Air transport, at a time when we were Yugoslavia. He was later one of the founders of Croatia Airlines. I learned a lot during those years and I decided to also go into the aviation industry. I can remember the times when flying was much easier, more comfortable. It was so different.
So it is the anti-ryanair model?
It is totally anti-ryanair, but not anti-Southwest Airlines, to tell the truth. The low-cost concept has been marketed in the wrong way. People think that low-cost means that you pay five bucks for a flight. This is not true. Low-cost means that you try to operate at lowest cost possible, and this is what we do. You could say we are a low-cost operator, because when it comes to operations we are trying to do it low-cost, but when it comes to customer service I would say we are not high-class, but a solid-middle class product for everybody. A hybrid model.
But we are anti-ryanair because I think what they are doing is not right. It has nothing to do with economics, or ecological aspects. Flying is something special. Because of that we have taxis, buses, trains and aircraft meant for everybody, but not for flying somewhere just because it’s cheap.
We want to be able to fly everybody. We’re not only there for the business customer, or the leisure customer, but principally we are open-minded to everybody. We are working hard. My whole team of employees. We are trying to be unique in the market. We’re fresh, we’re young, we’re crazy.
In terms of business travellers, what will you be offering to encourage them to fly with you?
Well, we will have a frequent flyer programme – Sky Worker. The Sky Worker is the business customer we try to catch. These people will have the possibility to collect frequent flyer points, to have full business lounge access in all of our airports. We hope to have our own lounges – we’re working on it at the moment. We don’t know when. We’re in discussions with the airport, because we’re building a new non-schengen terminal, and there we could build our own Sky Work lounge, which could be very interesting.
There will be a lot of things we are giving to the business customer that will make it very attractive for him or her to fly with us. We will also be working with travel agents and travel management companies to offer corporate deals, and there will be a B2B booking section of our own website, which should launch this summer.
Do you think that providing a direct link between London and Bern is important for the Swiss capital?
Definitely, yes, especially for the economy in Bern, to have the possibility of doing business quicker. A lot of traffic will be political and diplomatic traffic, because politicians and embassies are in Bern. For that core customer it will be important, but it will also benefit passengers who were formerly flying to Zurich. Maybe they don’t need to go into the centre of Zurich, they need to go into the suburbs in the south of Zurich. They have a much better connection through Bern via the highway than going through Zurich, where you always have traffic jams in the near vicinity of the airport.
We need to build-up the airport. Bern airport unfortunately is basically unknown to the public and people don’t know that Bern is the capital. In Europe everybody thinks that Zurich is the capital of Switzerland because it has the biggest airport, which is not right. It is the biggest airport, but it’s not the capital.
So if you’re driving it would be quicker to go via Bern?
Correct.
Are you planning to expand Sky Work’s fleet?
At the moment we have three aircraft in our small family. We have three Dornier 328, which have 31 seats. They’re all refurbished and look as good as new. We had one in operation from the old company and we bought the second from another company. We repainted them totally, ripped out the whole cabin and refurbished everything inside. A third one is coming in October, although we don’t know yet from who we will buy it. We also have two De Havilland Dash 8s. By the end of the year we will have most probably six aircraft – three Dashes and three Dorniers.
A lot of airlines are merging and small airlines are struggling. How do you view yourself in this marketplace? Is it not a difficult time to be a small independent?
It’s a difficult time, but I love difficulties. I love competition and I hate it when it’s too easy. My team, along with the CCO and CFO, are people who don’t like to lay back and just watch things run. I see us as being behind in the game by ten points, but we will win by the buzzer. We will build the game in the end.
But it is hard, you’re totally right. It’s not easy, but people – I have the feeling – are now sick of flying every day with the likes of Easyjet, Ryanair and Germanwings. They want to have a relaxed type of flying, and I think with our business model we can achieve that. It will take some time. We are not struggling because we have a serious investor behind us, and by 2014 I will be able to answer whether we have won the game or not.