{"id":215065,"date":"2024-02-02T22:22:45","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T20:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monaco-tribune.com\/?p=215065"},"modified":"2024-04-12T13:08:55","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T11:08:55","slug":"easy-listening-sir-stelios-grants-podcast-interview-as-easygroup-turns-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monaco-tribune.com\/en\/2024\/02\/easy-listening-sir-stelios-grants-podcast-interview-as-easygroup-turns-30\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Easy listening\u2019 : Sir Stelios grants podcast interview as easyGroup turns 30"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sir Stelios Haji-Iannous spoke recently on Business Leader<\/em>\u2019s podcast \u00ab Off to Lunch \u00bb about how and why he embarked on his easy<\/em> journey in the 90s, and the intervening 30 years that have seen the wider easy<\/em> family of brands, and his Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, really \u2018take off\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps best known as the founder of the easyJet airline, Sir Stelios started out not in the air but on the high seas, as owner of his own shipping company, StelMar. However, shipping companies, as they are not customer-facing, felt too anonymous for the ambitious young Stelios. Not content to \u2018just\u2019 carry on in the familiar waters of his family\u2019s business, he wanted to create a consumer brand that would become a household name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a “road to Damascus” trip to the US that convinced him to take on the national legacy airlines that had a virtual monopoly over European skies in the mid 1990s.  He decided to research the low-cost model, invented in the US where private airlines were already in competition with each other. “How much to buy a plane?” he asked Boeing, and “Which airlines should I talk to?” That conversation led to him taking his first low-cost flight, with Southwest Airlines, and staying in his first budget hotel, Motel6. That in turn got him thinking about creating a brand that would cover both flights and accommodation with a name that would shout \u2018value for money\u2019. After StelMar, he toyed with StelAir before settling on easy<\/em>. \u201cThe rest is history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His beginnings, his family, his Foundation… Sir Stelios opens up in a major interview<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investment from his father helped get things \u2018off the ground\u2019. Yet on day one, easyJet wasn\u2019t an actual airline. It was more of a travel agency, selling tickets for flights that were operated by independent airline, GB Airways. The plane was leased, there were no frills and nothing was free. \u201cMy claim to fame was I sold the first cup of coffee on a plane, for 25p,\u201d he laughed. \u201cI can\u2019t do everything well,\u201d the Monegasque resident freely admits, so he left the airline aspect to those whose business that was, a philosophy he took forward into most of the industries he has since become involved in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the young Stelios DID do well, and differently, was marketing and selling direct to the public, also a world first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

29p for a flight, instead of a couple of hundred pounds, is newsworthy <\/p>\nSir Stelios Haji-Iannous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s sometimes – well, easy – to forget just how much of a transformation Sir Stelios\u2019 budget airline brought about in European air travel, since easyJet is such an established player in the aviation landscape today. Market disruption was the name of the game. The traditional airlines practiced high prices because they had high costs. The idea was to roughly halve those prices, which meant halving the cost of operating the flights\u2026 He therefore avoided the expensive \u2018hubs\u2019 such as London Heathrow and Roissy Charles de Gaulle and took out national newspaper ads for special deals and discounts, with seats being sold for 29p in some cases! It was an innovative idea to change the price in order to fill the aircraft, at a time when flights were maintained even if they were 2\/3 empty. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"easyJet
EasyJet is now the UK\u2019s largest airline in terms of passenger numbers, and one of the largest in the world<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

No need for easyJet to poach British Airways passengers. A new market was created and it grew in response to demand from people who, until then, could not afford to travel by air within Europe. The company floated on the London Stock Exchange 5 years almost to the day after the first flight.\u00a0\u00a0Sir Stelios believes five years is the turning point after which a business can be considered sustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bumpy ride<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There was some turbulence along the way during those first five years. Aircraft supply delays meant flight cancellations for 2 months. British Airways launched Go, its own low-cost airline as a direct competitor, whose launch Sir Stelios and other easyJet staff gate-crashed, turning up for its first flight in distinctive easy<\/em> orange boilersuits, a somewhat cheeky but very effective publicity stunt. For the record, Go was ultimately bought out by easyJet. 9\/11 also happened during the period\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Stelios played the \u2018David & Goliath\u2019 card, but the airline\u2019s success meant the approach was soon shelved. He also used legal proceedings to \u201ckeep British Airways honest\u201d in particular in terms of unfair competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if he had seen Go as a real threat at the time, he replied \u201cI took it as a backhanded compliment. And it endorsed the low-cost model as safe and acceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free publicity<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And then came Airline<\/em> in 1998, a behind-the scenes-documentary about easyJet, whose viewing figures in the UK were only surpassed by Eastenders and Coronation Street !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Stelios believes the airline industry is particularly media-friendly, and \u201cgets a lot more attention than it deserves,\u201d so there was a lot of free publicity to be had by agreeing to the series, which ran for several years. He believes it was the right decision back then, because it was innovative, but he wouldn\u2019t do it today. “It\u2019s the sort of thing you do when you\u2019re young and small.” It was “warts & all” but the show took the easy<\/em> brand into 12 million households every week on prime-time TV. \u201cYou can\u2019t buy that kind of brand familiarity,\u201d he maintains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe baby has grown up\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sir Stelios stood down as non-executive chairman of easyJet in the early 2000s but he and his family are still major shareholders in the airline. \u201cThe City wanted an independent chairman and I had a conflict of interest since I owned the easyJet brand,\u201d explains the founder. Since he owns the easyGroup brands, and receives royalties for use of the brand, he felt it \u201conly fair not to be on the board.\u201d He also believes it is a sign of a company\u2019s maturity if there is another designated CEO and chairman. \u201cThe baby has grown up,\u201d he says, finding a \u201chappy medium\u201d in being involved and gaining profit from the company, but not running it day to day. His relationship with easyJet management has sometimes been complicated in the past, but he feels they should be congratulated, in particular, for how they enabled the airline to recover after Covid in what is a challenging industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou celebrates 30 \u2018easy\u2019 years<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were there ever moments of doubt? Secretly yes, he admits. Mid-2020 when the airline was grounded during Covid for example\u2026 However, \u201cit\u2019s incredible how quickly you can recover from a very difficult situation,\u201d the billionaire maintains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since standing down from easyJet, the billionaire has turned to expanding the easy<\/em> family in other domains. He now manages a private company, easyGroup, which runs the brands, and this takes up roughly a third of his time, including in the courts to stop people using the easy<\/em> brand without permission<\/a>. Two reasons drive this. The first being to protect consumers from confusion. As there are many bona fide easy<\/em> brands, a customer could be tricked into trusting \u2018easyABC\u2019 brand because they trust the easy<\/em> name, when in fact easyGroup has no control over that company\u2019s standards. The second reason is the rule of law. The Group\u2019s 1200 trademarks all have a legal function, similar to property rights, or copyright.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n