Own marketing – We did our own marketing
When we first acquired the company we said ‘we won’t expand in the tour operation business; we will do our own marketing and fly customers who purchase tickets.’ To keep up with this, the company had to turn 180 degrees. For instance, when you fly for a tour operator and you make the customer dissatisfied, you do not suffer because the problem goes directly to the tour operator; but that is not the case in our model. If there is a problem, you have to deal with it directly.
Act towards the customer
For this reason, the first thing we did when we took over the company was to hire an English flight crew trainer to train our cabin supervisors on weekends on ‘how to act towards the customer’. In the tour operator business, everything was free. With meals, for instance, you could select two from chicken, fish and red meat. Since I did not know much about the aviation business, I said let us calculate the cost of the tray we are serving. When calculating the cost of the tray, even its weight is important. We started with this detail. We analyzed the main course.
Own marketing – I will never forget, there is 90g of red meat, chicken or fish in a main course. I asked the business leaders of that period, ‘What happens if we bring the 90 grams down to 80 grams?’ They protested, saying, ‘our guests are of a certain quality.’ Firstly, they are not your guests. Secondly, Mr. Blogs does not care if he is flying with Pegasus or some other company. ‘Then let’s do the math,’ I said. At the end, the cost of 10 grams turned out to be around 400,000 Euros. I said ‘What now?’, they said ‘Let’s lower it.’ This was a very important lesson for me. You shouldn’t ask someone, ‘Should we do this?’ You need to say, ‘Should we do this? If we do, this will be the consequence’.
