Lufthansa’s takeover of BMI ended a long drawn-out spectacle, but how does it affect bmibaby? Sam Metcalf asked its new managing director.
Stepping up to be managing
director of an international
airline on April Fools’ Day might
be seen by some as tempting fate but
not for Julian Carr, who throughout our
chat manages to shatter many of my
preconceptions about the industry.
“My focus is on organisation,” he says. “The airline is relatively small with 14 aircraft, but we want to be the best at what we do. Communication is vital, and I’ve made it my job to find out exactly what staff do on a day-to-day basis since I took over. There’s been some real ‘back to the floor’ activity.”
That shop floor at East Midlands Airport is somewhat cringe-makingly called Tiny Town – an office where everything is signposted as if you were in a supermarket. But Carr revels in it.
“I’ve done stints on the check-in desk, so people know I’m prepared to muck in. I also make a point of making my office available to my staff; the last thing I want is to become detached.”
Carr’s CV is impressive, and varied. After ten years working in management at Virgin and Blockbuster, he joined Jet2.com, where he was involved in the launch of the airline. A stint at MyTravelLite followed; first as head of marketing and development, then as managing director of the budget airline.
After two years with the Air Transport Association (IATA) in Montreal, where he was responsible for marketing and business development opportunities in the airline sector, he joined bmibaby in May 2008 as commercial director. He was responsible for areas such as revenue management, e-commerce and PR. He has an MSc in air transport management from Cranfield University, and is also a qualified private pilot.
Carr took over at bmibaby when its owner, Lufthansa, was having to make redundancies and scale back the business. “We’ve downsized the fleet from 17 aircraft to 14, and it’s been a difficult market,” he says. “But we have stability now, and we’ll be looking to grow if the market requires it.”
East Midlands Airport is at one end of the daily traffic jam that is the A453. The airport is often cited as one of the jewels in the East Midlands’ crown by local businesses – a community Carr says he’s keen to work alongside.
“We try and work with businesses in the area, and regularly talk to the local chambers of commerce. Rolls-Royce uses us to go places. It would be nice if the A453 was widened, and we would welcome an upgrade of the transport links from Nottingham, Derby or Leicester,” he says.
Bmibaby operates flights from Birmingham International Airport, too, and Carr sees opportunities there. “Our biggest challenge is to get people from places such as Cheltenham to come and use Birmingham. It’s the same with Northampton at East Midlands; we have to keep growing our network and expanding our regional reach.”
That also extends to Europe. The airline will serve the German market from September, running regular flights to Munich and Cologne. The takeover has given the airline that opportunity, and Carr is excited.
“If we grow there, we’ll almost certainly be looking at taking on more staff,” he says. “But the key to our immediate success is to work better with BMI by doing more with the BMI Diamond Club. These are the sorts of areas I want to try and push.”
Also in: September 2010
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Here’s to the future
The theme of this month’s issue is innovation. Our Bright Sparks feature (p28 of Midlands Business Insider September 2010) is always popular as it highlights some of the inventions from companies in the region that could have real legs in a commercial sense. The success of TV programmes such as Dragons’ Den demonstrates there is a real interest in the people who spend much of their time searching for that ‘eureka moment’.
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Still made in the Midlands
Manufacturing’s death knell has been sounded many times, but the sector is still in fairly good health, reports Ian Halstead.