The Final Word THICK OF IT IN THE
TITUS JOHNSON COUNTRY MANAGER UK & IRELAND, AIR BERLIN
Titus began his aviation career in Sydney, at Australian Airlines in the 1990s, in reservations and ticketing. After a brief spell at Texaco as marketing coordinator, he returned to aviation, to London City Airport in 1994 followed by VLM Airlines in 1995 as marketing and sales manager, rising to UK & Channel Islands regional manger five years later. He left VLM after a decade to join Sabre in 2005 as airline sales and account director EMEA, before being poached to join Air Berlin in 2006 as country manager.
Titus Johnson lives and breathes aviation, preferring the cut and thrust of the smaller players, although he is now arguably in the mainstream with the newest member elect of oneworld. Gillian Upton tracks his career moves
TBTM Your career has spanned predominantly what you call the ‘minnows’ of the aviation world. Explain why that is. It’s more of a challenge creating market share and one has to do things a little bit differently. These organisations are quite lean in terms of expenditure so it’s an opportunity to be more adventurous and creative.
TBTM You worked at London City Airport in the early days when it was considered a white elephant. How did you gain market share there? It had just extended the runway when I joined so we had to attract airlines and sell it to them as a yield opportunity then the customers followed, first as a trickle, then it was about 200,000 passengers each year using the airport.
TBTM Your first country manager
role was with VLM, a start-up airline you had joined as sales manager. How did that compare to working for a small airport? VLM is where I cut my teeth. I had to set up a reservation system, corporate deals – the first was with Unilever, then Shell and P&O Shipping – and launch a route, to Liverpool. Everybody was based in Antwerp so I was the only member of the management team based in London and was handed a box of timetables when I joined, and nothing else! I’m particularly proud of creating
the demand for LCY-Antwerp by ingratiating myself with the Jewish community in London who regularly took the train or drove there to trade in diamonds. I learnt an important lesson there – apart from learning to drink kosher beer – and that’s to give the market what it wants. It was a real niche marketing exercise and we were filling spare capacity as the diamond traders travelled off-peak.
I did a similar thing with LCY- Luxembourg. That was a real no brainer, giving those in the financial services sector in Canary Wharf an easier journey from the City rather than flying from Heathrow or Gatwick. At the time it became the highest yielding route per mile in Europe. Within five years it was the largest airline flying out of London City. We built up to 14 aircraft and it was eventually sold to Air France/KLM.
TBTM Did moving to the other side of
the fence at Sabre – a rather large US$5 billion Texan company – come as a rude awakening to you? I really valued learning about air transport distribution. The biggest challenge for any airline is selling seats so getting the distribution right is essential for success. Flying is quite a simple process but selling seats at the right price and at the right time is a complex process; it’s all about supply and demand. I was managing airlines such as Aer Lingus, El Al and British Airways and I had a lot of autonomy in the job.
TBTM Now at Air Berlin as country manager UK & Ireland, this airline has a very different business model. The market thought we were a no-frills carrier so the challenge was an educational process or as we call it a value-based segment. I call it the John Lewis approach – functionality with best price in the market. Because we have full service – with seat allocation, newspapers and so on – those who don’t understand who we are come away pleasantly surprised. We carry as many passengers as British Airways. We have 13 long- haul aircraft and our big bulk routes are to Italy and Spain. Ironically we no longer fly to Berlin but we plan to re-enter in 2012 when the new airport opens and use it for Eastern Europe. The recession has helped our model. People don’t want to skimp on service but they want to pay less for it so we’re fit for purpose. We have over 1,000 corporate deals now and have taken the complexity out of them, with simple, two-page contracts for example. It’s much easier knocking on doors now.
82 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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