Mark Briffa’s insights on strategy, leadership, and growth in aviation
The Chinese character for crisis has two components; one for crisis, the other for opportunity, writes Chris Tarry, independent airline analyst. There is no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a major crisis, but it has also given rise to opportunities for businesses, including for Air Partner. Indeed, for the financial year to the end of January 2021, management reported record underlying profits for the group. Most recently, when announcing its first half results for the current financial year, the company said that the full year outcome would be materially ahead of what the market was expecting.
This outcome clearly reflects the actions taken by CEO Mark Briffa and his team to move the business from in essence a single activity with a material overdependence on one customer, when he became CEO in 2010, to having a broader spread of activities and capabilities.
In successfully implementing its chosen strategy, the group has been both able to benefit from and protect itself from the volatility of the air charter business, which was, in essence, the only activity when he took over, and also to broaden the customer base to a point where that previously dominant customer now only accounts for some 1% of sales.
The best description of Air Partner is perhaps the one that is used in its report and accounts; it is a ‘global aviation services group’ with two divisions. The Charter division, which accounted for some 80% of revenues and some 85% of gross profit in the last financial year, comprises: Group Charter, involving aircraft with more than 20 passengers; Private Jet Charter, for aircraft up to 19 seats; ‘JetCard’ to facilitate the flexibility that clients require re ‘on-demand’ travel; Freight involving whole or part aircraft charter; ‘Specialist Services’ which complements the activities across the division and range from aircraft sales to flight operations.
The Safety and Security division is comprised of a number of companies with distinct and market- leading competencies which are well known in their current fields and where there is the opportunity to both increase their market presence and to expand across other industries. These companies focus on regulatory compliance, Training, and Consultancy services, as well as a number of ‘managed services’ including Wildlife Hazard management at airports, the establishment of aircraft registries, and a
capability to provide remote condition monitoring of, currently machinery and equipment at airports.
Mark Briffa, who joined Air Partner in 1995, was appointed CEO in 2010, at an exceptionally challenging time for the group. At the time, demand for Air Partner’s services, particularly private jet charter, had been severely impacted by the ‘Great Financial Crisis’; furthermore, the acquisition of what was Gold Air in 2006, and was renamed the Private Jet Operating Company, proved to be the wrong business at the wrong time.
Having dealt with the immediate problems, there was an overt recognition that the nature of the core business and its dependence particularly on the vagaries of the economic cycle meant there were times of ‘feast and famine’. Between 2011 and 2015, reported operating profit had halved from £5.2m to £2.6m. Against such a background, there was clearly a need to establish a much more stable core without losing the upside that the charter activities could deliver. In the case of ‘Private Jet’ and ‘Jet Card’, this has been particularly evident in the current financial year with the recovery from the worst of the Covid-19 impacts.
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