Guy Novik and, right, brochures from yesteryear


PICTURE: Steve Dunlop SPE NEWS CIAL REPORT


Flying high at 40 W


USAirtours was set up by Guy Novik when he was just 19. Forty years on, he tells Samantha Mayling about the trade-only operator’s highs and lows


hen Guy Novik set up USAirtours from his bedroom in his parents’


house, it was meant to just keep him busy for his gap year – but that ‘gap’ turned out to last a lot longer than he expected. Aged 19, he’d already experienced


the buzz of travel, working as an office junior in the school holidays with his father, who worked for Owners Abroad, which became First Choice. “I was always entrepreneurial,”


Novik recalls. “I used to nag teachers about running the school fete, and I set up a car-washing scheme.” Novik had never been to the


US, but spotted the destination was becoming more affordable thanks to Freddie Laker’s Skytrain and Harry Goodman’s Intasun. The business grew quickly and he


opened a shop in Gants Hill, in east London, after a year. After two years, he bought out his partner, thanks to the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. Novik started out by buying and reselling packages, then


travelweekly.co.uk


bought flights from consolidators and accommodation to create his own holidays. “In the 1980s, 5% of customers


used credit cards, half sent a cheque and the rest paid in cash,” he recalls. “I turned the phones off at


5pm then took the Tube to the consolidators to collect tickets and hand over cash from my briefcase.” To expand, he bought national


phone numbers from BT and ran adverts in national newspapers. “It looked like we had offices across the UK, so I could access business outside my catchment area,” he says. Gaining an Iata licence meant


Novik could buy direct from airlines. His first deal was with John Martin, Pan Am’s leisure sales manager, who later became airline contracts manager at USAirtours. Novik’s first acquisition was


the agency Sinclair Travel, after the owners retired in 1984. By 1992, he was selling through other agents. By 2000, USAirtours had moved


to a large office in north London to accommodate its 150 staff.


We have to keep


raising our game – we cannot rely on the fact that we have been around for 40 years


Over the years, the company


has ridden out crises such as the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, several airline collapses, hurricanes and snowstorm-closed airports. But half the workforce had to be


axed after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which saw flights to the US grounded and all forward bookings cancelled. “I handled every redundancy – it


was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do,” says Novik. A personal guarantee to suppliers


about repayments meant the business was able to recover. While the internet prompted


more companies to become direct-sell, USAirtours had become trade-only by 2007. “The cost of advertising and phonecalls was


rising – paying 10% commission to agents was better value for money,” says Novik. He hails the support of agents


for helping USAirtours survive the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw the US closed for two summers. More than 75% of bookings


were postponed, enabling the operator to survive – and agents’ commissions to be protected. As a result of redundancies, the


number of staff at USAirtours fell from 82 to 32. But the furlough scheme and Covid loans kept the business afloat, as it pivoted to sell other destinations. Now, all the company’s employees


work from home, meaning overheads are lower and Novik can recruit from across the UK. And he finally completed his ‘gap


year’, gaining a master’s in leadership from Henley Business School. “This old dog learnt some new


tricks to make us more efficient,” he says. “We have to keep raising our game. We cannot rely on the fact that we have been around for 40 years.”


4 MAY 2023 11

Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52