Interview: Play chief executive Birgir Jónsson Continued from page 48


economic data and any impact on consumer behaviour. Consumer confidence,


measured by the GfK confidence index, reached its highest in 14 months in April, rising six percentage points to -30. For comparison, the index was -13 in April 2019, but it’s still a significant improvement from -45 in January. The pressure on


lower-income households is clear. But interest rate increases also hit ‘middle earners’, who account for a significant proportion of the outbound market, with 1.4 million UK households due to see fixed-rate mortgages end this year and another 1.7 million on tracker mortgages that mirror rising rates. The National Institute of


Economic and Social Research reports middle-earning households will see real incomes fall by 6.2% in 2023-24. The Barclays UK Consumer


Spending report for March noted “54% of consumers say they are cutting discretionary spend due to rising household bills”. Yet it found travel spending continued to rise. Spending with airlines was up 28.5% year on year and with travel agents up 30%. At the same time, Office for


National Statistics data for the first half of April showed 70% of UK adults reported a month-on- month increase in their cost of living and 67% reported lower non-essential spending. Deloitte UK chief economist


Ian Stewart summarised the outlook saying: “Things may be looking up, but they are hardly rosy. Most forecasters think UK activity will flatline or contract this year.”


Play chief vows carrier will avoid Wow’s pitfalls


Ian Taylor


The head of Icelandic low-cost carrier Play, which operates from Stansted and Liverpool and will launch from Glasgow in May, insists the airline will “avoid the pitfalls” of predecessor Wow Air, which ceased flying in 2019. Birgir Jónsson, Play chief


executive, told Travel Weekly: “We want to emulate the part of the [Wow] model that worked and stay off ‘grandiose’ plans. “We got an infusion of cash last


autumn. We see a very strong booking position and we will record a positive operating result this year. We’re focused on high aircraft utilisation, transfer traffic [between the US and Europe] and point-to-point traffic between Europe and Iceland.” Play was set up by two former


Wow executives in 2019, but its development was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. It began operating between Stansted and


Jónsson: This year is critical to show model can work


Play operates to Reykjavik daily from Stansted and from Liverpool twice a week, although the latter service will be suspended from late May for the summer peak before resuming in September. Instead, Play will operate from


Glasgow four times a week to Reykjavik from late next month. Passengers can fly on from


46 27 APRIL 2023


wrong”, saying: “They veered off the low-cost path and began to offer all sorts of premium services. “We’re a listed company with


Birgir Jónsson


Reykjavik’s Keflavík airport in June 2021, adding flights to the US from April and May 2022. Now it is due to launch to Ontario, Canada, in June. Jónsson, who was deputy chief


executive of Wow before leaving in 2015, said: “Wow was a great company but made some mistakes. We want to avoid the pitfalls. Airlines tend to be so focused on growth and young aviation companies tend to forget what works in other industries.” He argued Wow’s former bosses had been “open about what went


Keflavík to New York Stewart airport, Boston, Washington DC and Baltimore in the US and, from June 22, to Hamilton International in Toronto, Canada. Flights depart the UK mid-


morning, arriving into Keflavík about 2pm and depart to the US about an hour later to arrive in the US at about 5pm – all local times. As well as operating from the


UK, Play flies from Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen and Stockholm. The airline sells 70% of tickets


through its website, but Play chief executive Birgir Jónsson said “we


better access to capital and our approach is more disciplined. We’re old-school, not flashy, doing things in a cautious manner. We’re not trying to conquer the world. I’m not the next Michael O’Leary. “We are kind of a hybrid. We’re


basically a low-cost network carrier, operating in a very defined niche.” He added: “There is only so much


‘low cost’ a carrier can be in Europe. We have Scandinavian labour unions and the Scandinavian cost of living, so we pay higher salaries. But we use our aircraft 15-16 hours a day.” Jónsson accepts that even the niche


market to Iceland is competitive. Both easyJet and Wizz operate alongside Icelandair. But he said: “If Ryanair set up a base in Iceland, that would worry me. But I know it won’t because the cost of crew and airports are so high. O’Leary has bigger fish to fry.”


Play routes include Stansted, Liverpool and Glasgow


work with the UK trade”, adding: “Iceland is a specialised market. Agents who sell Iceland have usually sold it for years.” He added: “This year is critical


to show the model can work. We’ll fly 1.5 million passengers this year.”


travelweekly.co.uk


Bernhard Kristinn


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