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Jet2 boss Philip Meeson on cloud nine

Bdaily was recently at the Entrepreneurs’ Forum autumn conference, where we met founder and boss of Jet2.com, Philip Meeson.

Philip delivered a talk on his business experience, which began with a joint venture with a friend, selling Citroën 2CVs to Londoners as an economical car.

“I saw one going through the underpass at Hyde Park Corner one day, and the guy who was driving wound his window down and said “it goes up and down the hill.” And that was it, I thought I could sell this car,” Philip said.

He went into partnership with a friend, selling imported 2CVs from a rented lot, before the pair raised enough money to buy a BMW franchise between them.

Philip quickly lost interest in the dealership and turned his attention full time to his first love, flying. Having trained as a pilot with the RAF when he was young, Philip was by this stage running his own flight aerobatics team at the weekends.

“I ran the team as a business. I owned the planes, employed the pilots and secured sponsorship from Marlboro to pay for it. We were quite successful, and I won a number of British championship titles,” he added.

It was at this point that Philip made the break that would ultimately define the rest of his career. In the early 80s he bought Channel Express Group, a small distribution business that flew flowers from the Channel Islands to the mainland. The business that would later become known as Jet2.com.

Philip went head-to-head with the former Channel Express owner who had set up in competition, using the ferries as a cheaper means of distribution for the flowers.

“In business, there’s always luck. Sometimes I think I’d rather be lucky than clever, because luck can be so much better,” Philip noted in his talk.

At this point in the story he said: “We were really lucky, because just at the time he tried to develop his business there were a number of ferry operator strikes which meant he couldn’t get it off the ground, and we continued to fly over the flowers.”

As the success of Channel Express Group, Philip began eyeing up expansion opportunities and promptly snapped up Lincolnshire based consumer goods distributor Fowler Welch, and subsequently Kent-based refrigerated distribution firm Coolchain.

Philip also expanded the Channel Express business to take advantage of lucrative parcel carrier contracts in Europe.

“We were lucky again - fortuitous airline rules meant US firms weren’t allowed to operate their aircraft in some areas, and the distributors didn’t particularly want to use European contractors, so we were able to get in there.”

After developing the European distribution business, Philip embarked on what was to become Jet2.com.

“Our adviser pinpointed Leeds Bradford as the place to be. We sold 11,000 tickets on our first day, and the website crashed.

“We had initially been based in Bournemouth so with some begging and bribing, I managed to get some of the team to move North. We started with 70 people at our Leeds base, and we now employ 2,600.”

Philip set up Jet2 when other carriers, including Easyjet and Ryanair were already established and chose his USP as the “friendly airline.”

He added: “Before the internet, you had to book airline tickets through holiday agents or through a call centre. Suddenly this cash negative business became a cash positive business with strong customer management information.

“As people book on the website we can adjust capacity, and collect information which makes the businesses more efficient. We have a £2m budget for data management, so it’s a big part of the business, and through surveys, feedback and so on we can gather key information that informs everything from route selection to the choice of sandwiches.”

Recently, Jet2 have turned their attention to package holidays across Europe, offering affordable family hotel holidays. Rivals of Jet2 holidays, such as TUI’s Thomson, have suffered sliding profits as customers were constrained in booking foreign getaways.

Philip added: “Everyone thought package was on the way out, but I thought with a range of destinations already established and the superior buying power with hotels, this has got to be a viable business. The margins on mediterranean holidays are small but it’s another revenue stream for us, and we’re offering a great product because we understand what the market wants.”

So, what now given the latest debates over runway capacity and airport growth in the UK? Jet2 are concentrated on delivering affordability and service in Europe, however Philip notes that it is an important time for the industry.

“There’s so much commentary around what we should be doing with UK airports. We know for a fact that businesspeople in the regions are crying out for routes to the east, and at the moment, your access to those markets is via heathrow.

“We can be a great gateway to those markets in Asia, and that’s an opportunity to be had. Look at the Emirates for example, they’ve opened their Newcastle to Dubai route, and that’s meeting business demand.”

And on the Europe question, Philip suggests that it would be a bad move for the UK to come out of the European Union.

“I was able to build my business because of the opportunities the European Union afforded us. Look at Airbus’ contribution to the UK, I think its those type of opportunities that we would risking losing out on.”

Rounding off his talk, Philip was visibly emotional and said: “Looking back, I’m so lucky to be here as so many things can go wrong.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .