GetJet manager who laid off more than 300 employees – a door lock option is available

– P. Viltraki, today we can officially say that summer is over. How was the company you managed? The season is probably quite different from this one.

– My colleagues and I joke that we will actually have to survive three winters. Instead of the usual winter-summer-winter seasonality, in this case we have winter-winter-winter. This is also the season.

In June, we flew a total of 180 hours, while, in 2019, one plane flew more than 300, 350-400 hours. In this case, 16 planes and only 180 hours. per month. The drop is very large. Probably even the winters weren’t as bad as they were this summer.

– However, in July and August the situation improved somewhat.

– We had a bit of optimism. The market has started to recover very slowly, but in the media, in the latest publications, we can see that everything is coming back.

Our partners Novaturas, Tez tour have stopped all flights and we are not flying anywhere at this time. I don’t know if it’s an extension of the first wave or a second wave, but actually we are back in March, April.

– I understand that all your planes are on the ground today and you are not flying?

– Not quite. There are charter flights, there are cargo flights, but those volumes are very small, minimal.

– What does your company live on today, what is it hiding from?

– From day one what we started to do is reduce fixed costs. In fact, in March we had more than 400 employees and it’s a shame, but we had to say goodbye to them, for the most part, and we currently have 40 employees in the administration, in the office.

Really, from the first day of the crisis, we did not believe in any support, no optimistic scenario, we only began to make changes in the organization, activities, business. Actually, if we hadn’t done that, you would be talking to the director of a bankrupt company right now.

First of all, fixed costs, then we reoriented and removed the seats from a couple of planes and started hauling cargo. Then we started working with markets that were probably unattractive and that we had no contact with before, now we also transport soldiers from Finland and Germany to Baghdad, then there are some charter flights to Africa. We just look for niches, new ways to earn money and we try to survive.

– Was this layoff, which sounded loud enough at the time, was it necessary to avoid bankruptcy? Was there a real threat of bankruptcy?

– Probably the first to do those things sounds more. Probably if the number of people laid off were taken from the first to the tenth position, we would probably not be so exceptional, especially when it comes to tourism, aviation.

Of course, this was necessary and I do not understand why there is a very strong optimism in the media, positive when it comes to tourism, aviation, airports. There is not much optimism, in fact, the situation is bad and in real terms the prospects are quite sad then.

We are only talking about the tip of the iceberg, we are talking about the entire tourism industry. I interact almost daily with owners of airlines, banks, leasing companies and large companies, monsters with a turnover of billions a year, they are not sure of surviving the second wave.

I met a couple of weeks ago with the owner of one of the largest leasing companies in the world and he said, “I did it if there was a second wave, a big question, we would stay in the market.” And what does that mean? That all these aircraft owners are financed by the banks, so the banks will also suffer. Then we can talk about hotels, their owners and who attends the hotels, farmers, who provides food, but is limited to the total number of passengers, some recovery. Note that there is no recovery.

In principle, a person wants to believe, he wants good news, so an opinion is formed, but there is no good news in aviation at the moment.

<...> I am realistic, there is neither black nor white nor gray here, as it is now. It is not worth waiting for something to change for the better this year, because it will not.

– Your company grew twice last year. Did you calculate how much potential income you lost?

– Last year, the turnover was almost 120 million. EUR. This year is not over yet, but the result will be good if we reach at least 30 million. EUR.

– Have you planned any investment for 2020?

– Yes we were. Our fleet had to grow to 20 aircraft. The purchase of new simulators was then planned, with an investment of more than 20 million. It can be said that we were lucky, thank God that we did not approve that investment and we did not put signatures on those contracts, because now we would have 20 million. Liabilities in euros and stagnant business.

Not much happened than planned. In fact, in some cases, it’s good that it didn’t happen. In general, we are implementing projects, but we have greatly reduced their scope.

I have already spoken with journalists and presented our so-called training school (Flight School), which is being invested in, new training aircraft and simulators have been bought. We are the ones who are still trying to boost that business, of course, just that the volumes are quite different than planned in 2019.

– Is your company preparing for the second wave and have a strategy of how things could end so you don’t have to close doors, lock locks and partitions?

– That version of your door lock is possible. At the moment I have the luxury of seeing the future of the company for 3-4 months. Go ahead and I think it’s very good.

The steps we have taken since April 1, when the COVID-19 crisis began, are now saving us.

We keep optimizing, we keep looking for ways to save and reduce costs. Basically, we stick to any contract that can be won. The strategy of all airlines is now the only one: to buy time. There are no other strategies.

The biggest problem right now is that it is unclear when the COVID-19 crisis will end.