Flypop CEO Nino Singh Judge at CAPA’s Airlines in Transition 2022 summit

Transcript

Nino Singh Judge:We've been going through this journey together, I think, for the last 7 years, me being optimistic about every year, yeah, nearly going to happen, nearly going to happen. And of course, you can imagine the month before we got funded in the middle of COVID it was a very dark place. You know, how long is this going to carry on? Blah blah blah. But fortunately, the the government future fund, the UK Treasury Future Fund, allowed for match funding. So we applied for that match funding. We had we had a core investor who supported us, and we managed to get the core funding we needed to start. Thanks to you know, to be honest, the vision of Rishi Sunak and and that department with the British Business Bank. And I know he's getting a lot of flak, but they have done some very good things. For all the startups during COVID and especially us. We would be nowhere without that. And of course, once we had government funding, the private equity followed as well. That meant at the bottom of the market, we could lock in our deals with MAG. Thank you, MAG. Aircraft leases at record lows. I could have just hoped to even have one to start with, and I started with 4. Now we're up and now we're up to 6 and negotiating another 5. So all the aircraft I need, I'll have by, by the end of the summer. You know, and so these things just wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for COVID. And then getting the best staff, people who are entrenched with big airlines, etc., and, you know, and the low-cost carriers, being able to pick them up as consultants to start with to keep cash burn low with the promise of a full job and stock options, etc. Working from home, so you know this. I've got one person working in Melbourne. I've got one person Whistler in Canada. You know, having all these great people who are working from home, but working for Flypop, and they come in once a month. It's just it's just been the biggest blessing for Flypop. It's been tragic in so many other ways. I lost both my parents due to COVID, but you know from from you know Phoenix from the ashes. That's what I say, and as you say. Always make the best of a crisis, right? Low-cost long-haul hasn't worked today because nobody's actually done it right across the board. It's a bit like Formula 1. I know everyone's getting bored of my Formula 1 analogies. It's— there's no smoking gun. There's no one aerodynamic upgrade that gets you to the front of the grid. It's actually 1% everywhere. So with low-cost long-haul, it is a bit of cost savings. Across the board to being able to deliver a truly low-cost fare to your customer. You know, you can't have aircraft that cost $1 million a month like Norwegian, and you can't have a low-cost airline based just on tourism because the load factors are just— there's too much swing. So what makes us different is we're specifically targeted to the South Asian VFR, which gives us the thickness of route to be able to fill our high-density aircraft, which, you know, we have 391 on board and we have to get to 70% load factor. And where do you do that? You have to have the right market. So that's the one thing it's never been pointed at. And of course, my hero, Tony Fernandes and AirAsia X, that's the one thing you didn't have for AirAsia X was the diaspora. You had the tourism, you had a little bit of business at the front, but the landscape's changed. There is no business anymore, certainly not first class. All my first class friends take private jets now, right? So it all comes down to economy and it's premium. That's the new game and that's what we've got. For me, the magic about aviation is connecting people, but if you connect people badly, then it's just not sustainable. And so I'm very much in putting our best foot forward and being as sustainable as we can. You know, of course we'd love to have electric planes and we use 100% SAF, but until that's available, just do the best we can. So my people over profit mantra is even more important now than when I started bleating on about it 5 years ago and people thought I was absolutely on drugs, right? But absolutely the planet, you have to be applied, aligned with the planet. So we're going to be planting one tree for every passenger that flies with us each leg. We're going to be, for every meal we sell on board, we're going to be giving 5 meals away to the one homeless in the UK because charity begins at home and 4 in India orphans. So there's sustainability to our core. It's in our culture, and the people who have joined us actually buy into that. So they're actually not looking for the top salaries; they're looking for purpose. So for me, pop is people over profit, planet over profit, and purpose over profit. So my staff work with purpose. My passengers travel with purpose. Yes, I want you to travel, but don't go willy-nilly. Go with purpose. Let's save the planet. So it's kind of it's hopefully a completely disruptive, sustainable. Truly accountable airline. I wanted to start in October, and then we had you know the second wave of COVID etc. And then I want to start in April. Then we had Omicron. The fortunate thing also about COVID is that there's so much money to be made just doing zero local cargo. I can afford to pick the perfect time to fly. I don't I don't have cash burn. I have cash accumulation into this launch. I don't think it's ever heard of for a startup to be able to do that. You know, as I always say, better lucky than clever, but I have been lucky. So why launch at the wrong time? Now, as you and I know, the peak for the South Asian market from Europe is actually Q4. So I've been advised by my very clever Ryanair leprechauns to do it then. I would— I want to go in January, and I would love to beat Hans to it. But you know what? We'll go when we go. We'll go when the timing is absolutely right for Flypop, because you only get the chance to press that marketing budget once. You only launch once, you know, and I just want to do it well and then just, just keep going. Thank you.

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