This is a rare and exciting opportunity to invest in and support an airline with a real and defined market opportunity together with relatively low market entry costs, a huge opportunity for growth and a clear exit strategy. We have no debts, no losses, no incumbencies and zero liabilities unlike almost every other airline.
The past few years, since the financial crisis of 2007/2008, have been very challenging times for the airline industry in general. After the financial crisis, many airlines went bankrupt, were merged or acquired. Since then we have had BREXIT which caused further disruptions to the industry and further bankruptcies, and more recently the Coronavirus pandemic which has caused a financial, economic and social crisis of a size never seen before. Basically, the airline industry has been suffering from nose bleeds and altitude sickness and has been in hyper-bubble territory for the past 2 years. As a result many more airlines will now go bankrupt. The airline industry in Europe was already fragmented, however the virus will expedite consolidation, possibly to extreme levels, because 35% of Europe’s short-haul market was loss-making in 2019. (Citi Bank)
All this has happened despite a rapidly growing demand for flights and a need for increased connectivity and despite negative interest rates – the lowest in 600 years!
The bigger airlines who survived the last economic crisis were forced to streamline their organizations. They did this by phasing out smaller aircraft from their fleets, and invested instead in larger aircraft to increase capacity whilst reducing the number of take-offs and landings. Most major airlines now only operate fleets of larger aircraft, more specifically one or two types, the Airbus A320 or Boeing 737-800 both with 195/200 seats. As a result they have dropped many regional routes, where traffic is too low to sustain twice-daily frequency with a 200 seater aircraft, to focus on international and hub to hub flights. As a result, a multitude of unserved or underserved routes have already been, and will continue to be created. Many smaller regional airports have already lost the critical mass of passengers they require to be profitable and these airports continually risk closure.
Small regional airports play an essential role in the air transportation and development of many regions in terms of enabling mobility to sustain business, health, education, tourism, and work opportunities. Small and medium sized airports are crucial for regional accessibility and competitiveness.
Many regional airports are willing to invest considerable amounts of money to encourage airline operators into their airports. These subsidies typically involve payments towards marketing and advertising costs, reduced operational discounts (landing fees, PAX tax, baggage handling etc), plus kickbacks for each passenger who travels through the terminal.
We see real potential to capitalise by taking advantage of current aviation market conditions and by focussing on the regional business routes in Europe which are now too small for the major airlines and long vacated by the legacy feeder airlines.
We see real potential to exploit markets and routes in Europe which are now too small for the major airlines and long vacated by the legacy feeder airlines.
By combining a competitive cost base with frequent services on routes from mid-sized regional airports to major hubs, we will provide a much needed service, where no services currently exist and which will especially appeal to the regional business traveller. Our plan is to capture a significant share of both the spoke-to-hub feeder and regional point-to-point business traveller markets.
We will focus on localization rather than globalization and on achieving sales in local markets where we can make the most of the differences it can create in those markets with our unique offerings.
Because of the demise of FLYBE, FLYBMI, Air Berlin, WOW AIR and many other regional airlines, Extrajet now has very few direct competitors. Unlike many other airlines the Company has no debts, no liabilities, and no losses to date, and therefore we are in a very good position.
The opportunity to invest in the aviation industry is significant in its scope and Extrajet has potential to reach a large market size rapidly. Furthermore the opportunity exists to scale our business to a considerable size, both quickly and efficiently. This equates into a business opportunity that adds up, and has huge growth potential and great prospects for high financial returns.