The main ballroom at the The Myst Dong Khoi is slowly filling up with people of the invited media from around the world all of whom just enjoyed an amazing lunch and now will finally have a time to get to meet the person behind Bamboo Airways. Some of them will have been flow in on Bamboo airways planes while others would have used other carriers as the world is still recouping from the massive aviation crisis. Still it is clear that despite all the issues many new and old airlines are rebuilding well and turning profits again, while many others still struggle to the survive under the new rules. Bamboo is one of those that seems to be doing well even though it is as a business analyst put it, rather erratic in its behaviour at times.
As the thoughts pass through the minds the door opens and a woman walks to the single seat behind the desk at the end of the room. At first peoples glances are more than a little confused, no one knows the owner of Bamboo Airways, but seeing she is taking the seat assumptions are made despite her non standard attire.
“Good evening to all who have attended, I hope you have all enjoyed your lunch and I thank you very much for joining me here at the amazing The Myst Dong Khoi hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. My name is Thái Trúc Vân, but to keep it simple you may use Tia. I am the owner and CEO of Bamboo Airways and invited you all here to tell something about the airline and answer the questions you may have. Now to keep things organized I ask that simply raise your hand if you have a question, if I make eye contact and nod I will have seen it and you may lower it, then once the time is there I will ask you to state your question. With that out of the way, I will give a quick introduction to Bamboo Airways.”
“As you all know very recently the aviation world went through quite the crisis leaving it completely dismantled for all effective purposes and requiring a build up from the ground. This has left open opportunities for many, but few where willing to invest. At the time I was working as a cyber security specialist a field I still very much love, but I also like to spot opportunities and after having worked for many of the larger corporations in Vietnam I had a list of contacts. I decided to use that list to gather enough backing for a loan to enter the wide open aviation market by using that loan to back a lease contact for 5 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners and opened the air corridor to Europe with flights to Spain, France, The Netherlands and The United Kingdom. From there Bamboo Airways started to grow with ample of demand we where soon able to obtain leases on more planes and even managed to buy a number of planes to come to where we are currently, the second largest airline in Vietnam by passenger numbers and the first in therms of revenue according to analysts.”
It was a simple enough introduction to the airline, but clearly left a lot of blanks in the story on purpose, but the first hands had already been raised and she gave the word to the first journalist.
“How do you explain the difference in passenger numbers vs revenue compared to Vietnam Airlines, still the flag carrier of Vietnam?”
Thái Trúc Vân would smile briefly before answering, “Long haul operations are a lot more profitable compared to the short haul operations. I knew this coming in from the data I had gathered and as a result the focus of Bamboo Airways was on long haul and medium haul routes. Vietnam Airlines on the other hand has focussed exclusively on the short haul market and according to analysts is suffering as a result of this. Also you may have noticed how little marketing there is of Bamboo Airways, with a market with a lot of demand and little supply it makes no sense to spend the limited funds available on marketing campaigns when your planes are full to start with.”
“Bamboo Airways has brought some planes as you mentioned, early on these where Boeing 737-800s, but over the last weeks all but one of these has been sold and the remaining on is still on the market. What drove the decision to sell these planes?”
“Mathematics drove the decision, we wanted to increase the capacity on our medium haul routes and to do that we had 2 options that where within our still limited budget. The Boeing 737-800 is a good plane even the older frames we acquired to serve our needs, however the Boeing 767-300ER offers almost double the capacity, even at a marginally lower fuel burn. Now the cost to maintain the 767 fleet is substantially higher, but you have to see it as the fact that we can nearly double the capacity without needing to fly 2 planes and flying 1 instead of 2 planes saves us a lot of money in staffing, taxes, landing fees and all such. Finally the price of a 767-300ER is only just over double that of the 737-800 on the used market. So all in it was the best solution to the capacity problem we where dealing with. As a bonus a wide body plane tends to be a more comfortable flying experience.”
And so the questions would keep flowing as Thái Trúc Vân seemingly had little issues discussing quite some in-depth business decisions she had been making to optimize the airline which ultimately led to the final question of the day:
“You seem to be very open in your dealings and reasoning’s are you not afraid your competition could use this against you?”
“Not at all, the market is large and I am certain there are airline owners and operators out there who have found even better ways to run their airline. To what matters the most is that we do it in our own unique and sustainable way. If anything right now the world needs more successful airlines and not failures, so if this could help some starting airlines to succeed I would consider it a victory for us all. And with that I would like to thank you all for joining me, as you know the bar is open for your and dinner will be served at 2000. If you wanted a tour of our humble facilities tomorrow please ask one of the Bamboo Airways staff, they will remain here in the ballroom to book your appointments until 1930.”
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