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On the heels of Silverjet’s latest airfare sale, the all-business class airline finds itself having to defend its business strategy against those who believe MAXjet’s failure marks the beginning of the end for Silverjet. Despite talk of Silverjet’s future demise, the airline’s Chief Executive, Lawrence Hunt, is quick to point out that Silverjet is thriving: “We had a record sales week last week in the US. We’ve seen a massive increase in corporate enquiries by companies looking to cut costs.” (from The Sydney Morning Herald)… |
Hunt believes that superior service and offerings will help Silverjet succeed where MAXjet failed. In fairness, MAXjet was battling the juggernaut that is American Airlines, a carrier that seemed, for a time, intent on dropping prices and dropping prices until MAXjet simply couldn’t compete.
Of course, that type of competition won’t soon fade. British Airways and other major carriers are already ramping up their business class offerings. There is also a question as to how long Americans will keep shelling out money for business class trips to Europe with the dollar as weak as it is.
Again, Hunt disagrees with the common belief, seeing the weakened dollar as a benefit to Silverjet. He suggests that US corporations will turn to cheaper alternatives like Silverjet instead of staying with the legacy airlines in order to get the most out of their corporate travel budgets.
As brokerages claim Silverjet is “doomed to fail,” the airline fires back and fights on. Can the business class-only model be a successful one? and in the age of “Open Skies,” can relative newcomers compete with the old guard? Let me know what you think.
I admire the optimism of the president of Silverjet, and I hope the company makes it, if for no other reason than to keep the larger airlines hopping. They deserve it:L they’ve ruled the industry too long, and any sort of inventive thinking of this sort should be welcome to all air travelers. Unfortunately, the sale offer, as well as the existance of the company, is much under-publisized. Hopefully, that can be corrected.
Carl Kaiser
Comment by Carl Kaiser — January 17, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
I don’t see Silverjet on the downhill at all, especially that they do indeed have competitive prices.
In all aspects, they are cheaper than BA (First) and their services are also supposed to be better, including exclusive lounges and other in-flight accessories and services such as ‘no announcements’ and whatnot.
Sure, HTR Terminal 5 has exclusive lounges for First customers and so on but Silverjet can easily outcompete these especially with their exclusive check in.
In my opinion they are completely different and unless another company that lowers their prices and offers better services comes around, Silverjet will be in business for a long time!
Comment by Nick — May 23, 2008 @ 10:09 am