Six-month-old all-premium transatlantic carrier Eos Airlines last month appointed former TQ3 COO Toby Joseph as executive vice president of global sales and John Morgan, a 25-year airline veteran formerly with British Airways and its partner GB Airways, vice president of Europe and general manager of the United Kingdom.
Since its launch as a direct-sales startup, Eos has been striving to make itself more relevant to the corporate market, CEO David Spurlock said, as it has added to its sales staff and gained participation in all four of the major global distribution systems.
Spurlock said its 20-strong salesforce is bulking up to secure corporate relationships as it seeks to build its presence through new yet-to-be-disclosed routes. The carrier this fall also will up the number of flights from one to two daily on its flagship New York-London route.
"In essence, we're investing ahead of the curve in sales," Spurlock said. "As we launch new routes, we need to build business relationships with a very large number of corporates and we recognized that even prior to the launch of the airline."
Joseph and Morgan—the former based in New York and the latter in London, representing the only two cities Eos currently serves—largely will focus on the corporate customer. While Spurlock said the company thus far has signed more than 100 corporate accounts, Eos would not disclose company names. "If you look at the top 10 investment banks," Spurlock said, "seven would have corporate accounts with us, so we've been successful with large international companies."
Joseph is taking the helm of corporate sales. "His role is to run worldwide sales for us that leverages his 20 years of experience in the travel industry," Spurlock said. "That's everything from how we work with travel agencies through to managing our salesforce that is calling on corporate accounts."
Two weeks into the job, Joseph said he had been doing just that—taking the "company bus" between London and New York, working with his salesforce and reaching out to TMC and corporate customer contacts made during his tenure as an agency executive.
Before joining Eos, Joseph's career was on the travel management company side of the corporate travel industry, most recently as COO of TQ3, prior to which he headed European sales for Carlson Wagonlit Travel. "It's my first time on this side of the house. After 20 years on the corporate travel management side, perhaps it was time to look at life from the other side of the table," Joseph said. "My role is responsible for global sales on all channels. Obviously, I bring experience from the corporate side and the managed travel piece of the action. That's very much where the focus from Eos is at the moment. We're making some very fast movement and good inroads into that area."
Meanwhile, Spurlock said Morgan has 25 years of experience in the airline business, particularly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where he ran business sales for British Airways. Morgan will focus on the European market, which Joseph said is becoming increasingly important to Eos.
Among the inroads that Eos has made in attempts to become more palatable to corporate travel buyers is full GDS participation, as the carrier has signed agreements with Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan.
"We were looking at a direct sales model, but the one thing that very quickly came to light was the corporate need for GDS participation," Spurlock said. "We're now signed up with all four GDSs. The last ones came in line roughly in March and that really broadens our distribution capabilities."
Eos and competitor MaxJet last fall both began offering daily, all-premium services between New York JFK and London Stansted Airport with similar concepts—a spacious inflight product offered at prices below comparable services from incumbent transatlantic operators
(BTN, Oct. 31. 2005).Since then, both carriers have said their performance has improved. MaxJet in April said that load factors for March averaged "more than 50 percent with the latter part of the month coming in at nearly 70 percent," while preliminary booking data suggested that April would average 70 percent load factors. Both carriers said they have been the beneficiaries of strong word-of-mouth referrals from customers.
"We had a 74 percent increase month over month in sales from March to April," Spurlock said. "The only way that happens is when you have enormous word-of-mouth referral. Load factors are still growing but have passed the 60 percent mark. That is not where they're going to top out and we have passed our break-even point on a flight-variable basis—that is everything excluding corporate overhead."
At a meeting with investors in New York last month, Willie Walsh, CEO of incumbent transatlantic carrier British Airways, noted the upstarts represent "additional competition for British Airways, but nothing that would cause concern," noting that they have "weak load factors" and "heavy discounting."