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FOURTH OF A SEVEN-PART SERIES
TRAVEL+MONE Y
How the Industry
Really Works
TOURS
Why so many smart people struggle
with such a simple business model. BY DAVID COGSWELL PAGE 19
[ HOT MARKETS: NEW YORK-LONDON, NEW YORK-PARIS ]
Premium class-only airlines are
all the rage — but will they fly?
By Andrew Compart
When Maxjet and Eos started
their transatlantic premium-class
services last fall, many industry
observers were skeptical that they
could succeed.
About a year later, many still are; no one
other than the airlines and
their investors really knows
how they are doing financially. Yet the number of
transatlantic all-premium-class services is about to
double.
France-based Elysair,
whose biggest investors
include the wine-making
Rothschilds, plans to start service in December between Paris (Orly) and Newark, pending Transportation Department approval.
That would make it the first premium-only service in the U.S.-France market; Eos is
planning to fly between de Gaulle and Kennedy airports, but not until late March.
In the U.K., London-based Silverjet is planning to start service Jan. 25 between London
(Luton) and Newark. That would make it the
third all-premium carrier on the New York-London route, joining Eos and Maxjet, both
of which fly between Stansted and Kennedy
airports.
“I think this is a whole
new sector,” Silverjet CEO
Lawrence Hunt said. “There
are loads of people looking
at it.”
Hunt, who has been involved in six start-up businesses since 1984, two of
them as CEO, founded
Silverjet Aviation in 2004; its nonexecutive
chairman is Peter Owen, who left British
Continued on Page 82
‘This is a whole new
sector. There are
loads of people
looking into it.’
— Lawrence Hunt, Silverjet
[ NEW BRANDING STRATEGY UNVEILED ]
Amid terrorism, war and turmoil, Jordan
emphasizes history, beauty and peace
By Nadine Godwin
AMMAN, Jordan — An oasis of relative
peace in the very heart of violence in the
Middle East, Jordan finds itself victimized by
the surrounding unrest in two ways — the
occasional deadly attack within its own borders and the more frequent loss of tourism
WORLD BEAT
Governor of New museum Forbidden City
Samoa bans will explore mixes history
Hawaiian U.S.- German with a dash of
Airlines. relations. capitalism.
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dollars when fighting erupts in neighboring
states.
While Jordan’s advantages as a tourist destination are real, the country is also “an island
of tranquility between Iraq and a hard place,”
in the words of Munir Nassar, the minister of
tourism and antiquities. Jordan’s greatest assets, he said, “are peace and our people.”
Despite those assets, Jordan has to work
harder than most countries to persuade potential visitors that life here moves at a normal pace and that the kingdom is a safe destination for tourists.
To that end, the Jordan Tourism Board
recently launched a new branding initiative,
replete with a new logo, a package of slick
brochures highlighting various Jordanian
destinations, a new visitors’ Web site and a
promotional film.
When the initiative was rolled out at an industry event here last month, it was clear that
the rebranding was seen as a key component
of the country’s tourism strategy for the rest
of this decade. It aims to earn Jordan more
