Event Review
Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce
Roundtable Lunch
19 March 2007
The Oasis Vision: 200 Destinations in 20 Years
It was Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson who, when asked how it was possible to make a million pounds in the airline industry, quipped, "Start with one billion". That observation obviously did not deter Oasis HongKong founder Reverend Raymond Lee and his group of investors from launching what became Hong Kong's first new long-haul airline in 60 years when it inaugurated flights to London last October.
Speaking to about 50 attendees at a Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce roundtable lunch on 19 March, Rev. Lee outlined his flight path for the future and confidently predicted the airline would be flying to 200 destinations in 20 years.
In an upbeat, almost evangelical, message he said the carrier has already made an auspicious start, carrying more than 51,000 passengers and selling 100,000 tickets for its daily service between Hong Kong and London.
Oasis HongKong, with its hybrid low-cost/legacy carrier business model, "only needed 50,000 roundtrip passengers to break even compared with 100,000-150,000 passengers" for a full service airline, Rev. Lee said. He told the group, which included a smattering of Aerospace Forum Asia members, that flights to Vancouver would start in June. This would coincide with the delivery of the first of three Boeing 747-400s acquired from Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA). Flights would also start this year to San Francisco.
The carrier would add 12 to 15 European and North American destinations and 25 aircraft to its fleet over the next five years.
Putting to rest some of the misconceptions about the airline, Rev. Lee, assisted by his wife Priscilla and airline managing director Steve Miller, pointed out that Oasis HongKong preferred to be known as a "value for money carrier". "We have pillows, we have blankets, we've got food," he said, adding that the airline's highly experienced pilots include aircrew that used to fly Concorde and were with Britain's Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force aerobatic display team.
Despite earlier teething problems when the airline had its launch delayed 24 hours because of overflight issues with Russia, on-time performance average was 94% with 100% so far in March.
Mr. Miller, who was involved in the launch of Cargolux and Dragonair, said: "Oasis is the most exciting project I've been involved with." But both Rev. Lee and Mr. Miller admitted that aircraft utilisation - at about 11 hours a day was not being optimised. Responding to a question from Forum member Michael Pilkington of the law firm Clyde & Co, Rev. Lee said full utilization of the aircraft would only come when the airline further expanded its fleet. "By the time we get to five aircraft we begin to optimise the aircraft at 16-17 hours a day", Rev. Lee said.
At the end of a lively Q&A session, Forum president Martin Craigs pointed out that aviation was rapidly becoming the new tobacco, a target in the crosshairs of government and the environmental lobby. Britain's doubling of airport departure tax, from 1 February would impact Oasis more than most carriers Mr. Craigs said. Such unilateral tax collection for government general coffers would "be only the tip of the iceberg" in terms of punitive taxes that governments worldwide will be happy to harvest. The aviation industry needs to collectively get its value-adding economic and societal points across.
The HKGCC event finished on an upbeat note when it was agreed that Rev. Lee would merit a Noble prize for physics if he could prove Rod Eddington wrong and make "long-haul, low-cost" a profitable formula.
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