Dale Moss, managing director of BA's OpenSkies subsidiary, is brually honest about how difficult it is to build a new airline.
In fact, he describes why the other business class-only airlines over the past few years - Maxjet, EOS and SilverJet) all ended up in the dustbin.
* Wrong business model
* Lack of distribution
* Not sufficiently capitalised
He also admits that in February 2008 there were some elements of the current economic climate they didn't see at all.
"Did we get oil at $147.27? No...," he confesses.
[One question: surely executives overseeing the launch of a new airline must have had SOME indication that oil prices might go a bit northward?]
But thankfully (Moss is clearly the best speaker so far) is realistic about the future of OpenSkies, especially in terms of recognition.
"We'll be successful in ten years and there will still be people saying 'who are they?'."
This is an interesting point. Let's just say that some of the failed airlines mentioned above tried as much as could to raise their profile with everyone, including the trade and the public.
But, as Moss admits, there is no point.
It's a niche audience, there is no need for widespread distribution.
Anyway, however, Andy Owen-Jones of Traveltainment poses one of the best questions of the day.
If the blog was a key element of having a conversation with potential new customers, he asks, why are there only 29 comments?
A fudged answer.......
I don't quite understand Owen-Jones' question: "If the blog was a key element of having a conversation with potential new customers, he asks, why are there only 29 comments?". Check out the the very first OpenSkies blog post - the one where Dale Moss unveiled that Project Lauren was indeed the new BA subsidiary OpenSkies http://blog.flyopenskies.com/page/5/ - that had 70 comments at the time, and 99 by now. Not bad for a start up airline. And they certainly are trying to build their brand among frequent flyers - look at the promotions they've done on Flyertalk, a forum for air mile junkies.
My question related specifically to the period from 20th September last year (and I mentioned that in the question). Since then there have been 29 comments - about 1 per week. I think blogs start off interesting when you have lots of new routes or acquisitions etc, but can go a bit dry when you are in "normal operations". In other words, if in the day to day operation you are not really succeeding in generating a conversation, then can you really describe a communication method as being the "heart" of interaction with your customers? I think not.