At 33, Greek-born Stelios–his style is strictly first-name and “the surname is unpronounceable anyway”–controls a business that earns regular comparisons to Richard Branson’s Virgin. To British bargain hunters easyGroup’s shocking orange livery stands for startling values and a feisty approach to bigger rivals. Netheads can spend an hour at one of his easyEverything cybercafes for just ??1. Flights from Britain to a score of major European cities on his easyJet airline can cost less than a third of the rate charged by the leading carriers. The easyMessage: “There’s a lot of suspicion about anything that’s cheap,” says Stelios. “We are proving that you can be cheap and high quality.” The competition has noticed. Both British Airways and KLM have launched easyJet clones. That’s one more compliment, says Stelios. “You can jump up and down as much as you like, but it’s only when your opponents recognize you and fight back that you become a brand. It’s a sign you’ve arrived.”
If Stelios has arrived, he’s not staying put. The latest plans from easyLand, the company’s headquarters at Luton airport, near London, look as bold as its orange walls. Last year easyJet–the group’s biggest money-spinner–carried more than 3 million passengers, nearly double the 1998 figure. Turnover at the busiest of the easyEverything cafes approaches 6,000 a day. All of which inspires Stelios to apply his low-price-high-volume formula to new areas. Spring will see the launch of easyRentacar, a cut-rate rival to Hertz and Avis across Europe. An online banking business and an e-commerce venture will follow later in the year. Meanwhile, he’s proposing to open at least 50 more of those outsize easyEverything cafes from Amsterdam to Madrid over the next 18 months. The latest–a 550-seater in Kensington, London, that ranks as the world’s largest–welcomed its first customers this month. For good measure, easyJet has ordered 15 new aircraft for its fleet, bringing the total to 33. The money will come from a planned flotation later this year.
The pace is typical. It’s only five years since Stelios, son of a self-made Greek shipping magnate, quit the family business. “This started off with a desire to prove myself as a stand-alone entity rather than as my father’s son,” he says. The aviation business looked promising. The EU was deregulating the airways, and national airlines had grown complacent. Britain was a natural choice for a base. By European standards, the government was enterprise friendly, and Stelios had studied at the London School of Economics. But if the big-name carriers have grown sluggish, they still play rough with newcomers. Another British-based fledgling, Debonair, was squeezed out of business last year. Stelios himself has frequently tussled with BA. Two years ago, after the launch of BA’s easyJet look-alike, Go, Stelios brought an immediate writ (still wending its way through the courts) alleging a breach of EU competition rules. “There is no point waiting until you are out of business,” he says. “Sue–and sue early.”
Stelios has a ready explanation for his success where others failed. “It was a question of being in the right place, at the right time–with the right sort of father.” Too modest. Sure, a ??5 million loan from Dad helped put easyJet aloft. But Stelios is also skilled at cribbing winning ideas. Elements in the easyJet formula were borrowed from the United States, where budget carriers like Southwest Airlines have flourished. On an easyJet flight there’s no free food and no seating plan. Plastic tags replace paper tickets, and seats can only be booked over the Internet or on the phone (the number is unmissable: it’s painted in 20-foot letters on the side of every plane). It’s not a style you’d necessarily expect from a tycoon’s son with his own tanker fleet and an estimated ??400 million fortune. “My biggest break was shedding my own prejudices and preferences about what an airline should be,” says Stelios. But who wants a plastic meal on a short-hop flight anyhow? “It’s a bus, but a bus is what you need,” says businessman Tim Dervaz, heading for Aberdeen from London on an easyJet shuttle. “The staff is polite, and the planes are clean.” On average, easyJet planes are less than four years old, and last year easyJet’s record on delays was often better than BA’s.
If the quality keeps them coming back, it’s the showmanship that draws them in the first place. As Branson teaches, the public loves a showman, and Stelios has a natural flair. When rival Go took to the air for the first time, Stelios and a gang of staffers turned up for the inaugural flight dressed in orange overalls, nabbing the publicity. He appears in his own TV commercials and the company’s brash newspaper ads make reference to “Uncle Stelios.” Says Martin Borghetto, an aviation industry analyst at Morgan Stanley in London: “In the end these are small airlines and you need people like this at the head.” Like Branson, Stelios makes a principle of informality. He has no secretary and works from an open-plan office. “The best way to keep down costs is by example. If I am not going to have a big desk, nobody is going to have a big desk.” And he loves to talk. His annual mobile phone bill, by his own estimate, tops ??10,000. Passengers on easyJet’s Monday-morning flights from Nice may find themselves chatting to the owner heading back to the office from his bachelor penthouse in Monaco, his home for tax purposes. But behind the genial manner is a serious businessman who admits to a 17-hour-a-day work habit.
Don’t push the Branson parallels. “His brand is essentially about entertainment,” says Stelios. “My brand is firmly established at the value-for-money end of the market.” His business strategy hinges on the belief that consumers everywhere are ready to trade a little choice or comfort for lower prices. At easyRentacar the cost of a day’s hire will begin at just ??9, but there’ll be just one model on offer and the car park may be a short hike from the airport terminal. But isn’t there still an Old World leeriness of the bargain? Not so, says Stelios. Last year he bagged a new route between Geneva and Barcelona. Today it’s as successful as any other on the easyJet network. “The experiment has proved that even the most conservative people in Europe respond in the same way to a value-for-money proposition.”
Still, he’s taking some big risks. Some market-watchers predict a bleak future for cybercafes in the dawning age of Internet-linked wonderphones. Says Stelios: “There will always be people on the move, and anywhere but Palo Alto you will always have people who don’t want a computer or can’t afford a computer.” Skeptics also point to the crowd of newcomers pushing into the online banking scene. Even the airline–52 percent owned by Stelios–looks a tad vulnerable. Low prices depend on low costs, and Stelios is fighting the operators of his Luton base over a hefty price hike. However, better-known competitors would paint themselves orange for the kind of loyalty that Stelios has already inspired. Says London branding consultant Fiona Gilmore: “If people trust you enough to fly with you, moving into other areas is relatively straightforward.” Or easy.
