Easy Jet

EasyJet: dot.com case study

The airline was established in November 1995. It was launched by Stelios Haja-Ioannou, a Greek-Cypriot businessman, and based in the so called easyLand in London Luton. The first flight has been just a month later.
After only two years, in April 1997,   Eayjet launched its own website to provide information to its customers about flights and times of departures. The first ticket online was sold only one year later.

Company analysis along years

ENTREPRENEURIAL BACKGROUND: capabilities and business idea

Stelios Haja-Ioannou was born in Athens in 1967 from a wealthy   Greek-Cypriot couple. His father was a billionar owner of one of the world’s biggest tanker operations.
Stelios didn’t want to hanger around in the shadow of his father. He first founded the Stelmar shipping at the age of 25, and then he decides to turn into fly business in 1995, founding EasyJet.

“I was desperately trying to get rid of the daddy’s boy image. I had to do something away from home in an industry that my father knew nothing about, where my surname meant nothing to anybody.”
Stelios Haja-Ioannou

He created EasyJet’s name by himself. For the company logo and the following first advertising campaign he went to a small local design consultancy, White Knight, which gave the airline its famous shade of orange, used by no other airline at the time or since.
Stelios realised from start that it was hard to make short-haul air travel make glamorous   and he had no intention of trying.
He married a very simple philosophy: “No frills, no extras”.

According to this he developed his business idea: cut out the travel agents, the in-flight meals, pass on the massive savings to the costumers and even easy clothes for the staff.
Stelios also believed in a very spartan and paperless office with only pc and phones.
He took the inspiration from the low cost business of South West airline operating in USA.

“The cheaper you can do something, the more...