Happy New Year: Thank You For The Business In 2018
And just like that, Euro Jet ends its 10 Year Anniversary celebratory year and enters its 11th.
Our 10th Year was a busy one: We exhibited and co-hosted an event at Schedulers & Dispatchers in Long Beach, CA; our booth became a bar at EBACE which was overwhelmingly successful; we opened-up three new crew lounges in Sofia, Belgrade, and Warsaw; and we hosted a 10th Anniversary Celebratory event in September in Martinicky Palace right next to the Prague Castle.
While all of the above made for an exciting, yet busy year, volume wise we exceeded all of our expectations by supporting over 20 percent more flights in 2018 than we did in 2017. And 2017 was a record year!
The above statistic does not necessarily mean we are patting ourselves on the back. It is more a reflection of a satisfied customer base that trusts us and returns to utilize our services time-and-time again. The combination of increased customers and continuous growth in the Eastern European and Central Asian region culminated in significant growth.
Can we repeat all this?
As a child of aviation who witnessed what 2008-2009 did to private aviation, I am always cautiously optimistic. We have some unknown variables with a US Central Bank raising interest rates causing the US stock market to swing wildly, untested trade deals that could go either way, and of course Brexit.
But knock on wood the global economy is strong, no major wars appear imminent, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia continue to thrive.
Euro Jet has an exciting year ahead as we plan to exhibit and host an event at Schedulers & Dispatchers in San Antonio, speak at IOC in San Francisco, attend ABACE, sponsor tables at both the Spring and Autumn BACA lunches in London, be back as usual for EBACE in Geneva, attend RUBAE in Moscow, and then exhibit at BACE in Las Vegas.
In between all this we have Romania hosting the European Council as its rotating President, which continues the tradition of allowing Eastern European countries to assume this responsibility. Slovakia, Estonia, and Bulgaria have all recently hosted.
We will also see the two Slovakian cities of Bratislava and Kosice host the International Ice Hockey Federation Championship this May. This event is expected to bring national Ice Hockey teams, media, and fans from all over the world to Slovakia.
And lets not forget that 2019 will bring the 30th (!) anniversary of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and independence of many of our core locations. No doubt it will be an emotional time for our different country teams as we celebrate the heroism of Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Arpad Goncz and all the countless others who risked their lives for the betterment of their people.
While we have all of the above challenges, one of our goals at Euro Jet is to provide continuous training to our staff.
At the end of last year we had an employee retreat in the beautiful Czech mountains in Spindleruv Mlyn. Part of the retreat involved a scavenger hunt that took approximately 4 hours as we worked on mixed departmental teams to figure out clues and put the pieces together to solve a puzzle. The reward was lunch and a couple pints of beer, so everyone was kept very motivated!
I found this event to be incredibly symbolic of the work that we do day-in and day-out. Every day poses new challenges, problems, issues, and of course even mistakes that we need to fix. No single company is perfect, but if that company strives to work together and figure out as a team what needs to be get done, the possibilities are endless.
So….a toast to the success of 2018….BUT most importantly a toast to OUR CUSTOMERS who make everything possible. We even made a video for them, which you can watch here.
Each and every day we never forget our ultimate goal: to make sure every customer is a return customer…and remains that way for the next 11 years and beyond…
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
