Eos makes pledge to support trade

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Eos will begin daily flights from Dubai to London’s Stansted Airport from July 6.

The latest all business-class airline to announce flights from the UK to Dubai - Eos - has vowed to support the region's travel trade.

"We expect the majority of our business to come through traditional channels and we will work closely with the travel trade - we have no intention of cutting them out and going direct to clients," the carrier's senior vice president for Eos Europe, John Morgan, told ATN.

"Although our online sales are around 20% to 25%, the majority of corporate travellers flying with Eos do not want to book their own travel - they haven't got time - they want their travel management company (TMC) to arrange it all for them."

With this in mind, Morgan said Eos would be BSP-enabled and distributed through the GDS. Establishing net fares as well as "incentives for producers" were also likely, he added.

Morgan was speaking to ATN after Eos announced plans to launch daily flights from Dubai to London Stansted on July 6.

London Stansted, in the north east of London, is closer to Canary Wharf and London's financial district than Heathrow and Gatwick, as well as Luton - the hub for Eos's competitor in the all-business class carrier category, Silverjet, which started daily flights from Dubai on November 19.

"Stansted is perfect for travellers working in or visiting Canary Wharf or the city and from the agreements we have with TMCs and corporates, we know that we have taken an enormous amount of traffic out of Heathrow - from each and every carrier [that flies to New York]," said Morgan.

Eos currently flies from Stansted to New York's JFK Airport 22 times weekly and flies four times daily on peak days. It claims to carry one out of every nine business class passengers travelling between the two cities.

The carrier will introduce a service to Newark International Airport on May 5.

"We have high repeat business as there are many frequent travellers on the New York route - some fly every month," said Morgan.

They chose to keep flying with Eos, because while other airlines were "much of a muchness", Eos provided the "Eos service", he explained: "We are completely different to Silverjet - and I'm sure Silverjet would be the first to admit that we have a very different product to theirs," he said.

Eos flies the world's only fleet of Boeing 757s configured for just 48 guests. Silverjet's fleet comprises Boeing 767-200 EN aircraft configured for 102 seats.

"We don't even think we necessarily compete in the same market as Silverjet, although there is some overlap," conceded Morgan."We go for the large corporates, as well as high-end leisure."

Eos prices tended to be higher than Silverjet's but just below business class fares on regular carriers, Morgan added.

Aside from its 48-seat all-business configuration, Eos's main USPs are "value for money" and "premium service", according to Morgan.

"We get compared to - and this makes me smile - Concorde, except we are more comfortable. There is nothing like us in the air," he said.

At time of press, Eos had not announced flight timings from Dubai, details of its ground handling process or its GSAs. See the April edition of ATN for more information.

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