Freddie Laker
A British entrepreneur, he took on the airline giants and made flying affordable
By RICHARD BRANSON
Sir Freddie Laker was one of the classic heroes of the 20th century, and ever since I was a teenager, a personal hero of mine.
For those who don't remember Sir Freddie, he was the inventor of the low-cost airline with the launch of Laker SkyTrain in 1977. Freddie served in the Royal Air Force in World War II, and when peace broke out, started buying up its old bombers. Despite the leaden bureaucracy of postwar Britain,
his freight and passenger charter business was up and running by the time the Soviet Union divided Germany in 1948.
The famous Berlin Airlift had begun and it was the making of Freddie's career. He and his colleagues flew their private charter aircraft round the clock and beyond. From then on Freddie was unstoppable, founding a series of innovative airlines. But the big one was SkyTrain, the world's first low-fare, long-haul airline, flying from London Gatwick to New York City.
It was a sensation, expanding very rapidly to add Miami and Los Angeles, with people queuing overnight to get tickets. And that's hardly surprising. In those days a cartel of 10 including Pan Am, TWA and British Airways (BA) kept ticket prices painfully high. After five years, the cartel forced him out of business; he sued for antitrust and eventually settled out of court for millions. It was all too late to save his beloved Laker SkyTrain. But in 1984 a young music entrepreneur decided to take up Laker's original license between Gatwick and New York and start an airline called Virgin Atlantic.
I got to know Freddie Laker very well, and found him charming, courageous and modest. I wanted to name our first plane after him, but he insisted it wouldn't be good for our image as a new start-up. It would be years before he let us christen a Jumbo "Spirit of Sir Freddie." He also gave me fantastic advice about Virgin Atlantic. He warned me I would have to defend my business against monopolist and protectionist governments, and also explained why we needed to beat competitors on quality of service as well as price.
He concluded his advice with the immortal words: "When BA come after you, which they inevitably will, shout long, shout hard and then sue the bastards!" Within six years everything he had predicted in that one sentence came true, but—partly thanks to his advice—we won. I will never forget him.
Sir Richard Branson is president of the Virgin Group. He founded the long-haul airline Virgin Atlantic in 1984
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April 28, 2004 |
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October 11, 2004 |
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October 10, 2005 |
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