Interview: Viva Aerobus CEO on Why Half-Standing Seats Still Intrigue Him
Photo Credit: Viva Aerobus CEO Juan Carlos Zuazua wants to do everything he can to keep his airline's costs low. Viva Aerobus
Skift Take
With good management, this ultra low-cost airline strategy is profitable just about everywhere. The key? Airlines like Viva Aerobus must be fanatical about costs, and they must provide the cheapest fares, all the time. They also should treat their customers fairly.
If he could, Viva Aerobus CEO Juan Carlos Zuazua might install half-standing, half-sitting seats on his airline’s Airbus A320s. Several manufacturers have shopped them over the past decade, saying there's no reason passengers must be fully seated for short flights.
Not many airline executives admit they want to cram so many passengers on each plane. But Zuazua, CEO of Mexico’s only true ultra low-cost carrier, said most of his customers — every day about 22 percent fly for the first time — want only the cheapest prices. Comfort, he said, is less of a concern.
"My average stage length is an hour and 30 minutes so perhaps that's something that passengers may be able to take if the price was right," Zuazua said in a recent interview.
If Zuazua sounds like Michael O'Leary, the savvy yet loose-lipped CEO of Europe's Ryanair, it's for good reason. For a decade, ending late last year, an investment firm controlled by Declan Ryan, a member of the family that founded Ryanair
