Under the Radar

摘要

Marc rochet, CEO of the two-jet, all-business-class Newark-Paris airline L'Avion, will tell you exactly why his company is only i of 4 such start-ups to have survived this catastrophic year for air travel: "Because we weren't stupid." Survival, though, comes at a price. The company's parent, Elysair, was bought last month by British Airway's new OpenSkies subsidiary for $108 million, as the two firms try to stake out a future in the deregulating but oil-shocked global marketplace. L'Avion's lesson is about the critical choices that every new company has to make as it moves forward. Choose wrong, and you're dead. Case in point: at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport, L'Avion is moving into the cushy lounge once occupied by the defunct Silverjet-a hermit crab occupying an empty shell. Rochet notes that L'Avion will pay a lower rent than Silverjet did and will share the facility to further defray costs. That will be quite an improvement over L'Avion's current lounge, a curtained-off part of the waiting area near the gate. It's a joke, to be blunt.