10-14-2017, 02:09 PM
An interview with Shaylin CEO and owner Alicia Marloen
A couple of days back we had the chance to sit down with Shaylin owner and CEO Alicia Marloen. This young woman in her twenties is clearly an bit of a disruptive sight if not for her age, than for her behaviour as she clearly by her own words 'does not give a fuck' about any established orders and ways of doing things.
Now one might expect a billionaire to life in a large estate with staff tending to their needs and more rooms than anyone could ever sensibly make use off. However this is not the case for Alicia and the reason we mention this is because to do the interview we where actually invited to her home instead of the offices or a hotel somewhere as is commonly done. No instead of that we found ourselves in a decently sized, but very spartan apartment on the outskirts of Amsterdam far away from any of the rich people areas and an even further cry from the country side estates. While there we where greeted at the door by Alicia herself who pointed us to the kitchen table and after pouring everyone a drink of choice and putting some snacks down we could start the interview.
Q: I have to start with this, but why invite us here and why do you live here?
A: *Smiles* I know why don't I own a grachtenpand as we call them or a large house with 50 odd rooms somewhere in the nice outdoors right? To be honest I don't feel the need for it, I got all I need here and it is in short range of the office and in general has great means to get around the place by car. I am quite the opposite to my Dad who loved to watch every cent he spend on the business, but did spend 25 million on his house, which we recently sold. It comes down to what matters to you and what you spend money on and this place to me provides me with all I need. As for why doing this here, I would say why not it is a good a place as any and less chance to be disturbed as when we would do it at the office and hotels always feel odd to me, never quite real.
Q: I see, you mention your Father Jacob Marloen, he is the one who started this all before the car accident took his life, how did you deal with it all?
A: Life can be short and over in an instant as the accident proved. It was sure sad, but it has not yet hit me hard, fact is we where never all that close. As my dad said I took after my mom a rebel who loved freedom more than anything else and I think the way that ended kinda put a barrier between him and myself. So with that said the business side showed up after years doing lord knows what he decides to start an airline, I guess he never learned that they rarely end up working out. The airline was a bit of a surprise I mean I knew he started it, but that was it so coming into that and see what was planned I had to act quickly as deadlines for changes where literally weeks away and I think it is clear I did not agree with his vision. The surprising part is that we only lost about 20% of the staff in the transition, considering the big changes I made that surprised me, guess they like me after all or still have not found an job elsewhere *laughs*.
Q: Yes you changed the planes from LLC to high end I suppose you can call it?
A: Indeed, while it is true that money is the limitation of all, the market quite well caters to those which have to watch their budgets or just care about it. Mainlines like KLM here locally have long be cutting the prices of their tickets down to compete for example. However the money still has to be made which is where you see additional charges and cuts in services and while I might be happy with a seat that is large enough and neighbours which are not annoying, I find that I hear many ask for better service and simplicity again. Try and book a ticket these days, it is a nightmare if you truly want to know if you save money or not or which service is included and which is not. So yeah I decided to go with a higher pricing point and offer the simplicity and service again, sure it is not for everyone, but I believe there is a large enough market for it. The fact is people if they can will pay for convenience and if I say my ticket is 1000 euros, but everything is in there, vs some else saying it is 750 euros, but X, Y and Z cost you more it is no longer convenient and even I am more expensive people will pay it just for the convenience factor. It is like when I brought my car the LFA I told them put on everything and give it these colors, I doubt I use half of the extras on there, but it is not worth it to me to puzzle it all out so I just pay the price and move on.
Q: I see, but beside the direction you also changed the ways people work at Shaylin right?
A: Indeed, I mean if I believe in freedom and desire it I need to offer as much of it as possible to the people who work for me. I never liked rigid structures and ways of working I prefer the flexible and more organic approach. If you task does not require you to be in at 0800 and you feel at your best from 1200 onwards, then show up at 1200 and not at 0800, it makes you feel better and it means I get more out of you. Or take the restaurant at the office, Dutch tax law says people have to pay for their food or it is what they call additional income and that needs to be taxed so my Dad had people pay for their food as most companies do. I just said fuck that shit pay the taxes and make sure people get great food for nothing, it just makes people feel better. It is also the reason why we put so much focus on people taking their breaks which is a really big issue with Dutch people as we do not take our breaks and it hurts productivity quite badly. So yeah it is a process ongoing, but so far people seem to enjoy the freedoms offered and I hope to continue that and I am certain in the end it will all pay off and if not people can call me an idiot for spending the money, luckily for them it is my money not theirs.
Q: That does seem to be something people tell about you when they are asked. You are very much in charge so to speak.
A: Indeed, comes mainly from the experiences I have had both here and the in the US. Dutch people love to discus things until the end of the universe if they could. In the US it is a lot more the decision is made so we go with it and that is the end of it. There is an American in origin comedian here in the Netherlands Greg Shapiro who has a great piece about Dutch meetings up on youtube, you should look it up. But yeah I am having none of that, if a decision is made it is made, as the saying goes a bad plan is better than no plan at all. Beside do you know just how much money gets wasted in meetings, it is insane as frankly 90 to 99% of the time spend in meetings is truly wasted.
Q: Well that is one way of looking at it certainly. Anyhow coming back to the pricing, I am curious you say people are willing to pay for convenience in a day of age where everyone seems to be wanting to get the best deal?
A: Indeed they will I believe and I have experienced also don’t think it is the only angle I thought off. You see by offering a higher standard of travel, comfort and convenience we actually make ourselves very interesting for business travel. Instead of going with expensive business class tickets you can take one of our economy class offerings and save money compared to business class tickets which is specially interesting on shorter flights and let’s be honest when you send people in the lower salary bands on travel. If a common co-worker is send out to travel being stuck in a standard economy seat in most airlines for say 12 hours is not something that will make you feel happy about your work. We on the other hand offer just that bit more turning it back from sardine can to comfortable and enjoyable travel.
Q: Now you are based in the Netherlands and specially Schiphol airport which is known to be busy, expensive and reaching it’s capacity limit due to regulations. Does any of this concern you?
A: Naturally it does, but contracts where signed before hand so we will have to deal with this. Also the fact is that Schiphol is a well known transfer airport so we can fly people to say Dubai from Toronto and the likes so there are options to go with. Beside that I am looking at setting up a second airline in the US at some point seeing I have dual citizenship that makes it quite easy and perhaps an other one in the Asia pacific region to complete the picture. That said those are all long therm plans, first we have to get Shaylin of the ground and running stable here in Amsterdam and that will be a massive challenge no doubt.
Q: A challenge no doubt, now we know that some of the planes in your fleet have been purchased, but most are leased can you explain why?
A: True we own a few of our planes as my Dad spend the money for them to get a healthy base on which it would be easier to get reasonable lease contracts. The reason to lease planes simply has to do with cost, as a person he and now I we are quite wealthy, but look at it from a company perspective and it is quite literally nothing. A A350 costs north of 300 million euro and the CS300 north of 85 million at list prices. That is a whole lot of money even for people like me, so by leasing we can actually grow our fleet a lot faster, while keeping our operational costs within limits. Finally personally I believe in a full write off on purchase of any asset, most companies write off planes over time that way their books do not take the hit on paper that very instant, while in reality if you give Airbus 300 million you are out 300mill no matter which way you spin it. So I believe in being honest and saying if I spend 300 million it is gone and while I can say the asset has value to compensate for it, if I do not and it does not fly it does not cost me anything in the books and when it flies it is a net profit. Again it comes down to keeping things simple which I certainly love.
Q: Well certainly one way of looking at it and if it works out I guess it says something. Speaking of the planes themselves you have gone with an interior based on some Airbus concepts from a little while back.
A: Indeed, I needed something quick because of the timing of everything so we did not have the time to design our own. As a result it was a case of finding an off the shelf design and Airbus was willing to part with theirs which we gave a few slight tweaks and now have installed on both our Airbus planes as well as the Bombardier series planes to ensure an equal look throughout the fleet. Overall I will say it makes the planes a really nice place to be in personally and it sure stands out compared to the many of the old styles out there. Of course other airlines are showing some amazing stuff with their A350 or 787 interiors so we are looking at our own design at some point in the future.
Q: On the subject of the Bombardier CS series, why take those over the Airbus A320neo family?
A: Efficiency mainly and while operating them to major airports does mean a relatively high landing cost it still works out for us. But yeah efficiency is the main reason airline travel is not known to be very green although I believe that is quite misunderstood. Taking one of our CS300 it can carry 116 passengers and burns 2.26 litres of fuel per kilometre flown. That comes down to *takes out her phone clearly one of the new Nokias for the calculations* 0.0195 litres of fuel per passenger per kilometre flown. A really efficient car burns about 0.04 litres per kilometres travelled and the average load of a car is well below 2 persons. So am I saying air travel is a green choice, well no there are greener choices, but it is really not as bad as people want to make it out and if you have to get somewhere in a certain time limit it still tends to be the best choice. On the money side plenty of airlines look at the plane pricing more atm because fuel is cheap, but fuel is not going to stay cheap much longer and when that happens we will be in a far better place with our fleet choice.
At this point Alicia offered us to take us out for some lunch and we took the offer settling down in a Moroccan restaurant a few minutes walking from her apartment for a great lunch which she fully covered. The lunch was great, simply, but tasty and overall seemed fitting for the person that is Alicia who clearly manages to walk the line between being insanely rich and remaining simple in quite a few things. After the lunch we returned to her apartment to ask some final questions.
Q: I know you are not known for daily routines, but certainly in your new role you must have some, could you give us an idea of how a day goes by for you?
A: As you said I am not one for routines, in general it is a case of getting up when I wake up, check my messages and all and plan from there. If there is nothing going on that needs me I just head off to do what I want and if there are things that need me I head to the office to handle them. Of course emergencies can always pop up and that means that at times I show up in the late night or early morning at the office to take care of it. It is likely that this will continue for a little while longer until we find a suitable person to handle the day to day operations.
Q: Can I figure from those words that you do not plan to remain the CEO?
A: I am not sure yet to be honest if I fully resign as CEO or if I stay on as CEO, but just have some one below me to handle the day to day business. Let’s be fair not to long ago I was messing around in LA without much care for the world, I think I still need to settle on what I want. Still I do kind of enjoy the current process of getting things rolling and running smoothly.
Q: Understandable, speaking of your youth if I may, there are quite some rumours buzzing around how you might end up being quite disruptive in an industry mostly led by older males.
A: I guess I will be if they are anything like my Dad, though so far the dealings I have had with the likes at Airbus and Bombardier have been great. That said no doubt some where taken aback a little by me and my classic Dutch direct approach to certain things. I just hate wasting time and that is something people tend to swiftly grasp around me or my staff is wise enough to inform them about beforehand.
Q: So you do have some staff working for you?
A: Naturally I mean I run my own investments and other things that need to be kept track off. I know many people just see me as the girl that inherited daddy's money, but I made a healthy amount on my own accord before this. When we mostly parted way he gave me a bag of money so to speak and told me “Until I am death this is all you shall receive, be wise with it.” so naturally I wasted half of it first before growing wise. *chuckles*
Q: As a final question I know you do not really plan for yourself, but where would you see Shaylin in 10 years from now?
A: Take the crown from KLM? Seriously though I hope we can grow swiftly and healthy and build up a great reputation while doing so. With that in 10 years time I hope that we become a well known name in the industry and not just considered an other annoying upstart. It will be hard to do so, you see it everyday how business merge or get taken over in the needs to survive. The larger you are the more you can invest and smaller players are just left behind to either be taken over or left to die before their corpses are being looted like in a video game. Business is a war zone and I am fully aware of that fact and it is why I am always geared up to fight. It is why I do believe in taking on debt or go public, you need to be able to make calls instantly and have the cash on hand to finance them even if it means buying up the entire fleet of an airline gone bankrupt. Even in business cash is king if you can walk in and put the money on the table the very instant you offer it, the deal is pretty much closed. It is how I got many of my investments, other parties having to clear things with their partners or banks and I just walked in, put the cash on the table and extended my hand. So yeah where I see Shaylin in 10 years is as a healthy, competitive and respectable company.
_______________________________
I hope you all enjoyed this read and if you made it through it all: WOW thank you. If you got any questions you would like to see answered please ask them and I will include them in a next interview post.
A couple of days back we had the chance to sit down with Shaylin owner and CEO Alicia Marloen. This young woman in her twenties is clearly an bit of a disruptive sight if not for her age, than for her behaviour as she clearly by her own words 'does not give a fuck' about any established orders and ways of doing things.
Now one might expect a billionaire to life in a large estate with staff tending to their needs and more rooms than anyone could ever sensibly make use off. However this is not the case for Alicia and the reason we mention this is because to do the interview we where actually invited to her home instead of the offices or a hotel somewhere as is commonly done. No instead of that we found ourselves in a decently sized, but very spartan apartment on the outskirts of Amsterdam far away from any of the rich people areas and an even further cry from the country side estates. While there we where greeted at the door by Alicia herself who pointed us to the kitchen table and after pouring everyone a drink of choice and putting some snacks down we could start the interview.
Q: I have to start with this, but why invite us here and why do you live here?
A: *Smiles* I know why don't I own a grachtenpand as we call them or a large house with 50 odd rooms somewhere in the nice outdoors right? To be honest I don't feel the need for it, I got all I need here and it is in short range of the office and in general has great means to get around the place by car. I am quite the opposite to my Dad who loved to watch every cent he spend on the business, but did spend 25 million on his house, which we recently sold. It comes down to what matters to you and what you spend money on and this place to me provides me with all I need. As for why doing this here, I would say why not it is a good a place as any and less chance to be disturbed as when we would do it at the office and hotels always feel odd to me, never quite real.
Q: I see, you mention your Father Jacob Marloen, he is the one who started this all before the car accident took his life, how did you deal with it all?
A: Life can be short and over in an instant as the accident proved. It was sure sad, but it has not yet hit me hard, fact is we where never all that close. As my dad said I took after my mom a rebel who loved freedom more than anything else and I think the way that ended kinda put a barrier between him and myself. So with that said the business side showed up after years doing lord knows what he decides to start an airline, I guess he never learned that they rarely end up working out. The airline was a bit of a surprise I mean I knew he started it, but that was it so coming into that and see what was planned I had to act quickly as deadlines for changes where literally weeks away and I think it is clear I did not agree with his vision. The surprising part is that we only lost about 20% of the staff in the transition, considering the big changes I made that surprised me, guess they like me after all or still have not found an job elsewhere *laughs*.
Q: Yes you changed the planes from LLC to high end I suppose you can call it?
A: Indeed, while it is true that money is the limitation of all, the market quite well caters to those which have to watch their budgets or just care about it. Mainlines like KLM here locally have long be cutting the prices of their tickets down to compete for example. However the money still has to be made which is where you see additional charges and cuts in services and while I might be happy with a seat that is large enough and neighbours which are not annoying, I find that I hear many ask for better service and simplicity again. Try and book a ticket these days, it is a nightmare if you truly want to know if you save money or not or which service is included and which is not. So yeah I decided to go with a higher pricing point and offer the simplicity and service again, sure it is not for everyone, but I believe there is a large enough market for it. The fact is people if they can will pay for convenience and if I say my ticket is 1000 euros, but everything is in there, vs some else saying it is 750 euros, but X, Y and Z cost you more it is no longer convenient and even I am more expensive people will pay it just for the convenience factor. It is like when I brought my car the LFA I told them put on everything and give it these colors, I doubt I use half of the extras on there, but it is not worth it to me to puzzle it all out so I just pay the price and move on.
Q: I see, but beside the direction you also changed the ways people work at Shaylin right?
A: Indeed, I mean if I believe in freedom and desire it I need to offer as much of it as possible to the people who work for me. I never liked rigid structures and ways of working I prefer the flexible and more organic approach. If you task does not require you to be in at 0800 and you feel at your best from 1200 onwards, then show up at 1200 and not at 0800, it makes you feel better and it means I get more out of you. Or take the restaurant at the office, Dutch tax law says people have to pay for their food or it is what they call additional income and that needs to be taxed so my Dad had people pay for their food as most companies do. I just said fuck that shit pay the taxes and make sure people get great food for nothing, it just makes people feel better. It is also the reason why we put so much focus on people taking their breaks which is a really big issue with Dutch people as we do not take our breaks and it hurts productivity quite badly. So yeah it is a process ongoing, but so far people seem to enjoy the freedoms offered and I hope to continue that and I am certain in the end it will all pay off and if not people can call me an idiot for spending the money, luckily for them it is my money not theirs.
Q: That does seem to be something people tell about you when they are asked. You are very much in charge so to speak.
A: Indeed, comes mainly from the experiences I have had both here and the in the US. Dutch people love to discus things until the end of the universe if they could. In the US it is a lot more the decision is made so we go with it and that is the end of it. There is an American in origin comedian here in the Netherlands Greg Shapiro who has a great piece about Dutch meetings up on youtube, you should look it up. But yeah I am having none of that, if a decision is made it is made, as the saying goes a bad plan is better than no plan at all. Beside do you know just how much money gets wasted in meetings, it is insane as frankly 90 to 99% of the time spend in meetings is truly wasted.
Q: Well that is one way of looking at it certainly. Anyhow coming back to the pricing, I am curious you say people are willing to pay for convenience in a day of age where everyone seems to be wanting to get the best deal?
A: Indeed they will I believe and I have experienced also don’t think it is the only angle I thought off. You see by offering a higher standard of travel, comfort and convenience we actually make ourselves very interesting for business travel. Instead of going with expensive business class tickets you can take one of our economy class offerings and save money compared to business class tickets which is specially interesting on shorter flights and let’s be honest when you send people in the lower salary bands on travel. If a common co-worker is send out to travel being stuck in a standard economy seat in most airlines for say 12 hours is not something that will make you feel happy about your work. We on the other hand offer just that bit more turning it back from sardine can to comfortable and enjoyable travel.
Q: Now you are based in the Netherlands and specially Schiphol airport which is known to be busy, expensive and reaching it’s capacity limit due to regulations. Does any of this concern you?
A: Naturally it does, but contracts where signed before hand so we will have to deal with this. Also the fact is that Schiphol is a well known transfer airport so we can fly people to say Dubai from Toronto and the likes so there are options to go with. Beside that I am looking at setting up a second airline in the US at some point seeing I have dual citizenship that makes it quite easy and perhaps an other one in the Asia pacific region to complete the picture. That said those are all long therm plans, first we have to get Shaylin of the ground and running stable here in Amsterdam and that will be a massive challenge no doubt.
Q: A challenge no doubt, now we know that some of the planes in your fleet have been purchased, but most are leased can you explain why?
A: True we own a few of our planes as my Dad spend the money for them to get a healthy base on which it would be easier to get reasonable lease contracts. The reason to lease planes simply has to do with cost, as a person he and now I we are quite wealthy, but look at it from a company perspective and it is quite literally nothing. A A350 costs north of 300 million euro and the CS300 north of 85 million at list prices. That is a whole lot of money even for people like me, so by leasing we can actually grow our fleet a lot faster, while keeping our operational costs within limits. Finally personally I believe in a full write off on purchase of any asset, most companies write off planes over time that way their books do not take the hit on paper that very instant, while in reality if you give Airbus 300 million you are out 300mill no matter which way you spin it. So I believe in being honest and saying if I spend 300 million it is gone and while I can say the asset has value to compensate for it, if I do not and it does not fly it does not cost me anything in the books and when it flies it is a net profit. Again it comes down to keeping things simple which I certainly love.
Q: Well certainly one way of looking at it and if it works out I guess it says something. Speaking of the planes themselves you have gone with an interior based on some Airbus concepts from a little while back.
A: Indeed, I needed something quick because of the timing of everything so we did not have the time to design our own. As a result it was a case of finding an off the shelf design and Airbus was willing to part with theirs which we gave a few slight tweaks and now have installed on both our Airbus planes as well as the Bombardier series planes to ensure an equal look throughout the fleet. Overall I will say it makes the planes a really nice place to be in personally and it sure stands out compared to the many of the old styles out there. Of course other airlines are showing some amazing stuff with their A350 or 787 interiors so we are looking at our own design at some point in the future.
Q: On the subject of the Bombardier CS series, why take those over the Airbus A320neo family?
A: Efficiency mainly and while operating them to major airports does mean a relatively high landing cost it still works out for us. But yeah efficiency is the main reason airline travel is not known to be very green although I believe that is quite misunderstood. Taking one of our CS300 it can carry 116 passengers and burns 2.26 litres of fuel per kilometre flown. That comes down to *takes out her phone clearly one of the new Nokias for the calculations* 0.0195 litres of fuel per passenger per kilometre flown. A really efficient car burns about 0.04 litres per kilometres travelled and the average load of a car is well below 2 persons. So am I saying air travel is a green choice, well no there are greener choices, but it is really not as bad as people want to make it out and if you have to get somewhere in a certain time limit it still tends to be the best choice. On the money side plenty of airlines look at the plane pricing more atm because fuel is cheap, but fuel is not going to stay cheap much longer and when that happens we will be in a far better place with our fleet choice.
At this point Alicia offered us to take us out for some lunch and we took the offer settling down in a Moroccan restaurant a few minutes walking from her apartment for a great lunch which she fully covered. The lunch was great, simply, but tasty and overall seemed fitting for the person that is Alicia who clearly manages to walk the line between being insanely rich and remaining simple in quite a few things. After the lunch we returned to her apartment to ask some final questions.
Q: I know you are not known for daily routines, but certainly in your new role you must have some, could you give us an idea of how a day goes by for you?
A: As you said I am not one for routines, in general it is a case of getting up when I wake up, check my messages and all and plan from there. If there is nothing going on that needs me I just head off to do what I want and if there are things that need me I head to the office to handle them. Of course emergencies can always pop up and that means that at times I show up in the late night or early morning at the office to take care of it. It is likely that this will continue for a little while longer until we find a suitable person to handle the day to day operations.
Q: Can I figure from those words that you do not plan to remain the CEO?
A: I am not sure yet to be honest if I fully resign as CEO or if I stay on as CEO, but just have some one below me to handle the day to day business. Let’s be fair not to long ago I was messing around in LA without much care for the world, I think I still need to settle on what I want. Still I do kind of enjoy the current process of getting things rolling and running smoothly.
Q: Understandable, speaking of your youth if I may, there are quite some rumours buzzing around how you might end up being quite disruptive in an industry mostly led by older males.
A: I guess I will be if they are anything like my Dad, though so far the dealings I have had with the likes at Airbus and Bombardier have been great. That said no doubt some where taken aback a little by me and my classic Dutch direct approach to certain things. I just hate wasting time and that is something people tend to swiftly grasp around me or my staff is wise enough to inform them about beforehand.
Q: So you do have some staff working for you?
A: Naturally I mean I run my own investments and other things that need to be kept track off. I know many people just see me as the girl that inherited daddy's money, but I made a healthy amount on my own accord before this. When we mostly parted way he gave me a bag of money so to speak and told me “Until I am death this is all you shall receive, be wise with it.” so naturally I wasted half of it first before growing wise. *chuckles*
Q: As a final question I know you do not really plan for yourself, but where would you see Shaylin in 10 years from now?
A: Take the crown from KLM? Seriously though I hope we can grow swiftly and healthy and build up a great reputation while doing so. With that in 10 years time I hope that we become a well known name in the industry and not just considered an other annoying upstart. It will be hard to do so, you see it everyday how business merge or get taken over in the needs to survive. The larger you are the more you can invest and smaller players are just left behind to either be taken over or left to die before their corpses are being looted like in a video game. Business is a war zone and I am fully aware of that fact and it is why I am always geared up to fight. It is why I do believe in taking on debt or go public, you need to be able to make calls instantly and have the cash on hand to finance them even if it means buying up the entire fleet of an airline gone bankrupt. Even in business cash is king if you can walk in and put the money on the table the very instant you offer it, the deal is pretty much closed. It is how I got many of my investments, other parties having to clear things with their partners or banks and I just walked in, put the cash on the table and extended my hand. So yeah where I see Shaylin in 10 years is as a healthy, competitive and respectable company.
_______________________________
I hope you all enjoyed this read and if you made it through it all: WOW thank you. If you got any questions you would like to see answered please ask them and I will include them in a next interview post.