Wizz Air是怎样起飞的？

Things were not supposed to go wrong quite so quickly. In 2004, three months after laun-ching an airline catering to eastern Europeans and employing the low-cost model made famous by Southwest Airlines and Ryanair , József Váradi had to ask his management team to work for free. It was that or go under.

事情本不该恶化得如此之快。2004年，约瑟夫·瓦劳迪(József Váradi)成立了一家航空公司，面向东欧旅客提供服务，并采用因为美国西南航空(Southwest Airlines)和爱尔兰瑞安航空(Ryanair)而声名大噪的低成本业务模式。但在3个月后，瓦劳迪不得不恳求手下的管理班子无偿工作，否则公司将破产。

Mr Váradi, a Hungarian economist who had climbed the corporate ladder at Procter and Gamble and then spent 18 months as chief executive of Malev, Hungary’s now defunct state-owned airline, had taken delivery of six leased aircraft for his company, Wizz Air. He was confident he could fill them: the potential customers were there and the proposition was right.

当时，瓦劳迪为他的公司Wizz Air租赁了6架飞机。瓦劳迪是匈牙利经济学家，他曾在宝洁(Procter and Gamble)一路晋升，后在现已破产的国有匈牙利航空公司(Malev)担任了18个月的首席执行官。他相信这些飞机能够满载乘客：潜在顾客就在眼前，公司的定位很正确。

But he had been more relaxed about the progress of signing up passengers when he thought finalisation of funding arrangements with institutional in-vestors was imminent. In fact, securing the hundreds of millions of euros needed was taking longer than expected, and in the meantime cash was leaching out of the young business in the form of fuel payments, airport charges and salaries. As suppliers started talking about bills not being paid, the press pounced. “It was very distressing, he says. “There were articles suggesting people shouldn’t book because we were on the brink of going bust, and I had to tell [staff] it was very uncert-ain their salaries would ever be paid.

然而，瓦劳迪以为与机构投资者的融资安排即将尘埃落定，因而忽视了招揽顾客的进展状况。事实上，敲定数亿欧元融资的时间比预期要长，而在此期间，现金源源不断从这家初创企业流出——支付燃油费用、机场费用和工资。当供应商开始谈论账单拖欠时，媒体大做文章。“这很让人苦恼，瓦劳迪说，“有些文章建议人们不要预订我们的机票，因为我们即将破产，而且我不得不告诉员工，他们能否领到薪水还是个未知数。

Most of the management team agreed to delay taking their pay, and the institutional money eventually landed. Mr Váradi says he learnt a lesson: “You understand it’s not enough to manage a business just for profit – you also have to manage it for cash.

管理班子的大多数人同意推迟领工资，机构投资者的资金也最终落实。瓦劳迪说，他学到了一条教训：“你明白了，经营一家企业不能只为利润着想，你还要考虑现金。

That was just one of the first bumps in the road. Wizz’s passenger numbers have grown strongly since launch – although the rise of about 10 per cent in 2012 to €12m was a little less than in previous years. In 2010 the company broke even, thanks to a change in the way it accounted for maintenance costs. It swung to a loss again last year, but produced pre-tax profits of about €43m in the year to March 31, on sales of €766m.

这还只是初期的诸多坎坷之一。成立以来，Wizz Air的乘客数量强劲增长，尽管2012年10%的增幅（至1200万人次）不及往年。2010年，由于改变了维护成本的核算方式，公司实现收支相抵。2011年公司再度亏损，但在截至2012年3月31日的财年中，销售额达7.66亿欧元，税前利润约4300万欧元。

Wizz has expanded its fleet to nearly 40, and aims to reach 50 by 2014. In common with many other airline start-ups, the company’s aircraft are all run on operating leases rather than owned outright. But the plan is to find a better balance bet-ween leased and owned jets, Mr Váradi says, in line with Europe’s two leading low-cost short-haul carriers, easyJet and Ryanair.

Wizz Air已将机队扩充至近40架，并计划到2014年增加到50架。与其他初创的航空公司一样，它的飞机均通过经营租赁而来，而非直接购买。但瓦劳迪说，公司计划在租赁飞机和自有飞机的数量上达到更好的均衡，向欧洲两大低成本短途航班运营商——easyJet和瑞安航空——看齐。

He has learnt from his bigger rivals in other ways, too. However, he says his hands-on lessons came from Malev – which shut in February, long after Mr Váradi had left the company and was “a good school in how not to do business – and JetBlue in the US, which he visited ahead of launching Wizz.

瓦劳迪还通过其他方式向规模更大的竞争对手取经。不过他说，自己的第一手经验来自于两家公司，一家是在瓦劳迪离职多年后于2012年2月倒闭的匈航，它是“经营上的典型反面教材，一家是他在创办Wizz Air之前访问的美国捷蓝航空(JetBlue)。

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of his former colleagues resent his disparagement of Malev, saying he himself could have done more to fix the airline. One, who asked not to be named, even says he believes Mr Váradi struck aircraft deals in his waning days at Malev that made little sense for the flag-carrier, but would later help Wizz through the relationships they burnished. Mr Váradi rej-ects the notion completely, pointing out that the deals in question were with a different leasing company than that used by Wizz.

也许不出意外的是，瓦劳迪对匈航的贬低招致了某些前同事的不满，他们说，瓦劳迪本可以付出更大努力来拯救公司。一位要求匿名的前同事甚至表示，他认为瓦劳迪在匈航任职末期签订的飞机合同对这家主要航空公司毫无意义，但这些合同打造起来的关系日后倒是帮了Wizz Air的忙。瓦劳迪坚决拒绝这种说法，他指出，相关交易涉及的飞机租赁公司与Wizz Air使用的根本不是同一家公司。

Sipping coffee in a hotel bar in London’s Mayfair, he seems unassuming and diffident compared with other captains of industry. However, he has had to develop a thick skin in a sector with more than its share of outspoken executives, such as Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary. He found himself at the rec-eiving end of Mr O’Leary’s invective this year, when Wizz and Ryanair both ratcheted up their operations in and out of Budapest in the wake of Malev’s collapse.

瓦劳迪在伦敦Mayfair区的一家宾馆酒吧里小口喝着咖啡，与业界的其他领袖不同，他为人低调、羞怯。但在这个行业，像瑞安航空的迈克尔·奥莱利(Michael O’Leary)这样口无遮拦的高管多于平均，因此瓦劳迪不得不撑起厚脸皮。2012年匈航倒闭之后，Wizz Air和瑞恩航空两家都增加了往返布达佩斯的航班，瓦劳迪因此成为奥莱利破口大骂的对象。

“I’ve spent my entire career in the corporate world and I think I’m used to it, says Mr Váradi of this sort of attack. “I can differentiate between how people are and how they behave when they act on behalf of their company and therefore play a role.

谈到这类攻击时，瓦劳迪说：“我的整个职业生涯在企业界度过，我想我已经习惯了。我可以分清两者的区别：一是人们的真正品格，二是他们代表自己的公司、扮演某个角色时的所作所为。

It was a desire to be tested that first prompted his move into aviation and then to launch a business of his own. He says a change of political regime in Hungary also meant his position at Malev was no longer tenable.

渴望经受考验促使瓦劳迪踏入航空业，之后又成立自己的企业。他说，匈牙利政权更迭，也意味着自己在匈航的位置难以为继。

Until recently, there was little reason for Ryanair to want to disparage Wizz. As recently as 2009, the two airlines’ routes overlapped so little that some analysts have regularly asked wheth-er Wizz was positioning itself as a takeover target.

直到不久以前，瑞安航空并没有抨击Wizz Air的理由。即便是在2009年，两家航空公司的航线也基本上没有重叠，以至于经常有分析师问道：Wizz Air是否在将自己定位于一个收购目标？

Mr Váradi rejects the idea but ad-mits the two operations would mesh in areas other than network. Like Ryanair, Wizz flies mostly from secondary airports, has a non-unionised workforce and eschews the not-ion of chasing business travellers. On luggage policies, Mr Váradi ap-pears even to have outdone Mr O’Leary: Wizz Air passengers pay €10 for carry-on bags that Ryanair would fly for free; the only free luggage Wizz Air allows must fit under the seat.

瓦劳迪否认这个构想，但承认两家公司在航班网络以外的领域也很容易整合。与瑞安航空一样，Wizz Air主要起降于支线机场，员工不加入工会，也不去追逐商务旅客。在行李规定上，瓦劳迪似乎比奥莱利有过之而无不及：就连瑞安航空允许免费携带的随身行李，Wizz Air也要收取10欧元的费用；只有能塞进座位下的行李，Wizz Air才允许免费携带。

“We try to deliver this business at the lowest possible cost, says Mr Váradi.

“我们试图以尽可能低的成本经营业务，瓦劳迪说。

Industry insiders who have sat op-posite Mr Váradi in negotiations, but who decline to be named, say he is just as willing as Mr O’Leary to walk away from, say, an airport if it does not offer him the deal he wants. Yet his style is considerably less brash, even solicitous – a quality he wants reflected in frontline employees. “A customer is not a pain to us. We think the customer is someone that we profit from, so that person deserves some care, he says.

曾与瓦劳迪谈判但要求匿名的业内人士表示，如果机场不能拿出称心如意的合同，瓦劳迪会和奥莱利一样放弃这个机常但他的作风并不盛气凌人，反倒是有点关怀备至——他希望一线员工也能体现出这样的品质。他说：“顾客不是我们的负担。我们认为顾客为我们带来了利润，他们理应得到关怀。

He hopes that approach will help Wizz continue to grow in its existing markets, where he still sees opportunities – particularly if and when governments stop propping up ailing state carriers – as well as to expand geographically. Wizz recently launch-ed a route to Kutaisi, Georgia’s second-biggest city and now the easternmost point in the airline’s network.

瓦劳迪希望这种作风能帮助Wizz Air在现有市场继续增长（他认为这些市场仍有机会，尤其是在政府停止扶持处境不佳的国营航空公司的情况下），并实现地域扩张。最近，Wizz Air开通了往返格鲁吉亚第二大城市库泰西的航班，该市因此成为公司航班网络的最东端。

While he says there are no specific long-term passenger targets, Mr Vár-adi sees Wizz carrying 25m or more people a year by 2020 – and admits that by then, it is much more likely than not to be a publicly listed airline. For now, though, he says his investors – including Frankfurt-based DVB Bank, Indigo Partners in the US, and wealthy individuals – are being patient as they wait for better market conditions.

瓦劳迪表示公司没有具体的长期客运量目标，但他预计到2020年，Wizz Air每年将运输2500万名旅客乃至更多。他承认，届时Wizz Air很有可能将成为上市航空公司。但他表示，目前投资者——包括法兰克福的德国交通信贷银行(DVB Bank)、美国Indigo Partners和富裕的个人投资者——还在耐心等待市场环境好转。

If the challenges of rivals’ invective, government-backing for state-owned airlines or disappointments in new markets ever seem too much he re-members that, as an employee, he had craved the heat and light that entre-preurship might bring. “At Procter and Gamble, you’re always just a part of a mach-ine, he says. He remembers realising that “if you have a bit of an ambition to test yourself, you need to get into a different environment.

如果说对手的大骂、政府对国营航空公司的扶持、以及新市场令人失望等挑战看上去过于艰巨的话，他记得做员工时对创业激情的向往。他说：“在宝洁，你永远只是机器的一部分。他回忆道，自己意识到“如果你有考验自己的雄心，那么你需要投身一个不同的环境。