Have you ever had the opportunity to fly on a plane in your life?
Think back to that year when the first charter plane took to the skies. At that time, it should be the early spring of 1998.
However, he could no longer recall the details at that time. He only knew that he must have been at the scene at that time, watching the plane break through the night sky and ascend into the sky.
At that moment, his heart was suddenly shaken by his own thoughts: How great it would be if all ordinary people in China could fly in their lifetime!
This kind of shock has kept him going for 10 years.
His name is Wang Zhenghua, chairman of Spring Airlines. The first "low-cost airline" in China.
His ideal: every Chinese should fly at least once in his lifetime
In the eyes of others, all Chinese should be able to fly. It's almost a quixotic dream. Wang Zhenghua also knows that this is a difficult goal to achieve, but it is also a path that requires someone to walk step by step, and it can eventually be achieved.
On the first chartered flight at that time, all the tourists were villagers from suburban counties in Suzhou. The plane's destination is Hainan.
At that time, the villagers in the suburban counties of Suzhou and Shanghai were relatively wealthy, and they could afford to take "charter" flights - the price of charter flights was very low. Wang Zhenghua knows very well that if flying is transformed from luxury consumption to ordinary mass consumption, countless Chinese people will be able to afford to fly if the price drops by one level.
When people's living standards further improve and the price of airplanes drops to a very low level, theoretically, all Chinese people will be able to travel by spacecraft.
At that time, Wang Zhenghua sighed with emotion, alas, many Chinese people today cannot realize this dream: living in this era of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, they have never been able to take a plane. This is What a great regret in life. In developed countries like Europe and the United States, flying has long been the most common transportation option.
In 2004, when Spring Airlines launched its own low-cost airline and flew its own plane into the sky for the first time, Wang Zhenghua clearly realized that he was already 60 years old. Even though he was already 60 years old, It is also unlikely to be realized in our lifetime - the ideal of "every Chinese will have flown at least once in his lifetime". However, he feels that as a person in the aviation industry, he has the responsibility and should do it to break the barriers of Chinese aviation as a luxury consumer product for a few people, turn aviation into an ordinary mass consumer product, and give everyone the opportunity to fly.
"One Yuan Air Ticket", "199 Yuan Air Ticket", "299 Yuan Air Ticket" are such sales slogans that hit China's civil aviation industry again and again and touched the hearts of millions of ordinary people - let We are also flying in the sky!
He is doing something that no one in China has done.
After 23 years in the official career, he resolutely started his career as an "unemployed middle-aged man"
In China, the name of "Spring and Autumn International Travel Service" is louder than "Wang Zhenghua" Much more.
This is not only because of Wang Zhenghua's low profile, but also because Spring and Autumn International Tourism is directly related to the public - Spring and Autumn International Tourism has achieved the position of the domestic tourism leader more than 10 years ago, and this position has never been shaken for more than 10 years. Pass.
This person always likes to do some earth-shattering "unprecedented" things without showing off.
Twenty-six years ago in 1981, when no one in China had thought of "individual travel", Wang Zhenghua started his first real business venture in life - founded "Spring and Autumn" "National Travel" can never be stopped from now on.
At that time, he was 37 years old. He is a cadre of a state agency.
Wang Zhenghua was born in Shanghai in 1944. In 1962, Wang Zhenghua, who had always had excellent grades and served as vice chairman of the student union of a key middle school, lost the opportunity to go to college due to "unexpected circumstances."
Since then, he has been on the "official career" for 23 years.
Before the Cultural Revolution, he was a key training target in Changning District, and later came to the Cultural Revolution; in 1975, the then Minister of Organization of the Central Committee personally came to Shanghai to inspect him, talked with him, and wanted to transfer him to Beijing - the then This is how leaders fly to "heaven". But fortunately, the organization minister finally discovered that Wang Zhenghua was unqualified. This young cadre did not meet the requirements of political consciousness at that time.
Around 1980, there was a wave of "China's educated youth returning to the city", and Shanghai was the area with the largest number of China's educated youth returning to their hometowns. All of a sudden, there were so many men and women in their 30s who were waiting to work, eat, and start a family.
At that time, Wang Zhenghua was the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Zunyi Street, Changning District, Shanghai. Finding jobs for the educated youth so that they could have a meal and a place to live was his most important job.
It was under such circumstances that Wang Zhenghua started one company after another with his own hands - making it more likely that he would find a job for the educated youth.
Spring International Travel Service was established under such circumstances.
At that time, "Chunqiu" was just a collective enterprise wearing the red hat of "collective". In fact, all the money was earned by itself. If there is no money, Wang Zhenghua will find it himself. The educated youth at that time were eager to learn a "craft" and find a place to earn a living. Various trainings have emerged.
Wang Zhenghua found a veteran tourism expert in Shanghai to run a training class. The registration fee was one yuan, and then the class fee was 40 yuan per person. In this way, if you collect 3,000 yuan in one go, you can count as your “first pot of gold”.
At that time, Chunqiu built a small 2-square-meter iron house on the edge of a street in Changning District. It was written on it as Spring and Autumn Travel Agency, and a small window was opened. Those who wanted to sign up for travel could put their hands in and hand in. Payment procedures.
Starting from Spring and Autumn International Travel Service, "Yi Qi Jue Chen"
At that time, China did not have the concept of individual travel (individual tourists). If Chinese people wanted to travel, they had to rely on "units" - - A good unit organizes a trip and goes out for fun. Basically, you can have such an opportunity once a year. Of course, it was also popular at the time to travel while attending meetings, and it was also a type of "group travel".
When Wang Zhenghua was thinking about China's tourism, he found a textbook - the translated "World Tourism and Its Philosophy" written by a teacher from Zhejiang University. This teacher studied abroad at the time and came back. This textbook was later compiled. Many of the views in the book represented the most cutting-edge ideas in world tourism at that time.
Wang Zhenghua felt like he had found a treasure. It should be said that the formation of his "tourism outlook" all came from it. That is to say, it is clearly stated in this book that world tourism is dominated by individual tourists. When Wang Zhenghua got involved in the tourism industry, he stepped into the forefront of world tourism and distanced himself from all Chinese travel agencies.
Spring and Autumn is an alternative.
In 1985, Wang Zhenghua walked between government agencies and business for three years. Finally, he suddenly decided to resign from public office and specialize in spring and autumn tourism.
This was a big event back then. At that time, Wang Zhenghua was 41 years old and a division-level cadre who had worked in government agencies for more than 20 years. He suddenly gave up his public office and started a small collective economy. Travel agencies are hard to understand.
At that time, many people from government agencies went to sea. Such people generally had relatively strong government resources and personal connections. The convenient conditions can be imagined, and Spring and Autumn Travel Agency - a retail travel agency As a small travel company, his government background will not have any favorable influence on him. At that time, he was in very bad health. In the early 1970s, he went to donate blood voluntarily. After more than a month, he kept having a fever, and was finally diagnosed with hepatitis B. After he fell ill, the doctor told him that his life expectancy was approximately More than 10 years.
Under such circumstances, it takes great courage to step out of the government circle and become an "unemployed middle-aged man." But he still chose this "dangerous" path.
There were two reasons that made him determined: First, when he lived to the age of 41, he finally discovered that it would be a tragedy for him to stay in the government and work like this for the rest of his life. In essence, he is not an administrative person. He will never belong to that group of people. If he does not leave, he will have no chance. Secondly, he believes that he is suitable for running a business and he is confident that Spring Tourism will be the best.
He wants to have a go.
Facts have proved that he succeeded.
In Shanghai in the 1980s, when Chunqiu was about to leave the small iron shed, he took a fancy to Shanghai's feng shui treasure land - the Tibet Road area. In the 1930s, this was the world of entertainment, surrounded by " Big World” next to the racecourse. Here, Chunqiu began to provide individual travel services in Shanghai.
Chunqiu’s store suddenly became prosperous.
This boom has turned this area into the tourism center of Shanghai - more than 100 tourism companies have opened their doors here. More than 10 Shanghai tourism companies that rank among the top 20 in China are all concentrated here.
By 1994, Spring and Autumn International Travel Service had occupied the top spot in China’s domestic tourism industry and has been “unrivaled” ever since.
Low-cost airlines should have a place in the history of Chinese aviation
At that time, Wang Zhenghua, who had been traveling for more than ten years, had been wondering about one thing: why did China Airlines Air tickets are so expensive?
There are many tourists and many scenic spots. Just because the distance is long, taking a train or a car is not only a waste of time, but also a severe test for people's physical fitness.
This problem coincides with the development path after becoming China's "King of Individual Travelers".
Wang Zhenghua inspected and thought about it for three years.
The term "low-cost airline" has been in his mind for 14 years.
At that time, there was no possibility of starting a low-cost airline. First, there was funding, and more importantly, policy support. The method he came up with was aviation in disguise: charter flights.
At the end of 1997, Spring and Autumn International Travel Service established Spring and Autumn Charter Travel Agency. In early 1998, Chunqiu began a charter flight trip. This incident did not even become a big news at the time and was simply missed. In fact, it should have a place in the history of Chinese aviation.
The so-called chartered flight means that you do not purchase an aircraft yourself, nor do you have a pilot, but "borrow a chicken to lay an egg" - contracting a flight route for a certain period of time (contracting the flight segment at a certain price).
This is a win-win scenario: the time periods chosen by Spring and Autumn are all the time periods when airline flights are closed - for example, after 8 pm, one more flight can be operated without having to bear the cost of air tickets. The risk of selling is self-evident; Chunqiu can use its own tourism channels to recruit a large number of tourists, which greatly enriches Spring and Autumn's tourism methods; and tourists are the biggest winners: taking Chunqiu's charter flights is extremely cheap and can be achieved The dream of traveling and flying into the sky.
Since then, Chinese people have suddenly had very cheap air tickets on certain routes: when they are cheap, they can even be as low as 20% off. This is really an incredible air ticket price.
This kind of air ticket is too attractive to many ordinary people. Near Shanghai, in many villages, villagers from one village come to book air tickets or charter flights for travel!
This incident particularly touched Wang Zhenghua: Seeing these men and women, old and young, getting on the plane in groups, he thought, if these people had not had the opportunity to charter a plane, they might not be able to fly again in their lifetime. I can no longer enjoy flying.
They are also human beings. Why can’t they have the opportunity to fly in this life?
Such thoughts oppressed him and forced him to think about how to realize a Chinese dream.
It is at this moment that low-cost airlines around the world are becoming a hot spot. If you can own your own aircraft at low cost and price, wouldn't it be the best opportunity to realize this dream?
(Tai Chi, looking for patterns in calmness, may also be a portrayal of Wang Zhenghua’s behavior)
Looking for “a road in Huashan” on the cliff
Say No one in the industry, whether Chinese or foreign, thinks that low-cost airlines to China are possible.
Let’s put it this way, it’s like a person standing in an abyss. At this time, ask anyone, what will happen if this person jumps? I believe everyone will say that death is inevitable.
Well, being a low-cost airline in China is basically like jumping off a cliff.
This cliff is that the rigid costs of China Airlines account for more than 70% of the total costs - people believe that this part of the cost cannot be changed due to policies and conditions. This means that even if It is to reduce the soft cost to zero. Only the rigid cost is 70% of your cost. How do you achieve low-price air tickets? So, there is only one way you can go: jump off the cliff.
But it was Wang Zhenghua who wanted to jump.
In fact, what Wang Zhenghua has done over the years is to find "a road in Huashan" among the cliffs. The biggest obstacle for him is the policy - the policy does not allow private enterprises to enter aviation. Therefore, Wang Zhenghua has always been able to "think far away".
One day in 2003, Yang Yuanyuan, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, publicly talked about liberalizing civil aviation at a domestic and foreign press conference, and mentioned by name that private enterprises like Spring International Travel Service have the conditions to enter civil aviation...
This news is nothing short of a blessing. Almost on the same day that Spring and Autumn received this news, it started to launch Spring Airlines.
It has been only more than two years since Spring Airlines' first plane took to the skies, and Spring Airlines miraculously achieved profits very quickly.
Spring Airlines has naturally done a lot of pioneering work in terms of soft costs, and more importantly, Wang Zhenghua only focused on rigid costs, letting the rigidity "soften" and then reduce it.
Wang Zhenghua said that a book can be dedicated to this aspect, but let’s simply illustrate and compare it with a chart:
Only based on the high attendance rate Calculation: For similar types of aircraft, Spring Airlines has 180 seats, while other airlines have about 150 seats; Spring Airlines' passenger load factor reaches 95%, while other airlines generally have 70%. The average number of passengers per flight is about 180 for Spring and Autumn, and about 110 for other companies. For this reason alone, Spring Airlines’ ticket prices are 40% lower than other airlines!
It is not difficult to see from the table that if Spring Airlines has the same other rigid indicators as Southwest Airlines, Spring Airlines will have greater room for low-cost operations.
It remains unchanged despite the controversy, because what we are chasing is not a dream, but an achievable ideal
When Wang Zhenghua launched the "One Yuan Air Ticket" and "199 Yuan Air Ticket", in It has caused huge repercussions in the country. Because this is exciting news for the Chinese people. At the same time, it also caused huge controversy.
When Spring Airlines' planes took to the skies, they were also subjected to "price attacks" by other airlines - competing with Spring Airlines at low prices. But in doing so, on the one hand, other airlines are abandoning their original target groups to grab low costs
Wang Zhenghua: China's number one low-cost airline
Airline passengers will lose more than they gain; On the other hand, Spring and Autumn is a "low-cost airline", and if other airlines compete with such low prices, they will be "below-cost airlines". The result is self-evident.
According to Wang Zhenghua, in fact, such air ticket prices are routinely handled by foreign low-cost airlines. This is a proven operating model developed over decades of operation.
Low-cost airlines have a history of more than 30 years abroad.
The low-cost and low-cost airline model, which was born in the 1970s, is surging around the world. Low-cost airlines represent a new direction in aviation development, are increasingly recognized and accepted by the public, and have huge development potential. In 2006, it accounted for 17% of the global market share.
The United States was 7% in 1990 and reached 27% in 2006;
Europe started in 1997 and reached 24% in 2006 ten years later;
In the Asia-Pacific region, it was 0.5% in 2003 and reached 9% in 2006.
In this regard, China is lagging behind again. For China Airlines, it has a heavy responsibility to seize the opportunity to develop China's aviation industry and narrow the distance with world aviation. Wang Zhenghua’s anxiety comes from:
While low-cost and low-cost airlines are mushrooming around the world, international low-cost and low-cost airlines are scrambling to enter the Chinese market. AirAsia, the most successful low-cost airline in Asia, launched the route from Bangkok to Xiamen on April 1, 2005, with a fare of 99 yuan, Bangkok to Kunming on July 1, 2005, and Bangkok to Haikou on August 1, 2005. On July 15, 2007, two international routes between Shenzhen and Kuala Lumpur/Bangkok were launched. The one-way recommended air fares are equivalent to RMB 138 and RMB 88 respectively. Singapore's low-cost airline Tiger Airways launched its first route to mainland China on April 25, 2006. Among them, the Guangzhou route made its maiden flight on April 26, and the two routes to Haikou and Shenzhen made their maiden flight on April 26 and 27, 2006 respectively. Ticket prices are as low as RMB 208, excluding relevant taxes and fees. The Xiamen route will be launched in October 2007, with one-way fares starting from 49.99 Singapore dollars (approximately HK$255).
Cebu Pacific, the second largest airline in the Philippines, officially launched Xiamen-Manila flights on May 21, 2004, and now has four flights a week. The Manila-Shanghai route was launched on September 12, 2007, and now there is one flight every day. Flights to Guangzhou resumed on October 10, 2007, and the Manila-Guangzhou route was opened with four flights per week. Passengers who purchase air tickets from November to January 31, 2008 before October 15 can enjoy the one-way price from Guangzhou to Manila. Great deals starting at only 1 yuan. The routes to mainland China now opened by foreign low-cost airlines are showing rapid growth momentum.
Wang Zhenghua said that if one day China opens its domestic aviation rights to the international market, how will Chinese aviation compete with international airlines?
Therefore, creating the best low-cost aviation environment for China’s civil aviation and accelerating the development of low-cost aviation is what Wang Zhenghua and his like are striving for.
Wang Zhenghua said frankly that there is no company in China that can pose a threat to Spring Airlines in low-cost aviation, but he still believes that China Airlines will accelerate its development in low-cost aviation. At a certain time, there will definitely be real competition between large low-cost airlines and Spring Airlines. Fierce market competition is fertile ground for healthy growth of enterprises, Wang Zhenghua repeatedly emphasized. And by that time, another spring will come for China Airlines.
Wang Zhenghua and Chunqiu are always preparing to welcome this day.
He still believes that allowing every Chinese to fly once in a lifetime is not a dream, but an achievable ideal.