Interview with Brian Kondrad (Boutique Air)
On Thursday, September 9 I had the privilege to interview Brian Kondrad. Mr. Kondrad is the Vice President of Business Operations at Boutique Air and oversees customer service, reservations, and airline partnerships for the airline. He has worked in the aviation industry for over 10 years, where he has been able to create and improve values across several sectors of Boutique Air including customer service, human resources, network planning, system and organization controls, security, and finance. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Joshua Kupietzky: What is your background in aviation?
Brian Kondrad: So I started out at Spirit Airlines as a flight crew at the age of nineteen, ten years ago, in 2011. I worked there until 2015, when Boutique Air announced the commencement of operations. I hopped on board in Las Vegas, where I currently live as well. It was a position in operations that also involved project management of different tasks—kind of start up company tasks involving just everything including customer, flight operations, ramp, and cross utilized agent tasks. We only had a few cities at the time and a few planes. I think we had four planes and probably four or five different cities. And since then I have just been helping Boutique Air grow; we are up to 34 planes and operating out of about 32 cities. And I have held department head positions for customer service, for human resources, for security, and I also play a part in our finance department as well. So I have a little bit of every kind of department in my background now.
JK: Why did you choose to go to a startup like Boutique Air?
BK: Because I was really interested in the idea of the type of operation that Boutique Air offered. The EAS [Essential Air Service] program was really interesting to me and seeing the potential opportunity out there for different routes was what intrigued me. The idea of smaller planes in the US is not that popular and hasn’t been for a while, and people in the US just associate aviation with the larger planes and longer routes.So I thought it was pretty cool how the shorter routes were still in existence.
JK: How has COVID affected Boutique Air?
BK: We actually benefited from COVID in a way. A lot of the majors [airlines] dropped a lot of routes. For example, during the pandemic we were operating Redmond Bend, Oregon over to Portland because Alaska Airlines significantly dropped their Portland route. It was about one hundred and some nautical miles so they weren’t filling up their small size aircraft. So we took advantage of that opportunity. We did routes such as Berlington to Boston as well, which we launched during the pandemic. So there have been a lot of opportunities, and one thing that has made it really easy to maneuver through the pandemic was the federal assistance we get with our EAS routes. So we are about 90 to 95 percent subsidized on all of our routes.That government assistance was there to help us financially, and we were able to pull through. Now that a lot of the major [airlines] returned to their previous routes we have kind of dropped the at-risk routes, but nonetheless have our eye open for any potential drops in the future from major airlines.
JK: Do you see Boutique Air getting larger aircraft in the next few years?
BK: Currently, right now we are sticking to our Pilatus PC-12. We have gained a lot of success with these smaller planes. They are a lot more economical to operate and some of the routes that we do are not ideal for 50-seat jets or 30-seat jets, so for right now we are sticking with the PC-12. We operate more PC-12s commercially than any other carrier in the world.
JK: What is the range of the PC-12 and how many people can they seat?
BK: We carry eight passengers. We typically stay between the 150 and up to 400 nautical mile range. We only have one route that is a few miles over 400 nautical miles, but this aircraft has a range of about 1700 nautical miles.
JK: Has Boutique Air decreased or increased ticket prices during the pandemic?
BK: So our EAS routes were offset. The routes that you can find on our route map are pretty economical since we are receiving government assistance. Since they make it easy for us, we make it easy for the passenger. And our fares can range from some routes from $29 up to $159 or $199. Nothing really more than $200.
JK: Are there any plans for Boutique Air to fly internationally in the next few years?
BK: We have been approached by different international destinations. Currently, right now we do not have any projected dates or routes, but it is something that has been in conversation before with different international cities.
JK: What is the customer base Boutique Air is targeting?
BK: Kind of all over. The Pilatus PC-12 is typically known as an executive charter aircraft used mainly for charter around the world. And we had charter operations back in 2015, but due to the growth of our EAS markets and different routes, we discontinued our charter operations. But we relaunched them earlier this year due to some changes that we made that meant we had available aircraft. So we are looking into getting back into charter and having the possibility of both leisure travel on our commercial routes and business travel on our charter operations.
JK: Why did Boutique Air choose a small aircraft to small cities model instead of a hub to spoke model?
BK: Well first off, Shawn Simpson, the CEO, really liked the Pilatus. It is easy to operate; the pilots love flying it; it is actually the safest single-engine aircraft in the world, so we can actually fly a single pilot with this aircraft. With everything going on with the pilot struggle, it’s come in handy at times when pilots are hard to come by. And so that is a little bit of the financial reason: we can operate the aircraft single-pilot and also the maintenance is a lot less with the single engine. So little by little as we began to grow we just saw how the Pilatus did really well in the first few routes. And communities across the country really like it, and they really like the feel of it compared to say—for example—a Cessna, where it is unpressurized and has no lavatory. All of our Pilatus are pressurized aircraft and come with an enclosed lavatory, so that has been the reason behind the success of it, and people love it.
JK: Are there plans to add more non EAS routes in the future?
BK: Right now we have Burlington to Boston, which is our only at-risk route that is not part of the EAS program. This has been holding up really well. We have been really successful since the launch in April. But as far as new routes coming up in the future, we do not have anything coming up. But we tend to just look at the trends and which airlines are dropping which routes and since international travel decreased with the majors, they amped up a lot of their domestic travel… currently there are no new planned routes.
JK: What was the hardest part of working in the airline industry during the pandemic?
BK: You know we didn’t find it difficult to launch these routes during the pandemic, just because eight seats are not hard to fill up. So I don't think we faced any new challenges with the new routes, only until the traditional flyers of those routes came back. So, for example, with the Redmond Bend route, Alaska went back in and offered more seats and different times and so we began to see our load factor decrease, and that was challenging. But we took the decision to pull out and just look for new opportunities. It is easy for us being so small and not really owned by any airlines, so we can kind of drop an ad as we see fit.
JK: Have you seen lots of competitions on all your routes from larger carriers?
BK: We have seen competition in the EAS markets. There are more carriers going out for different contracts that they hadn't bid in the past. So right now with EAS, it is a pretty hot market, and more airlines have jumped in the pool to place bids on the routes.
JK: What is EAS and what does it stand for?
BK: EAS is essential air service, and it is a DOT [Department of Transportation] provided program that was made back in the 1970s due to the deregulation of routes by the government. A lot of the routes that the government were making these airlines fly were not profitable, so once they deregulated it there were 125 communities left without air service. So the government said, okay we will subsidize these certain routes for any airline that can service these communities. That’s when it all started, but that was back in the 70’s and no changes have been made to the program; new markets can’t come in, and it is only the ones that got in back in the 70’s.
JK: What do you see Boutique Air doing in the future?
BK: With charter becoming more popular we want to get back into doing charter again and just expanding our operations where it is requested and where we see it to be profitable.
JK: What do you consider as your greatest achievement in the aviation industry?
BK: I mean I did start at a young age in aviation. I have spent a lot of years learning about different departments, and I was given the position of Vice President at the age of twenty eight, so I believe I might be the youngest commercial airline Vice President in the US. I am not one hundred percent sure, but I believe so. The knowledge I was given in each department really helped me come together in my position to make changes that benefit the company internally. And with these new routes, for example, Burlington to Boston has seen a 90% load factor since we started. So a lot has to do with knowledge and planning and making things work and relationships. I’ve created a lot of relationships with different airport directors and different airlines. We have our codeshare agreement with United, we have our interline with American Airlines, and we have internally, for example, flight benefits with many different carriers that have offered to share flight benefits with us. So building those relationships have been really important for us, getting our name out there and known in the aviation world.
JK: What are your long-term career goals in the aviation industry?
BK: It would be a long-term goal for myself to own my own airline. That's always a thought. I think in aviation for a lot of people they want to see how far they can get. But one of my dreams is to own my own airline.
JK: Have you learned anything new about leadership from the pandemic?
BK: Yes. Definitely, the biggest attribute to being a good leader is motivating those that are on your team. We definitely came together as more of a team throughout the pandemic, and as a leader to a lot of employees—we are close to 500 —the biggest thing I learned is to keep the motivation and communication going.
