Grænseløs nr. 19 (UK)

GRÆNSELØS

NO. 19

ALSIE EXPRESS IN-FLIGHT MAGAZINE JUNE – AUGUST 2018

Alsie Express has been flying high for five years

THE STORY BEHIND THE DISTINCTIVE BLACK AIRCRAFT THAT HAVE BEEN FLYING YOU BETWEEN SØNDERBORG AND COPENHAGEN.

New summer holiday scheduled Air Service THIS YEAR ALSIE EXPRESS HAS ESTABLISHED A SUMMER SCHEDULED AIR SERVICE TO BORNHOLM.

READ ALSO: CLOSE COLLABORATION ON A JOINED BUSINESS REGION

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CONTENT IN THIS ISSUE 4 Alsie Express is the new black For five years now, the distinctive black aircraft have been flying you between Sønderborg and Copenhagen, gathering no small amount of praise along the way. This is the story of how the airline Alsie Express began - a story of entrepreneurship, teamwork and a strong will to future-proof the infrastructure of South Jutland.

8 Direct flights from South Jutland to the Danes’ favourite holiday destination The number of popular holiday destinations that you can fly to directly from Sønderborg continues to grow. In addition to numerous summer flights to Italy, this year Alsie Express has also established a summer scheduled Air Service to Bornholm.

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Alsie Express from a different view We have held a photo contest in connection with our airline’s birthday.

A lot of people chose to share their beautiful, funny and impressive pictures with us

GRÆNSELØS NO. 19 SUMMER 2018

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DEAR READER! On 17 June 2018, Alsie Express will be celebrating its 5-year anniversary. We have you - along with the roughly 275,000 other passengers who have flown with us over the past five years - to thank for that.”

Starting up a new regional airline is not a small endeavour, and without the massive local support from private and business customers, this would not have been possible. There is a lot of demand for growth and development in the Sønderborg region, and that will require a focus on infrastructure and direct Scheduled Air Service. Alsie Express has achieved the honour of being voted Denmark’s best domestic airline, and we have established new scheduled Air Service from Sønderborg to Bornholm and Italy. There are more exciting developments on the horizon as well, and Sønderborg Airport’s ambitious plans for the future are also helping create and drive development in the local region. Alsie Express plays a key role in those plans.

On behalf of all our staff, I want to thank you for your support. We look forward to celebrating our 5-year anniversary together with all of you who support us and fly with us.

Lone M. Koch CEO, Alsie Express

NO. 19 SUMMER 2018

Grænseløs Alsie Express Magazine

Press Mohrdieck Tryk A/S

Publisher adformation Jomfrustien 6 6100 Haderslev

Editions 2.000

T: + 45 7015 5900 @: info@adformation.dk

Ads Brian Markwaldt T: 6114 2530 @: bma@ac-amsmedia.dk

Editors Kira Christensen and Mikkel Bording

Allan Christensen T: 2172 5939 @: ac@ac-amsmedia.dk

Layout & production adformation

Frontpage photo alsie express

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ALSIE EXPRESS IS THE NEW BLACK For five years now, the distinctive black aircraft have been flying you between Sønderborg and Copenhagen, gathering no small amount of praise along the way. This is the story of how the airline Alsie Express began - a story of entrepreneurship, teamwork and a strong will to future-proof the infrastructure of South Jutland.

BY BIRGITTE BARTHOLDY PHOTOS VOLKSWAGEN AG

If you spot a black plane streaking across the blue skies above Denmark, you can be sure that it is either flying to or from South Jutland. That’s because it’s only the South Jutland airline Alsie Express that paints its aircraft in this characteristic colour. However, that’s not the only special thing about Alsie Express, which is set to celebrate its five-year anniversary this year.

It’s also the airline where the captain personally welcomes the passengers aboard as they embark the plane for their flight - 98.8 percent of which run on time, which is an exceedingly rare track record. In fact, in terms of punctuality, the airline comes in at first place globally in its category.

As a bonus, the airliner lands close to Sønderborg in what is probably one of Denmark’s most beautifully situated airports, with a breathtaking descent over Augustenborg Fjord. And if that weren’t enough, the airline has also received a quality stamp for its onboard service. Last year at the Danish Travel Award ceremony, Alsie Express

was voted Denmark’s best domestic airline by a customer panel. Unsurprisingly, the airline is proud of having come so far in just a few years. And what’s almost as remarkable is the story of how the airline came to be.

From a downturn to an upturn It all began when the airline Cimber Sterling went bankrupt in the summer of 2012. As a result, Cimber Sterling’s scheduled Air Service between Sønderborg and Copenhagen, which was crucial to the many big and small companies across South Jutland, was terminated with short notice.

For Jens Østerlund Jensen, the main shareholder of the aircraft company Air Alsie A/S, it was a neardisastrous turn of events. Air Alsie’s headquarters are located behind Sønderborg Airport, and at the time already had 25 years’ experience as Europe’s biggest provider of maintenance and operation of business jets. Just a few months prior, he had signed a contract for a major expansion of the company’s facilities at the airport.

“I was informed of the bankruptcy by e-mail as I was flying home from the US with Danfoss’ business jet.

I had one and a half hours to gather my thoughts, and I began to realise to my dismay that we had just lost our regional lifeline, as well as a key prerequisite for realising my plans for Air Alsie,” explains Jensen.

A solution was needed, and fast.

By pure coincidence, it turned out that Danish Air Transport (DAT) had just lost a major contract in Norway and was thus able to immediately fill the void with their small aircraft.

“It was a huge relief. The passengers hardly even had time to discover what had happened,” he said.

Cool and exclusive However, DAT’s aircraft would eventually prove to be an disappointing long-term solution. The airline cut down the scheduled Air Service to three daily departures and shut it down entirely for one month in the summer because they felt the passenger count was too low to make it worthwhile. According

GRÆNSELØS NO. 19 SUMMER 2018

to Jensen, the sentiment among the local business community was that they had lost much of the flexibility from the Cimber Sterling days.

“Some of us began to discuss coming up with an alternative solution, where instead of regarding the route as a business that had to turn a big profit, it would instead be seen as a main artery.”

Meetings were held with representatives from the airport, municipality and local business community, culminating in a consensus that Air Alsie - with Jensen in the lead - would set up this new airline.

“The aircraft we service in Air Alsie are the best money can buy, and we see great importance to matching them with an exceedingly high service level.

It was important to me that the same high standard would be reflected in the new company, and that it would signal the opposite of low-cost,” said Jensen, who was also particularly keen on making sure the aircraft would have a distinct and recognisable identity.

“I had a talk with Mads Clausen - the oldest son of the family that owns Danfoss and who was also involved in getting the new airline off the ground

- about the most eye-catching paint job we could imagine for the aircraft.

We agreed that matte black would attract attention, so that’s the colour we went with for the new aircraft. No other aircraft had that colour, and it would create a strong identity. The colour also had that exclusive, cool and sort of devil-may-care look that we wanted to new airline to signal.”

Associated with a strong brand The name of the new airline was also important. There were plenty of suggestions, but ultimately the consensus landed on the name Alsie Express as a way of clearly signalling speed and its close relationship with Air Alsie, which was already a strong brand in the aviation industry.

The framework was now in place.

Soon after, the Bitten & Mads Clausen Foundation invested in two ATR-72-500 turboprop aircraft, which were flown to Eindhoven for their paintjob.

“I was really anxious to see them for the first time, but I wasn’t disappointed.

The black colour was captivating; you couldn’t look away from them. They became the talk of the aviation industry as pictures of them began to appear

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here and there. Exactly as we’d hoped, we immediately put the new airline on the world map,” said Jensen.

The agency Adformation, headed by Rico Rømer Soos, had been given the task of creating buzz around the launch of the new airline. Adformation’s objective was to get the word out that there was a new, fast and affordable transport option on the way, which is why they thought up the marketing campaign ”Flyv sort til København” [‘Fly black to Copenhagen’, a play on the double meaning of flying in black aircraft and an undeclared transaction, ed.], which made Alsie Express a household name in the local area.

A CEO with aviation in her blod The CEO of Alsie Express, Lone Koch, is also a well-known figure in South Jutland. Koch invited Grænseløs for a tour of the headquarter, which is located side by side with Air Alsie and only a stone’s throw from the airport terminal.

The heart of the airline is made up of an open office space where the booking, customer service and marketing departments all work under the same roof.

Alsie Express aircraft Photo: VW

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“Once a week, we gather here to review our activities together. Our approach is based on what we call the ’wow effect’’. The idea is to pleasantly surprise our passengers with new initiatives at frequent intervals. It could be anything from an Easter egg, a competition on Mother’s Day or great offers on Black Flyday. It keeps us on our toes and makes us think about how we can give our customers a nice surprise as many of them are very frequent flyers” says Lone M. Koch.

Her own office is located on the 1st floor with a view over the runway, which she always turns her gaze to whenever a plane lands or takes off. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that nearly her whole life has been in some way connected to aviation. As the daughter of the founder of Cimber Air, Ingolf Nielsen, she was even born at the airport in Sønderborg, where her family lived back then. She would later go on to have a 38-year-long career at Cimber Sterling. After a brief detour away from the aviation industry as a business manager in the Sønderborg Growth Council, she was hired to become the CEO of Alsie Express in 2015. Her task

was - and remains - clear; Lone M. Koch was hired to make use of her extensive experience in the aviation industry to attract more passengers to the regular scheduled Air Service and more staff for servicing and crewing the aircraft.

“I immediately got to work together with my dedicated and inspiring team.

It’s resulted in a lot of new initiatives and we’ve expanded the business,” she said.

One of these expansions entails serial charter flights, and this summer Alsie Express will once more be partnering up with the travel company Gislev, sending its black aircraft packed with sun-deprived South Jutlanders directly from Sønderborg to Tuscany and Sardinia in Italy. A new route to Naples this year means that passengers can catch a flight down to the historic city to enjoy its food and wine, and the airline is also opening up an additional route in 2018 for holidaymakers looking for an island getaway in Denmark. Many people have already booked their flights tickets to the idyllic Danish sunshine isle of Bornholm, with the first direct flight scheduled to take off from Sønderborg on 2 July.

Flights for families and football teams The black aircraft can also be chartered ad hoc, as they say in the aviation industry, meaning rented out for various purposes for short periods at a time.

When in 2016 one of Alsie Express’ aircraft flew the German national football team to and from matches during the UEFA Champions League in France, it made the headlines. A lot of newspapers ran stories on the topic, and the football stars Bastian Schweinsteiger and Thomas Müller posted selfies on Instagram with the easily-recognisable Alsie Express airliner in the background.

“In general, we often see people posting pictures of the aircraft on social media. There was a period where our planes were the most photographed in Copenhagen Airport. From a marketing perspective, the idea for the colour has been priceless,” said Koch.

The biggest challenge Alsie Express faces is the competition from trains, buses and the many new sharing economy services.

“We can’t afford to rest on our laurels. We need to continue thinking in terms of creating even more attractive offers, both for private and business

Alsie Express photographed in Salzburg in connection with a charter trip for Volkswagen AG Source: Volkswagen AG

Photo: VW

GRÆNSELØS NO. 19 SUMMER 2018

customers, to make them use us as their quick hub to the rest of the world.

In any case, Alsie Express has become indispensable,” said Koch.

“We’re here to support the business community as well as to improve conditions for the university, the new Hotel Alsik - which is currently under construction by Sønderborg Harbour - and the holiday park that’s in the pipeline in northern Als. Good infrastructure is absolutely vital when it comes to people’s willingness to start up a business down here. Our goal is to grow even bigger in the coming years. For instance, we want to bring tourists from Italy to South Jutland, and we alsoe want more visitors to travel this way. We’ve got no shortage of ideas.”

Success breeds success The owner of Alsie Express, Jens Østerlund Jensen, regards the considerable success of the airports in Billund and Hamburg as the very driver for even more success, also at Sønderborg Airport. “It’s become so troublesome to park and get through security at the airports in Billund and Hamburg that you have to add on several more hours to your journey. As an alternative, you can park your car for free and get through security at the airport in Sønderborg in 15 minutes. We hope and believe that it’s this increase in activity elsewhere that gives us at Alsie Express more possibilities to set up new routes and entice more people to fly with us,” said Jensen.

The plans that are in the making of a new and more functional terminal and the expansion expand the runways at Sønderborg Airport have given him even more reason to be hopeful.

“At this point we’re so optimistic that I think we can expand with a new aircraft as soon as next year and begin to grow considerably,” he said.

HR manager at Lodam: ”Alsie Express plays a key role in recruitment. There is often a shortage of qualified engineers in Sønderborg and its local area, which

is home to a strong concentration of electronics firms.”

At the company Lodam, HR Manager Anne Vibeke Madsen actively uses Alsie Express as bait whenever Lodam is looking for new staff, and now, she has also started raising awareness about the flight connection.

It was one experience in particular that made her kick off this initiative.

A young engineer from Copenhagen came by Lodam for a job interview and told her that his parents had given him a ride down to South Jutland. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was a motorway all the way from Copenhagen to Sønderborg.

“We then asked him where he lived, and it turned out that he lived in Kastrup.

We couldn’t help but laugh before telling him that he could have gotten here in less than an hour by plane,” said Madsen.

In connection with six new internships Lodam has posted at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen, the company is offering to fly applicants to Sønderborg and back, as well as a complementary five-day stay, in collaboration with Alsie Express.

“That way, they can’t help notice the good flight connections. And if they end up getting an internship with us, we also reimburse them for the cost of flying home and back again on weekends,” said Madsen.

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ALSIE EXPRESS IN BRIEF

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The airline was established in May 2013.

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It has two ATR 72-500 turboprop aircraft at its disposal.

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The airline is administrated by its sister company, Air Alsie.

Both companies are owned

by Sandma Holding A/S.

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The aircraft usually fly with 48 seats, but the number of seats can be upped to 64 when necessary.

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Its main scheduled Air Service is the regular route between Sønderborg and Copenhagen, which takes 35 minutes each way.

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In total, the airline transports 60,000 passengers a year, which includes the summer guests who fly to Italy and Bornholm and back again.

The fact that the flight connection also plays a role in retaining workers is something Madsen observed in practice when Lodam recently had the good fortune of hiring two talented young engineers from DTU. “They were a little reluctant about moving here, but after familiarising themselves with Sønderborg and discovering how quickly they can fly back for visits to Copenhagen, they’ve settled in nicely,” said Madsen.

Lone from Alsie Express and Anne Vibeke from Lodam.

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Direct flights from South Jutland to the Danes’ favourite holiday destination

GRÆNSELØS NO. 19 SUMMER 2018

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DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM SOUTH JUTLAND TO THE DANES’ FAVOURITE HOLIDAY DESTINATION The number of popular holiday destinations that you can fly to directly from Sønderborg continues to grow. In addition to numerous summer flights to Italy, this year Alsie Express has also established a summer scheduled Air Service to Bornholm.

BY BIRGITTE BARTHOLDY PHOTO VISIT BORNHOLM

Starting on 2 July and throughout the summer up to 10 August, you can fly directly with Alsie Express from Sønderborg to Bornholm. The island is especially known for its many hours of sunshine, idyllic towns, round churches, white sandy beaches and rugged nature, and has been the Danes’ preferred summer holiday destination for many years. However, there’s quite a long way from Jutland to the easternmost parts of Denmark.

“That’s probably why we can see other aircraft’ direct routes to Bornholm from Billund and Aalborg have been successful. And it’s based on those positive results that we’ve felt confident that there would also be a demand for such a route in South Jutland,” said Dennis Rybasch, the man in charge of scheduled Air Service development at Alsie Express.

The flight to Bornholm takes approximately 50 minutes. For those who don’t relish the thought of stowing their luggage (and kids) in a hot car and driving over Funen, Zealand and a bridge to Sweden to get to the island, the new scheduled Air Service may be a very welcome alternative. In any event, holidaymakers can cut at least five hours off their journey both ways by taking the plane instead of hitting the road.

A recurring summer route The new route has proved to be a success from the very start and been well-received in the local area.

“We’ve already sold a lot of tickets, and we still have a few months to go before our first departure. It’s going far better than expected, which is why we’re considering making the scheduled Air Service to Bornholm a regular part of our summer programme. We have plans to extend the 2019 season so that the first flights to the island will take off from Sønderborg as soon as May that year,” said Rybasch.

Alsie Express already works with Gislev to offer direct routes from Sønderborg to several destinations in Italy. Last year, over 2,000 passengers flew with Alsie Express to Pisa and Sardinia. The same is planned for this year, along with 23 return flights between Sønderborg and Naples.

Rybasch would also like to see more people from Bornholm and Italy hopping on an Alsie Express flight for a holiday in South Jutland to discover the local attractions the region offers, such as the Dybbøl Banke History Centre, the Wadden Sea and charming fjord safaris.

“We’re well underway in our efforts to collaborate with various partners to get the flow of tourists moving both ways, which would be the ideal scenario,” he said.

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ALSIE EXPRESS FROM A DIFFERENT VIEW We have held a photo contest in connection with our airline’s birthday.

A lot of people chose to share their beautiful, funny and impressive pictures with us, for which we are grateful. Everyone who has had their pictures published here will receive a model of the black plane as our way of saying thanks.

THE WINNER OF THE FIRST PRIZE WAS GITTE FRIGAARD.

CEO Lone Koch had the following to say about the winning photo: The picture beautifully captures the ATR during its landing descent over the Kær peninsula, which looks stunning in May with its rapeseed fields in full bloom. Our aircraft roam far and wide, but always return home to their runway in South Jutland.

Congratulations to the winner, who can look forward to a return trip to Copenhagen for two with Alsie Express.

PHOTO GITTE FRIGAARD

GRÆNSELØS NO. 19 SUMMER 2018

Photo: Pelle Zingel

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Photo: Giorgio Adamo

Photo: Alice Heilesen

Photo: Kasper Meldgaard

Photo: Kristian Bonde Jørgensen

Photo: Ratziw

Photo: Michelle

Photo: Morten Barsballe Schmidt

Photo: Alice Heilesen

Photo: Rune Damgaard Stramer

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Discover how Danfoss is giving life to better indoor experiences at hvac.danfoss.com

GRÆNSELØS NO. 19 SUMMER 2018

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”Over the past years, Business Forum has done some amazing work.”

President for IHK Flensburg, Rolf-Ejvind Sörensen Photo: IHK Flensburg/Lins

CLOSE COLLABORATION ON A JOINED BUSINESS REGION

BY ROLF-EJVIND SÖRENSEN, PRESIDENT OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY IN FLENSBURG (IHK FLENSBURG) The Danish-German Business Forum helps establish Danish-German partnerships while also contributing to the development of our shared economic region.

Therefore, as the new president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Flensburg I look forward to building on our cross-border collaboration in partnership with my Danish colleague, the chairman of the Development Council of Southern Denmark, Leif Friis Jørgensen. The aim of our joint chairmanship will be to set a new course and shape Business Forum’s future in collaboration with its members.

“Over the past years, Business Forum has done some amazing work. In addition to the issues of education, access to qualified labour and infrastructure, which are already on the agenda, we will work on new important issues such as language and influx of new manpower.”

This was the concluding statement reached by the members of Business Forum at the most recent meeting in Kobbermølle in March 2018. It is particularly the language barrier that poses a challenge, one which we encounter all the time and on a daily basis.

In addition, we must develop a concept that opens up Business Forum to more interested companies.

FACTS Business Forum is operated by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Flensburg (IHK Flensburg) and the Development Council of Southern Denmark (URS). 14 Danish and 14 German businesspeople meet in the forum to discuss issues such as education, the labour force and infrastructure.

Business forum is chaired by the president of IHK Flensburg, CEO Rolf-Ejvind Sörensen, Landesdirektion RNS Sörensen Assekuranzkontor, as well as the chairman of URS, CEO Leif Friis Jørgensen, Naturmælk.

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BECAUSE IT´S MORE FUN TO FLY!

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TOGETHER

183 €

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UP TO 4 PERSONS/ ROUNDTRIP / SONDERBORG / COPENHAGEN

SUMMER OFFER Summer offer for you, travelling 3 - 4 persons together. From week 27 until 33 you can fly with Alsie Express and only pay from 183 € for all of you - round trip between Sonderburg and Copenhagen!

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www.alsieexpress.dk