Adorable Letter to Qantas CEO: Boy, 10, Decides to Start an Airline

,  By  Dominykas

Photo: shutterstock
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Alex Jacquot, the 10-years-old self-appointed CEO and the founder of Australia’s newest airline, Oceania Express, has sent a viral letter to the CEO of Qantas to ask some questions on the establishment of the carrier and seek some advice on what to do next.

First of all, the little player of the huge aviation market asked to take his letter seriously. The boy revealed he has already gather the team of key people for his company: CFO, Head of IT, Head of Maintenance, Head of on Board Services, Head of Legal and appointed its friend for the Vice-CEO position.

Also, Alex said he has already thought about such details as the type of aircraft the airline will operate, flight numbers, catering and even more.

Currently Alex has more free time because of the school holidays and the boy could not think of what else he can do for his airline. That is why he wrote the letter to the CEO asking three simple questions:

  1. “Do you have any ideas of what I can do? Seeing as you are the CEO of Qantas, I thought I’d ask you.
  2. Do you have any tips on starting an airline? I’d be very grateful to know what you’d have to say.
  3. I’m thinking about, as you are, about an A350 for Sydney/Melbourne to London flight. Seeing as it is a 25 hour flight, we are having a lot of trouble thinking about sleep. Do you have any advice?”

CEO to CEO

At first glance, it seems that the CEO of the third oldest airline in the world is too busy with managing its own airline and has no time to answer, however, this is not the case. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has demonstrated not only his exceptional leadership skills by replying to the youngster, but also showed great emotional intelligence and proved the importance of customer relations to Qantas.

On its Twitter account Qantas has shared both the letter of Alex and the answer of Alan Joyce. Both letters are simply going viral.

Alan Joyce explained that normally he does not provide his competitors with advice, however, this time he made an exception as he remembers also being “a young boy who was so curious about flight and all its possibilities.”

Talking about the tips the boy asked for, the CEO of Qantas suggested putting “safety front and center.” When it came to sleeping matter, Alan Joyce told the young CEO that Qantas is looking at “different designs that give people spaces to stretch out and exercise.”

Apart from delivering a very professional and heart-warming response, Joyce invited little Alex for the personal meeting between the CEO of the Australia’s oldest airline and the CEO of the newest airline to discuss how to run an airline and to take a tour aound Qantas’ Operation Centre.