The Unexpected Takeoff
In 2016, at an event in Lviv, the city’s head of tourism asked Alex Fox to give some Italians a hand. Two hours later he was in a meeting with the top management of a new airline that wanted to connect Ukraine with Western Europe: Ernest Airlines — financed by one of the co-founders of Minecraft, with a president, David, who had been Head of Global Marketing at Armani.
A city tour and a beer later, it began — slowly, over months of meetings. The president would call the team “The Crazy Guys From Ukraine,” and later entrust them with all of the airline’s local operations: partnerships, advertising, events, ticket sales.
To Be Irreplaceable, Be Different
Gate parties with cake, spritz and live saxophone for every inaugural flight. A saxophonist, Ostap, recruited in thirty seconds to play on the first flight to Ibiza. In the third year, aviation partner of the Leopolis Jazz Festival. A patented smart baggage sizer — a “virtual cage” with integrated weight sensors. And the award for the one-millionth passenger.
“To be irreplaceable, one must always be different.” — Coco Chanel, the quote in a Lviv shop window that shaped the team’s proposal
From the Armani team came the story of the American Airlines olive: one olive fewer in first-class salads saved $40,000 a year. “Good companies look at the big numbers. Excellent companies understand that the big numbers are made of millions of small details.”
When the Skies Closed
The end didn’t arrive in a single moment. The licence was revoked abruptly, but relaunch plans were still on the table. Then came March 2020: “What bureaucracy had wounded, the pandemic finished off.” No last flight, no farewell on the runway — “you’ll never know which will be the last flight. Treat them all as if they were.”
The book calls it “the first true case of bounce forward: when everything goes wrong, and then it goes even worse, all that’s left is to leap ahead.” On his keychain Alex Fox still carries a red “Remove before flight” tag.