Aviation Academy
#2 A day with an Aviation Alumnus: Ruben Portz
This is the story of a very ambitious Aviation alumnus, who decided to launch an innovative airline concept called JetEight. “If you have a business idea, then put it into action” he said. Meet Ruben Portz.
Education
Back in 2011, Ruben started with ‘Aviation Studies’ aiming to eventually go for the Flight track combining the bachelor degree with a piloting license. Instead, he ended up opting for the Honours Aviation Management track. Ruben’s graduation thesis was performed in combination with the KLM Mainport Strategy department. There he wrote his thesis together with Tristen de Vries on the developments in the low-cost carrier sector and possible consequences for KLM.
Ruben could be described as a good example of how you can use an aviation engineering degree as the foundation for an entrepreneurial career. The start of this entrepreneurial career started in Berlin, where he is currently following a master’s program. “I almost straightaway moved to Berlin to enjoy the city and start a new adventure at the European School of Management and Technology”, he explains. “During my studies at the Aviation Academy I’ve done two internships at KLM as well as an exchange to Slovakia, which turned out to become one of the best times of my life”.
Ruben now lives in the vivid city of Berlin and is in a class consisting of 25 nationalities from 5 continents, which gives a perfect start for an international career. In case you might be wondering if that isn’t too expensive, Ruben would like to give you a tip: “the tuition fee for business schools is generally high, but if you combine this with several scholarships from for instance the school, VSBfonds, or other organizations then it becomes more than affordable.”
For Ruben, the business school is a great continuation of the Honours Program to gain a strong business foundation. “The ESMT program focuses on students that not necessarily have a business or economics background and is thus especially good for engineers that aim to go into management, consulting, or entrepreneurship. Next to the wide variety of business courses, it offers an internship possibility that I performed at The Boeing Company”.
Ruben believes that one should not focus to early on one particular thing he or she wants to do, but stay open-minded for new opportunities. “It is hard to find something that you like early in your life and focus on doing that your entire studies and career. I started my studies at the Aviation Academy with the aim of becoming a commercial airline pilot. That never happened as I did not want to take the risk in the aftermath of the financial crisis” he explains. Then Ruben started focusing on consulting, believing it was the perfect combination of intellectual challenge and ‘life satisfaction’. Now, he thinks that entrepreneurship is the way forward where you can have a true impact on the world. “I believe that as long as you give it your best shot every day, keep on developing yourself, and stay open-minded for other opportunities then eventually you will find something that you will love to do”.
Start-up
That’s why nowadays, Ruben is combining his experience and knowledge from the Aviation Academy and business school to launch an innovative airline concept called JetEight. He and his team are working hard to get the idea of an all-you-can-fly airline off the ground. His ambition for this is to initially connect a few European business hubs and accordingly expand across and outside of Europe. He thinks it is great to be able to work on your own business and to deal with everything from marketing and operations to teambuilding and legal issues.
During the last year of Aviation Studies he was already quite determined to go for an entrepreneurial path, but did not have any start-up idea in which he truly believed, he says. However, after graduating Ruben started focusing more on ideation and looked back on his bachelor experience. One of the projects he performed with two close friends and classmates throughout his Erasmus in Slovakia was to come-up with an airline business plan for the Balkan region. They designed a regional all-business-class airline model that later became the foundation for JetEight. “I took that idea to the business school in Berlin where I got inspired during supply chain management, strategy, and innovation courses to develop the subscription airline business model.” “The school projects were ideal to build and test models, as well as to gain critique on the concept.”
Ruben started JetEight together with one co-founder, who is one of his classmates. Also, several other team members are supporting them in a variety of areas. “Actually three of the guys are currently studying at the Aviation Academy and one is an alumni. So the aviation academy is heavily presented within JetEight. Not to forget the aviation experts supporting us and the ESMT Start-up consulting club helping along.”
At the moment the JetEight team is in an early stage validating the concept (pricing, city network, etc.). As their ‘all-you-can-fly’-concept targets high-end frequent travellers, they are engaging with many travel managers and C-level executives to really test whether the market needs a faster alternative for air transport, and how that service should look like. After the validation process, Ruben and his team will engage with private jet operators and other partners like taxi service providers to further shape the model and ensure that all pieces of the puzzle fit together for a door-to-door experience. From there on they will approach their investor relations to consequently start operating the first routes in 2017. (For more info on the start-up you can follow JetEight on social media.)
Combining education and entrepreneurship
One might argue why someone would start a start-up during your studies and not wait a year or two. “That’s a good point,” says Ruben. “The only response to that is that I truly believe in this concept, that it will improve people’s travel experience a lot, and that I wanted to act on that start-up idea myself.” It felt like a now-or-never-scenario for the entrepreneur. Multiple people within the business school and his private surroundings pushed him to try it out. “So that’s exactly what we’re now doing”.
The Aviation Academy alumnus thinks combing education and entrepreneurship is not the ideal scenario, but thinks it is certainly possible with a lot of dedication and great team members. He thinks the hard part is to find balance among social/personal life, study, and start-up; especially deciding how to allocate time. “But I must say that I only started committing fully to the idea after the first study year in which I used the concept solely during some study projects”.
At last, Ruben addresses the current Aviation Academy students. “First of all, if you have a business idea then put it into action. Don’t hesitate and just do it. Even if it fails you will learn a lot and have a unique experience. You can do this during your studies, or in the evening while working full-time, but commit to it”. When Ruben is asked for advice on vacancy application he says: “My advice for applying for a position in any industry is to circumvent the standard HR process. Find out who is the manager of the department of your interest. It is quite easy to do this via for instance LinkedIn, so make sure you grow a network on LinkedIn. Then connect to that manager, or find out what his email address is. You could attend a conference where you think that interesting people will be present and get in touch with them there. If you approach people directly you are one step ahead of everyone else. Just make sure that you know why you want to work there, what you are absolutely good at, and have examples of something you have done or could do that would be valuable for the company.”