Interviews  >  Doug Bannister: Flying high

With responsibility for Jersey's airport and harbours, Doug Bannister has to keep a lot of people happy while driving the business forward. He tells Nick Kirby why this is a challenge he relishes.

Originally from New Jersey in the US, Doug Bannister arrived in Jersey in July last year to assume the role of Group CEO for Jersey Airport and Jersey Harbours. With over 20 years in international business, he had previously held senior executive positions with leading sea transportation company P&O Nedlloyd and served as Managing Director with Maersk Line UK and Ireland, the largest container shipping company in the UK.

Coming to a relatively small island from such major companies may, on the surface, seem an unusual choice. But with a thorough knowledge and proven record in handling change management, he has become the man to take the Ports of Jersey forward. He spoke to businesslife.co about the challenges the business faces and why the future is very exciting indeed.

Tell us what you are responsible for, and how you have been charged with driving the business forward.

My primary day-to-day responsibilities are around the business planning, the financial growth and the strategic development of the airport and the harbours. When the previous Airport Director handed in his notice, the Minister for Economic Development and the Shadow Board of Directors decided it would be quite interesting to bring in a single Group CEO to oversee the development of all the businesses that are with the harbours and the airport. So I was brought in to integrate the businesses, to develop a unified commercial strategy under a single management structure, and to make the organisation much more agile. And that is what I have set out to do.

And is that about finding cost efficiencies as well?

That's right. It's imperative to get these businesses trading sustainably and profitably so they can meet their ongoing obligations for servicing the island. We've done a lot of work on understanding what our capital requirements are – we must find between £1.5 million and £2 million per annum of profitability improvements to be sustainable in the long run over the next 20 years.

Do the airport and the harbours provide different challenges?

They do, but we can overcomplicate it and say that harbours and airports are very different, while fundamentally they are quite similar in that they are strategic gateways and transportation businesses – bringing people or freight in and moving them out.

When we set out to integrate these businesses and bring them in under a single management structure, I set up work groups from across the businesses to look at everything we do and to come up with suggestions and ideas to directly inform the way in which we ultimately structured the integrated business. These groups yielded between two and three thousand improvement ideas that we are still working through and that we're trying to structure into a forward improvement programme, called ‘Our Direction to 2015', which is building three fundamental core pillars.

One is engaging our people, because we were able to use the power and knowledge of the individuals and the energy they had to come up with these ideas, and we want to build on that.

The second pillar is around customer experience. As a monopoly, I feel very strongly that it's simply unacceptable to just sit back on our laurels with the attitude that if you need to get off Jersey or get some freight into Jersey you've got no choice but to use our facilities. We must lift our level of customer experience and there's a whole range of projects around this that we are developing.

The final pillar for our strategic direction to 2015 is lifting our business performance – and this is focusing on our profitability gaps; making better use of our assets; maintaining our open, safe and secure operational compliance; and looking at ways of doing things more efficiently.

You worked for massive companies previously and now you work for a government-owned operation on a small island. Why?

Just because it's a small island doesn't mean it's a small operation! It's the only way people and freight can move to and from the island, so these are crucial businesses. We will always be the first and last thing that people feel about Jersey. The word I have been using is ‘delightful' – we aim to provide a ‘delightful' level of service, whether it is island residents who can feel good about coming home or leaving, or whether it is the tourist or visiting businessman who will be more inclined to return to Jersey after having a great experience.

Do you feel at present that the businesses reflect that? Some people would argue that there are definite areas for improvement.

We've got world-class transportation links – by virtue of being an island community we need them. During the summertime we have 46 direct routes to the UK and the continent and that provides some pretty powerful connectivity. I think our new departures hall is fabulous compared to other regional airports, including those within the Channel Islands. One of the areas we could use a bit of a facelift is probably our passenger pier, and that is something we are currently looking at. But our greatest lever for delighting our customers is our customer service and interactions – an area where we are placing increased attention.

So how big a learning experience has this been for you?

One of the things that attracted me to this job was the opportunity to take a look at the best practises and synergies across the aviation and maritime businesses. And I also thought this role provides a unique opportunity – there are few places on earth that have a combined airport and harbour authority, and in those places they tend to still have separate management structures – but what I have done here is put in a single management structure across both entities.

There was also something around the community and the lifestyle that I found attractive. The longer I am here, the more and more it grows on me. But one of the things that fascinated me is the ‘intensity' that is Jersey. On one hand the community is very supportive and very friendly, but there is a real intensity about the business and the critical views that the people have around certain things. The airport and the harbour undeniably attract attention being the only gateways into and out of the island, and this keeps us on our toes.

But that's not always positive…

It's because people are interested in it and are passionate about it that they may give us some challenges. If people are saying they don't feel delighted or valued or they feel overlooked, it gives me some ammunition to go about creating a different service offering.

We are under scrutiny from our public and the media – so we have to do what we do in a way that you can still walk around your community with your head held high and proud of the work that you do. Let's face it, if there was complete apathy about what we did it would be a dull place to work!

So how do you intend to drive the business forward?

We must lift our level of profitability and we've got three levers to do so – we can increase our prices, we can reduce our costs or we can grow our business. Increasing our prices is not something that we would want to do. It's also the easy way out as a monopoly. So we are looking at our cost base and figuring out where we can make efficiencies. The integration of the harbours and airports have already yielded some substantial savings.

Against that background, where do I see growth? There are some good growth opportunities on the maritime side – there is a lot we can do to improve our marina leisure offering. Another growth area is the cruise sector – we've got some challenges, the main one being the lack of deep water, but we shouldn't just shrug our shoulders. We've got an increasing number of cruise ships doing port-of-call business in Jersey, and I think we could probably do a lot more there as well, and if we had deep-water facilities to bring a ship alongside, that would help too.

On the aviation side I think we have a really good opportunity in corporate aviation and business jets – not least because Jersey is a geographically interesting place to base operations. In commercial aviation, companies such as Blue Islands have been very successful in growing the number of routes out of Jersey this year. We also have an expanding offering with EasyJet, and our largest partners, Flybe and British Airways, are continuing to develop their products. One of the commercial areas that I think has some very strong potential is northern Europe and Scandinavia.

You have talked about cost savings from bringing the harbours and airports together – do you think there could be even more if Jersey and Guernsey worked more closely?

We already cooperate in a number of areas – for instance, our Director of Civil Aviation and our new Security Director on the aviation side are pan-island. Jersey Airport also controls the Channel Islands' ‘control zone' – this is a chunk of air space that extends over Guernsey and Alderney, so we are routinely cooperating around that.

Is there a bigger benefit out there by better unifying? I think so, but we would need to look at it because there are obviously a number of cultural hurdles. If the prize was big enough, I think they could be overcome.

So what comes next?

One of the essential developments is likely to be incorporation. As trading funds we are standalone entities within the States, and that allows us to do certain things. Incorporation allows us to accelerate, and being an incorporated entity governed by a Board of Directors rather than a department of the States of Jersey, we have greater clarity in regulatory responsibilities and focus in performance improvement.

We can work with our partners differently, enter into joint ventures, conclude commercial deals more quickly, and look for off-island opportunities in ways a department of the States can't. Jersey Telecom is a great example of this: pre-incorporation they were just Jersey-based but now they've gone global.

Together with our Shadow Board we have developed a persuasive case for incorporating these businesses, which is contained in a report and proposition for the States of Jersey to debate an ‘in principle' decision to incorporate. Should this be agreed, we have an 18-month project initiated to deliver the final incorporated entity.

Incorporation is a compelling prospect. However, it's not an endgame – it's a vehicle that allows us to unlock so much more potential. These are very exciting times!

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