Dagmar Grossmann talks about Grossmann Jet Service and the excellent company she keeps
Flying the Flag
Dagmar Grossmann of
Grossmann Jet Service
Dagmar Grossmann was literally flying when
she recently sat across from his holiness
the Dalai Lama for an hour and a half, a
longer audience than most world leaders
get with the spiritual icon. Her company, Grossmann
80 l Business and Management: Business Aviation
Jet Service, had been given the honour of ferrying the
Dalai Lama twice in three months, most recently in
February of this year.
“It was such a great honour for us that he chose
our company,” she said. “I would say it was the peak of
my career.”
It has been a long journey to sitting next to world
leaders from her start as an airline hostess making
extra cash while finishing her studies. When she
started in 1983 with Austrian Airlines, being a flight
attendant was a glamorous way to see the world and
earn good money. As a flight attendant, she met her
husband, a pilot and manager of a private jet service
in Austria, her home country. Over the next few years,
she gave birth to two sons, but was never content
being a housewife, and found herself becoming
more and more involved in her husband’s business.
Eventually, the couple started their own private jet
service, Dagmar in charge of the managerial side and
her husband, the ‘visionary,’ the flying side. After both
the personal and business relationship ended, Dagmar
set her sights on Prague, where she has become the
CEO of Prague’s first international private jet service,
founded in 2004. Grossmann also maintains a jet
consulting firm out of Austria.
“I can read a balance sheet, talk to people, see
what they’re doing, and immediately tell them what kind
of plane they need,” she said, crediting her experience
in the industry to being able to intuitively find the right fit
for clients.
When the Czech Republic joined the EU, Grossmann
saw an opportunity to be the first one in a new market.
With the help of start-up capital from investor Karel
Komárek, she began building a business with her
networking and contacts from the aviation industry, and
a year later added the first plane to the fleet. Now, she
works with a team of 33 employees and a growing fleet of
three jets with a fourth to be added soon.
“The first two years were difficult in terms of cultural
differences,” she said. Grossmann was used to the
highly competitive business climate in Vienna, where
there were 27 private jet companies and “unless you
know people, you’ll die there”.
Part of managing her staff successfully is ability
to instil in them her own goals, visions and work ethic.
In the private jet industry, brokers who book planes
through private companies have an array of options to
choose from for clients, leaving no room for a less than
perfect operation. Grossmann will do whatever it takes
to deliver a consistent product – aside from flying the
plane – and has even taken over as flight attendant on
occasions when staff didn’t understand instructions or
were unavailable.
“After all these years, what I really know is that
whenever I do jump into the game, I do not have one
single chance to make a mistake. I train my staff that
they always have to do a job right, even if you die for it”
she said.
But instead of the typical CEO that often works
through intermediaries, Grossmann is hands-on in all
aspects of her company, allowing her to react quickly
to clients’ demands and setting important examples for
her staff.
“The CEO is the company’s lawyer, the training
manager, the psychotherapist, the finance officer and
president all in one,” she said. “You have to be able to
react immediately.”
At the start of her career, Grossmann said she
often deferred to pilots or maintenance workers, taking
their word at face value about problems with equipment
or processes. But experience has taught her to
challenge any obstacles, sometimes even if it earns her
a reputation for difficulty.
“Life is always a competition, in private life and in
business,” she said. “Of course we’d all like to live in
harmony, but if I’m doing a job, I’m doing it properly. I’m
setting an example for thirty people; I can’t afford not to
do it well.”
Contact:
}: Dedinska 29, Prague 6, 161 00,
Czech Republic
§: +420 233 378 766, Fax: +420 220 571 058,
: office@grossmannjet.com,
Þ: www.grossmannjet.com
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