INTERVIEW
to take ballooning more seriously, some three years after
the Civil Aviation Authority recognised that a commercial
passenger operation could be run using hot air balloons,
rather than taking people up as a ‘cost share’ in small sports
balloons.
His first balloon was used as a giant ‘advertising billboard’
for his surveying company, and he successfully used it to
entertain business clients. He said: “The first year I flew 160
people for nothing. It cost me a fortune, and as I still hadn’t
got a pilot’s licence I had to pay for a pilot as well. So it was
fantastic but awful all at the same time.”
As the recession hit harder in 1993, Chris lost 40 per cent
of his surveying business in three months, so decided to link
up with the Aussies to start their own business. Alas at the
end of the season the Aussies went back Down Under, never
to be seen again.
Undeterred, he sold his surveying business and started
‘Out of this World’ hot air balloon flights. But then came
the question of where to find passengers? Chris’s wife came
up with the idea of marketing flights as a Christmas present,
and reached an agreement with the recently opened Lakeside
Shopping Centre to stand the balloon basket in the complex
to sell flights.
From November 23 for a month he set about selling to
the shopping centre customers, but despite handing out
countless brochures for a free-to-enter competition there
was very little interest for nearly two weeks – in fact not
even one flight sold.
“I had been standing in the centre for 120 hours talking
to people about hot air balloons, and had taken absolutely
nothing,” smiled Chris. “I was getting very despondent, but
then suddenly out of the blue someone came up and asked
for two flights. Then two more, followed by more and more.
By the end of the day I had taken £1,250 in cash; and in the
three weeks up to December 23 we took 502 bookings and
banked over £60,000.!”
Bookings continued to flock in after Christmas, so by
the time the flying season began on March 31st, Chris had
800 passengers eagerly awaiting a flight, and he was at the
helm of the fifth largest balloon company in the country –
without a transport licence or a balloon! But with so much
custom, pilots were easy to come by, knowing they had
guaranteed work.
And backed by a High Street bank, Chris approached
Cameron Balloons, and for the first time the company built
him a 12-man balloon, the biggest ever commissioned at
that time. However, there was near disaster on the first flight
when the balloon’s quick deflation system failed, the massive
craft was dragged across a field, got caught up in a tree and
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“I had been standing in the
centre for 120 hours talking to people
about hot air balloons, and had taken
absolutely nothing.”