Lawrence Hunt

Lawrence William Hunt (born 19 March 1966) is a British entrepreneur, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Silverjet Aviation Limited, a business-class airline. Silverjet suspended operations on 30 May 2008.^[1]

Involved with start-up businesses since 1984, Hunt has held a number of posts at various companies. At Novell, a US technology business which listed on NASDAQ in 1987, he was the Distribution and Product manager; at BMS, a technology consulting partnership, sold to Cap Gemini in 1992, Hunt held the position of Head of Sales and Marketing; he was Sales and Marketing Director of Database Management Sciences Limited, sold to IBM in 1993; he founded Rapid Travel Solutions Limited, sold to Telewest Communications Plc in 2003; and at lowcosttravelgroup.com Limited (www.lowcostholidays.com), founded in 2004 by Paul Evans and Hunt where he was a non-Executive Director until to company went into administration on the 15th July 2016. Lawrence was non-executive Chairman of Deallus Holdings, a business intelligence company founded in 2006 to provide competitive research and analysis to the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries. Deallus was sold to Archimed SAS, a french private equity business in November 2015.

Silverjet

Hunt felt that the traditional model of business passengers paying higher rates in order to subside the cheaper economy seats was nonsensical, and that a business-class only service, based on the single carriage model of low cost carriers, was a viable business idea.^[2] Silverjet featured a separate ladies bathroom, a private terminal and carbon neutral status. Silverjet won 14 awards in its first year of operation and carried over 100,000 passengers. It achieved passenger load factors of 80% on its first aircraft and 70% across its fleet of three, but ultimately technical troubles, bad press, and inability to secure the funding necessary to overcome these problems, led to the failure of the company. Trading of Silverjet's shares on the AIM was suspended on 23 May 2008, and the company suspended operations on 30 May 2008.^[3]

lowcosttravelgroup

in July 2008, Hunt returned to lowcosttravelgroup and launched lowcostholidays.com in January 2009. lowcostholidays.com is the fourth largest online travel agent in the UK and was rolled out to Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Spain and Italy in 2011 and 2012 and the USA and Australia in 2013. Lowcosttravelgroup acquired Resorthoppa in 2009 and subsequently merged it with A2Btransfers.co.uk in 2012. It also acquired Intuitive Ltd., a travel software business in 2010, and sold it to NVM ventures in 2012.

Lowcost Travel ceased trading on 15th July 2016.

In April 2014, Lawrence was also appointed as Chairman of life sciences research and strategy company Deallus.

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