Where was Nigel Player’s first job?

Woman: This week’s Business Profile looks at the career of Nigel Player. Good afternoon, Nigel.
Man: Good afternoon.
Woman: Nigel, you now own a very successful small airline on the island of Alderney, but have you always worked in transport?
Man: Well, actually my career’s been very varied and I moved into transport quite recently. I started work at a bank, where I was responsible for dealing with investments. I then moved into electronics, where I ran a multi-million-pound company.
Woman: So, why did you leave such an important job and go to Alderney?
Man: Initially, I had no intention of leaving. I just wanted some free time before returning to the company. I originally planned to spend a year doing a book on successful businesses while staying with a friend who had retired there.
Woman: But Alderney is a very small island quite a long way off the south coast of England. I imagine you soon got bored.
Man: That’s right. It’s beautiful there, but within two weeks, I was looking around for some kind of business opportunity. I’d already noticed that food prices were high and service was poor, so I decided to try food retailing. I bought an old general store - it wasn’t cheap, but I was optimistic about its potential. I modernised and expanded the premises and opened in October nineteen ninety-nine.
Woman: But that’s still very different from owning an airline!
Man: Yes, but the problem on an island like Alderney is that the best way to get fresh produce is to fly it in. That was fine during the winter months, but in summer, when there were lots of tourists wanting to come to the island, the local airline sometimes used to just leave my food on the mainland and bring tourists instead - carrying passengers earns them far more money than carrying freight, of course.
Woman: So, what did you decide to do to solve the problem?
Man: Well, I thought about bringing things in by boat. It wouldn’t cost so much and might be more reliable, even in bad weather, but it would take much longer. That’s when I decided I had no choice but to buy my own small eight-seater plane. Soon I was bringing in food twice daily.
Woman: But that was just carrying freight?
Man: At first, yes, but my supermarket customers kept asking me to find a place for them on my plane. I realised there was a great demand for competitive prices, so I put together a business plan for operating a small passenger airline twice a week. It was a challenge, but I really enjoyed doing something so different.
Woman: So was it difficult getting everything prepared?
Man: Well, of course I already had quite a bit of business experience, and a good friend of mine was involved in the transport business for years and he gave me a lot of advice. But the main thing really was that I’d already had a year’s experience of flying and transporting goods, so I understood about regulations and so on. The company got its licence, and we made our first flight in January two thousand and two. In the first month, we carried thirty-eight passengers, but by the end of the year, we had totalled eight thousand.
Woman: So, what would you say is the secret of your success?
Man: I think it helps that we’re a small company running a purely local service. If a big airline upsets a hundred customers, there are millions more willing to use them. If we have eight unhappy people on one of our morning flights, the whole island knows about it by the evening. So all our staff are very committed to giving a good personal service.
Woman: Thank you, Nigel. That was very interesting . . .