Virtual Entrepreneur

You See A Lost Bag, They See An Opportunity

Star-Telegram:
When Gil Brandt touched down at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport 2 weekends ago, one of his bags kept flying - all the way to Indiana. The former Dallas Cowboys executive ultimately took it upon himself to untangle the screw-up in which another traveler’s name was tagged to his bag. In the end, it was X-Press Bags, not American Airlines, that showed up on his Highland Park doorstep with the right bag 3 days later.

With the summer travel season under way, millions of people like Brandt will lose their bags, and that number is climbing. Travelers will grumble while airlines grovel, but delivery companies like X-Press Bags will grow.

A network of companies, in a small subindustry of the aviation business, is thriving, thanks to the spike in mishandled baggage. The rate has grown 75% over the past 5 years.

‘It’s a delicate business,’ said Dany Johnston, founder and chief executive of X-Press Bags. ‘Everyone we deal with is pissed.’

But few people may even realize the business exists. You won’t find his company in the phone book, and a sign on the front of its Irving offices reads, ‘General public not admitted.’

From its private, nondescript warehouse a couple of miles south of D/FW Airport, X-Press Bags pulls in $4 million a year. The owner has ambitions of $10 million a year by 2009…

The 8-year-old company was born after Johnston got fed up dealing with a delivery company when he lost his golf clubs on a flight. Johnston, a serial entrepreneur who has started 17 other businesses and was once a pro golfer, let his competitive instinct take over.

He took a 6-month job around 1999 with American Airlines in the company’s baggage-management department to learn the ins and outs of delivering bags. After leaving, he spent another 6 months delivering bags at all hours of the night for companies in Miami, Houston and Dallas. He wanted to see the operations from different perspectives, he said.

Meanwhile… carry on reading.