Men’s grooming chief Peter Littlewood likes to get the most out of his
business trips and even used one as an educational world tour for his
eight-year-old daughter, with the blessing of her school.
“It is good to combine work with pleasure. Before Christmas, we were at our
house in the US and I had to go to meetings in the UK. As a family we also
wanted to see friends in Sydney and I needed to see an investor in New
Zealand. So we decided to do a one-off round-the-world trip for a month,” he
said.
“My daughter Katie’s teacher was terrific, saying she would learn so much by
being on the trip. She also thought it would be great to teach the other
children about different time zones by creating a ‘Where in the world is
Katie?’ competition and every time we stopped over, Katie went on the
internet and wrote on the school blog. When she got back, she also made a
presentation about the differences between the countries, so we contributed
to her tuition!”
Littlewood, 51, is the former chief commercial officer for Allied Domecq. He
left in 2005 to help set up the Little Wing Trading Company, which produces
the Bulldog natural grooming
products for men. The products are now in 350 branches of Sainsbury’s and
are being rolled out in Waitrose and Superdrug. The company achieved nearly
£1 million of turnover in its first year of operation and keeps a small team
of four executive directors, backed up by a team manufacturing the products
in the UK. Littlewood shuttles between homes in New Jersey and Sutton,
making six transatlantic trips a year, and travels in the UK and as far
afield as New Zealand to visit clients. He’s also a non-executive director
of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and travels abroad on business for them.
Who do you choose to fly with?
I’m a huge fan of Virgin Atlantic. I think everything about the service and
the way they operate is terrific. Upper Class is great, of course, but I’m
happy with premium economy. The staff are very engaged and motivated and the
food is good.
When we booked our round-the-world trip, it was going to be in premium
economy, but then we were told that the ticket restrictions meant we would
have to choose upper class or economy. I thought, ‘this is once in a
lifetime, we’re going upper class’. Three round-the-world tickets in upper
class for myself, my wife and our daughter cost around US$20,000, which I
didn’t think was too bad.
Virgin’s lounge at Heathrow is pretty impressive. When we were in there, my
daughter said: ‘Daddy, would it be possible to live here?’
Any bad experiences with Virgin?
They don’t always get everything right, but as a business it is often how you
handle a problem that is the most important thing. I recently had three
flights in a row where the personal entertainment didn’t work and I wrote a
letter of complaint. I got a terrific note back, saying they would upgrade
the whole family on the next trip, which they did and the whole thing was
just very well handled.
But I was disappointed with Virgin Trains. I expected it to deliver the Virgin
experience and it didn’t. On the airline, they are always trying to do
something new, with the limousine service, massages, etc. The train just
felt like any other train with the Virgin logo on it.
What about other airlines?
