lowecur
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2003
- Posts
- 2,317
I can just see it now, Crandall will be Louie DePalma and Burr will be Latka. They will pay their pilots minimum wage, plus tips.
All kidding aside, I believe this will be a huge success, taking additional business and leisure travelers away from the airlines. No parking or security problems, and the pricing will be excellent.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 16, 2004
Crandall and Burr unite for iFly Air Taxi
Bloomberg News
Donald Burr, who helped create the low-fare airline industry with People Express, has recruited former rival Robert Crandall for a venture to provide on-demand jet service between small airports in the Northeast.
Crandall, who spent 13 years at the helm of AMR Corp., parent company of American Airlines, the world's largest carrier, has agreed to become chairman of iFly Air Taxi of Stratford, Conn., according to a regulatory filing. The new company also has sold $4 million worth of stock to value investor Julian Robertson within the past month.
Burr founded and built People Express in the 1980s into the world's fifth-largest airline by using reduced prices and new management approaches to gain market share. His company faltered when industry leaders countered with innovations Crandall developed, including frequent-flier miles and tiered salaries for pilots.
"The particular irony here is that Crandall and Don Burr were fighting each other tooth and nail in the 1980s, and here they are working together," said Philip Baggaley, an airline industry analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York. "Strange bedfellows."
Burr, 62, said in an interview that he had been impressed with the innovations Crandall put in place that helped American Airlines thwart competition from People Express. And as the chairman of iFly, Crandall, who was chairman and chief executive of Fort Worth's AMR from 1985 to 1998, will lend credibility to an untested business concept.
"Crandall is widely respected in a lot of business circles that I am not," said Burr, iFly's chief executive. "I get the entrepreneurial vote. He gets the institutional vote."
IFly, which plans to change its name, disclosed that Crandall is on its board in a March 29 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The filing also showed that iFly recently sold $6.3 million worth of convertible preferred stock to 21 investors, including Robertson, who once ran hedge funds through Tiger Management.
Crandall said that iFly, founded by Burr in December 2001, is still in its formative stages. The air taxi will start out with about 25 jets that will fly to airports within a 500- to 600-mile radius of iFly's base, in a yet-to-be-determined city in southern New England. Burr's son Cameron, 42, will be president.
"The notion of iFly is to make short-haul private jet transportation as convenient as calling a limousine," Crandall, 68, said in an interview. "To my knowledge, nobody is doing this at this point."
The air-taxi concept relies on a new class of aircraft, known as microjets, which are being developed by companies such as Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque, N.M., and Adam Aircraft Industries of Englewood, Colo. Manufacturers expect to begin delivering these four- to five-passenger jets by year's end at prices that start at $1 million, compared with $4 million for the Citation CJ1, the least-expensive jet now in production at Textron's Cessna Aircraft unit.
All kidding aside, I believe this will be a huge success, taking additional business and leisure travelers away from the airlines. No parking or security problems, and the pricing will be excellent.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 16, 2004
Crandall and Burr unite for iFly Air Taxi
Bloomberg News
Donald Burr, who helped create the low-fare airline industry with People Express, has recruited former rival Robert Crandall for a venture to provide on-demand jet service between small airports in the Northeast.
Crandall, who spent 13 years at the helm of AMR Corp., parent company of American Airlines, the world's largest carrier, has agreed to become chairman of iFly Air Taxi of Stratford, Conn., according to a regulatory filing. The new company also has sold $4 million worth of stock to value investor Julian Robertson within the past month.
Burr founded and built People Express in the 1980s into the world's fifth-largest airline by using reduced prices and new management approaches to gain market share. His company faltered when industry leaders countered with innovations Crandall developed, including frequent-flier miles and tiered salaries for pilots.
"The particular irony here is that Crandall and Don Burr were fighting each other tooth and nail in the 1980s, and here they are working together," said Philip Baggaley, an airline industry analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York. "Strange bedfellows."
Burr, 62, said in an interview that he had been impressed with the innovations Crandall put in place that helped American Airlines thwart competition from People Express. And as the chairman of iFly, Crandall, who was chairman and chief executive of Fort Worth's AMR from 1985 to 1998, will lend credibility to an untested business concept.
"Crandall is widely respected in a lot of business circles that I am not," said Burr, iFly's chief executive. "I get the entrepreneurial vote. He gets the institutional vote."
IFly, which plans to change its name, disclosed that Crandall is on its board in a March 29 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The filing also showed that iFly recently sold $6.3 million worth of convertible preferred stock to 21 investors, including Robertson, who once ran hedge funds through Tiger Management.
Crandall said that iFly, founded by Burr in December 2001, is still in its formative stages. The air taxi will start out with about 25 jets that will fly to airports within a 500- to 600-mile radius of iFly's base, in a yet-to-be-determined city in southern New England. Burr's son Cameron, 42, will be president.
"The notion of iFly is to make short-haul private jet transportation as convenient as calling a limousine," Crandall, 68, said in an interview. "To my knowledge, nobody is doing this at this point."
The air-taxi concept relies on a new class of aircraft, known as microjets, which are being developed by companies such as Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque, N.M., and Adam Aircraft Industries of Englewood, Colo. Manufacturers expect to begin delivering these four- to five-passenger jets by year's end at prices that start at $1 million, compared with $4 million for the Citation CJ1, the least-expensive jet now in production at Textron's Cessna Aircraft unit.
