Let the rumours FLY ....

[RP170]

Which begs the question...who is keeping tabs on the # of a/c at NJA???

For instance we furloughed 500..(which is the 5 per a/c of the 100 we want to dispose of) but did we actually dispose of any? Are they on the certificate? How many a/c are there?

I don't care if an a/c is sitting in Carson City for weeks..It's still a NJA a/c.
Now say we get a crap load of owners from another frac. And say they get into some of these 100 a/c. How do we know the status of any of the a/c...I'm more inclined to think that they'll just try to overwork the rest of the guys..

Can any union guys explain how it will/can be done. (without relying on figures given from the company to us)

Good questions. I have a feeling that we may have less pilots than are required per the contract after the furloughs. Might be something worth looking into and grieving if true. Just because he "wants" to sell off 100 (ie, 500 pilots) aircraft doesn't mean they have been or will be sold. Which means they should still be staffed accordingly if they are on the certificate. Seems like no one ever has an exact answer as to how many aircraft are on the certificate at a given time.

It seems like the furloughs should have gradually occured along with the selling of the aircraft instead of 500 axed all at once. I know we didn't lose 100 aircraft all at once.

 

[shroomwell]

If it is a deal for only the customers, then where do the old aircraft go? I don't think any company is going to sell just the customers. It is too complex with ownership and management contracts of the airplanes.

 

[flex*wife]

There was an AIN article that referenced a merger that was pointed out to me be a Flex management pilot. He was adamant that I read the paragraph regarding the merger with little other comment. Just a thought. Could be nothing.

and management, especially flexjet management, would never try to purposefully screw with their poor belaugered pilot group already stressed out about furloughs with rumors of more to come... No not the waterview I've heard about.

Not to mention that waterview never "accidentally" or "confidentially" leak information for any other purpose than true and outright disclosure or the best interests of said pilot group. No, they are an honorable bunch those guys at Waterview. They would never put themselves or company skeltons ahead of the right thing...

All I can say is if some - make that any- of you are truly worried that this rumor could even be about Flex and it turns out not to be true,the best thing
y'all can do is quickly unionize flash gordon style before the industry and economy throw any more curveballs. This is not about money or QOL issues anymore. It is about the right to have a say in your future and a seat at the table that decides your fate.

And if it turns out to actually be flex, well we're all screwed and it's too late for anything. Don't worry cuz I won't have the time to say I told you so because I will be too busy freaking out and probrably crying hysterically at the
thought of how it would be a catastrophe for my family. No other rumor has had me identify with the furloughees as much as this one. That's a LOT - or should I say a LOT MORE- of good people screwed.

I really hope your experience DirtyBeech was just more waterview olympics.

Geeeessshhhh....

 

[Ref]

Here is a question. If Netjets is looking to just buy an owner list, Why would Bombardier (who is in the business of selling airplanes) sell the FlexJet owner list and be stuck with the 85 or so airplanes Flexjet has left. That really doesnt make a lot of sense. Now if Netjest was looking to buy the whole business I think it might be a better possibility.

 

[EatSleepFly]

Here is a question. If Netjets is looking to just buy an owner list, Why would Bombardier (who is in the business of selling airplanes) sell the FlexJet owner list and be stuck with the 85 or so airplanes Flexjet has left. That really doesnt make a lot of sense. Now if Netjest was looking to buy the whole business I think it might be a better possibility.

Not to mention, no other frac operates Bombardier aircraft. I would have to think that if most of Flexjet's owners wanted to fly on Hawkers, Citations, Gulfstreams, whatever, they would've gone to a frac that had those in the first place.

I agree with gret... too much is being read into this.

 

[NJAowner]

Maybe NJ brings Marquis in house. No change to the Marquis customers, no new aircraft, NJ already handles owners services and everything but marketing (and NJ salesmen already represent Marquis as well) and NJ can handle the card business.

Plus, my guess is Marquis has an issue with a mismatch of owning shares and having a multiyear commitment but only selling cards in 1 year (or less) pieces. Generally, it would be called a mismatch of maturities between your assets and liabilities. if this is true, NJ can buy Marquis on the cheap since Marquis would already have a huge liability to NJ.

 

[RP170]

Maybe NJ brings Marquis in house. No change to the Marquis customers, no new aircraft, NJ already handles owners services and everything but marketing (and NJ salesmen already represent Marquis as well) and NJ can handle the card business.

Good points. The one thing I noticed in the article was that it said NJA was in talks with a "smaller competitor." Not sure Marquis would be considered as a competitor. Then again, that article could also be inaccurate.

My bet is Options or CitationAir. I think this would lock up future aircraft orders for NJA. Might be some sort of package deal with a manufacturer as well. Options has a tie in with Embraer and obviously Cessna with CitationAir. Ah heck, you could even throw Flex in there with Bombardier as well. Who knows........

I just hope it gets some of us off of the street and back in the cockpit. Time will tell.

 

[jonjuan]

Maybe NJ brings Marquis in house. No change to the Marquis customers, no new aircraft, NJ already handles owners services and everything but marketing (and NJ salesmen already represent Marquis as well) and NJ can handle the card business.

Plus, my guess is Marquis has an issue with a mismatch of owning shares and having a multiyear commitment but only selling cards in 1 year (or less) pieces. Generally, it would be called a mismatch of maturities between your assets and liabilities. if this is true, NJ can buy Marquis on the cheap since Marquis would already have a huge liability to NJ.

As I said earlier, gimme an EM.....

 

[NJAowner]

Marquis could be bought for very little.
There is no debt.
There are no new planes.
There are no new pilots.
There is no integration of anything other than some in sales (NJ and Marquis even have already consolidated owners events).
Marquis is competition, as it sells cards which NJ does very little of in the domestic market.
No new fleets, no new manufacturers to deal with.
Heck -- Marquis cardholders do not even need new phone numbers since they already feed into Columbus.
Marquis may be close to having cash flow problems (just speculation), so it can't pay its bills to NJ.
NJ already has extra shares to accommodate any growth in this area without adding a plane, pilot or operations person.
No pilots anywhere lose jobs.
Acquisitions do not get any easier than this.

 

[jehtplane]

I just hope it gets some of us off of the street and back in the cockpit. Time will tell.

And puts other guys on the street? Is that what you wish for?

 

[gret]

Why can Marquis be bought for "very little"? If my sources are right, they make money, a lot of it as their overhead has been minimal, unless they have gone nuts and bought a lot of shares. If they bought shares, then they would have a lot of debt.

Don't see NJ buying its biggest customer and partner Marquis. It gives them nothing as Marquis is already keeping a lot of the NJ planes flying. Marquis's customers are the ones flying on the NJ a/c and took up the slack from the minimal share sales.

At best they would cut out a little overhead. Plus EJM can do whatever Marquis does.

 

[RP170]

And puts other guys on the street? Is that what you wish for?

Is that what I said?

 

[jehtplane]

Is that what I said?

I suggest you re-read your own post. This whole thread is speculation and BS.

 

[gunfyter]

This is FlightInfo

 

[jehtplane]

This is FlightInfo

You got that right, the most useless info on the internet.

 

[RP170]

I suggest you re-read your own post. This whole thread is speculation and BS.

Then don't worry about it, or better yet, don't read any of it.

 

[jehtplane]

Then don't worry about it, or better yet, don't read any of it.

You are absolutely right, I should not waste my time reading anything from someone who knows less about what is actually happening than my dog.

 

[gutshotdraw]

NJAOwner,

I always value your opinion and you make some interesting points but I also don't see Marquis as a "competitor." My money, if a deal happens at all, is on Options.

 

[notapilot]

Bombardier bought Skyjet a few years ago. Could possibly be a Netjets-Marquis thing if anything. There is no way Bombardier will sell owners without aircraft and hold on to deflated valued assets for who knows how long. This is not even close to Bombardiers 'M.O.'.

 

[flagshipper]

Maybe NJ brings Marquis in house. No change to the Marquis customers, no new aircraft, NJ already handles owners services and everything but marketing (and NJ salesmen already represent Marquis as well) and NJ can handle the card business.
QUOTE]


ding ding we have a winner

 

[Trash8Mofo]

And puts other guys on the street? Is that what you wish for?

Actually, to be brutally honest, yes.

With the economy the way it is and with the fractional market having steady but minimal recovery, the name of the game is Market Share (aka existing customer base). Either customers are being flown by your company and your pilots or by my company and our pilots; its your job or mine.

I wish the circumstances were different, but it is what it is. At least Netjets pilots are not undercutting anybody or having sub-par wages to subsidize it's competitiveness.

I wish it was higher tides lift all boats, but it is just not the case with the way the recovery is going.

 

[BeeDubya]

Which begs the question...who is keeping tabs on the # of a/c at NJA???

For instance we furloughed 500..(which is the 5 per a/c of the 100 we want to dispose of) but did we actually dispose of any? Are they on the certificate? How many a/c are there?

I don't care if an a/c is sitting in Carson City for weeks..It's still a NJA a/c.
Now say we get a crap load of owners from another frac. And say they get into some of these 100 a/c. How do we know the status of any of the a/c...I'm more inclined to think that they'll just try to overwork the rest of the guys..

Can any union guys explain how it will/can be done. (without relying on figures given from the company to us)

The Union is tracking this information and we are not relying solely on information provided by the company. I will not discuss how we are doing it on a public message board. If you are a NJ pilot, you can email or PM on the Union site.

BW

 

[CRJFlyer]

You are absolutely right, I should not waste my time reading anything from someone who knows less about what is actually happening than my dog.

I got my money on RP170 being way smarter than you...

And more able to keep his cool and not get bent out of shape on FI like yourself....

and he doesn't have to put pictures of girls he'll never get on his profile..

 

[CRJFlyer]

Maybe NJ brings Marquis in house. No change to the Marquis customers, no new aircraft, NJ already handles owners services and everything but marketing (and NJ salesmen already represent Marquis as well) and NJ can handle the card business.

Plus, my guess is Marquis has an issue with a mismatch of owning shares and having a multiyear commitment but only selling cards in 1 year (or less) pieces. Generally, it would be called a mismatch of maturities between your assets and liabilities. if this is true, NJ can buy Marquis on the cheap since Marquis would already have a huge liability to NJ.

I've often wondered how much does NJA prosper from the Marquis cards? I'm sure there is a profit, but if Marquis is also making a profit then that means NJA is not fully realizing maximum profits for their planes and service. We(NJA) does all the work and Marquis just sells what we sell to them at a premium..

Like skimming the skim!!!

Seems we could very easily do what Marquis does.. All that is required is to sell them(cards or whatever) under the pt. 135 cert.... Keep all the profits etc.. I gotta bet Sokol has looked at this and wondered the same..It's been rumored that he is the type of guy to ask..."how are we making money from this?"


If we did take over Marquis I don't see how exactly that would equate to any realized growth though... We already have the planes and pilots for the Marquis customers figured in....(well sort of since we don't know how many planes we actually have)

 

[CRJFlyer]

The Union is tracking this information and we are not relying solely on information provided by the company. I will not discuss how we are doing it on a public message board. If you are a NJ pilot, you can email or PM on the Union site.

BW

Same answer I got from the union msg board ( a non-answer)..Same with how are we keeping track of sell-offs..Crickets... when I asked that question also.... As far as being a NJ pilot I won't even get into that discussion.... My NJASAP board viewing forever ended 1/15 at 11:59 pm...

Besides, I thought it was apparent that the NJASAP board is about as public as FI.....Except when one memebr gives a furloughed member his password..Then they are on them like a hawk, but somehow we can't figure out how management gets on there to read it..

 

[holden1]

I am betting it is Marquis - seems like that's the issue Sokol needs to resolve pretty quickly.

 

[Outta Here]

Marquis is a competitor now, they became one late last fall. Marquis is not as cherry as people think, they have some major cash flow issues right now. They are leveraged to the hilt. My guess it will be them, why pay a third person to do what we should have done from the beginning, sold cards ourselves.

 

[jonjuan]

Marquis is a competitor now, they became one late last fall. Marquis is not as cherry as people think, they have some major cash flow issues right now. They are leveraged to the hilt. My guess it will be them, why pay a third person to do what we should have done from the beginning, sold cards ourselves.

Because without them, nja would not have sold nearly the cards nor had no where near the growth without marquis. They are or at least were a marketing machine and were uniquely tied in to groups that bought cards hand over fist. In fact, most people are probably more familiar with the marquis name/brand than the nja name. They also thought the exponential growth would never stop, similar to the mortgage hype/crisis. Now they are fully pregnant with way too many owned aircraft for the current demand. Only a couple of ways to become un-pregnant.

 

[NJAowner]

The Marquis model can make lots of $$ when business is good and lose lkots of $$ when business is bad. Here is the example below and I have made up the numbers.

Assume Marquis owns 40 1/8 interests in an Excel. That equals 5 planes or 400 hours per year. They cut up the shares into 80 25 hour cards that they sell at $175k each = $14,000,000 in revenue. Assume they pay NJA about $120 per 1/16 in monthly management and hourly fees (all fuel is not in this equation). There is $9.6MM in these expenses, and then you need to pay overhead and capital costs for the planes (or interest on the debt) and depreciation. This assumes 100% utilization. Now, if Marquis sales decrease 40%, they only bring in $8.4MM, pay NJ $9.6MM to operate, plus interest, etc. With business down I can see them getting into a big hole with NJ. If Marquis were to go outr of business of file bankruptcy, leaving aside the "brand" issues, NJ is probably the largest unsecured creditor. NJ would do this deal to protect itself more than to grow. NJ could probbably "buy" Marquis for what Marquis owes NJ and allowing Marquis to be released from its contracts with NJ. The big issue is probably how to handle Marquis' lenders and the planes/shares pledged as collateral for Marquis' loans.

The problem lies in that Marquis has long term commitments on the expense sside and all of its revenue is short term and fickle.

 

[NJAowner]

My $ need be corrected -- but later.

Some of the numbers are wrong in the above email (I was runnning 2 sets of calcuations and mixed them up), but the concept still holds. Sorry for any confusion.