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Skybus round II ???

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LearLove

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Nov 27, 2001
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-lowcost-airline-targets-apf-15347582.html?.v=4

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- A new low-cost airline will begin serving mid-sized U.S. cities that it thinks larger carriers have left behind.
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Clearwater, Fla.-based JetAmerica said 34 nonstop passenger flights a week will start July 13 at Toledo, Ohio; South Bend, Ind.; Melbourne, Fla.; Newark, N.J.; Minneapolis and Lansing, Mich. Twenty-eight flights start or end at Newark Liberty International Airport. The carrier will add six more flights -- from Toledo to Minneapolis -- starting Aug. 14.
JetAmerica is targeting small and midsize cities like Lansing, which has seen the number of daily flights at its Capital Region International Airport fall from 35 to 12 the past five years. The decline is part of a national trend that has seen airfares increase at those airports as daily flights have decreased.
Robert Selig, head of the Capital Region Airport Authority, said JetAmerica will give Lansing business travelers direct access to New York City and carry leisure travelers to central Florida.
"We don't have access to either one right now," Selig said. "So, this is going to fill a major void in our schedule."
Filling that void won't be cheap.
The Lansing, South Bend, Melbourne and Toledo airports are subsidizing JetAmerica with $1.4 million in grants in its first year, along with about $867,000 in waived airport fees and $1.1 million in marketing and advertising assistance.
South Bend, Toledo and Melbourne received their grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Small Community Air Service Development Program, which has awarded $104 million to 223 recipients since 2002 in an effort to restore lost service and bring air fares down.
Newark and Minneapolis, each of which serve more than 20 million passengers a year, are not offering assistance to JetAmerica.
John Weikle, chief executive of JetAmerica, said the subsidies will help insulate the new carrier from spikes in jet fuel prices. Higher fuel prices have contributed to the failures of at least four major airlines since 9/11. Smaller carriers have also been hurt.
Surging fuel prices helped bankrupt ultra-discounter Skybus Inc. last year. Weikle founded that Columbus, Ohio-based airline known for its $10 fares. The bankruptcy cost 450 employees their jobs.
JetAmerica's pricing scheme will share some Skybus characteristics.
Prices will start at $9 a seat and top out at $199. The $9 price will apply to the first nine to 19 seats on each plane. Passengers will pay $15 to check a bag. Food, drinks and in-flight TV will also come at a cost.
The carrier is starting out with one leased Boeing 737-800, expects to add a second in the first month, and have as many as four by July of next year. Weikle's business plans calls for an additional 189-seat jet to be leased every four months.
Each Boeing 737-800 can fly to four cities a day, Weikle said.
Weikle estimated JetAmerica's revenue at more than $50 million in the first year and about $150 million in the second. He compares his business model to that of Wal-Mart Inc., which started out by serving cities of less than 50,000 people because competitors were not interested in them.
JetAmerica plans to serve Melbourne, Fla., with at least six flights a week. Richard Ennis, executive director of Melbourne International Airport, said JetAmerica's planes and nonstop routes persuaded him to support the carrier. Melbourne, a coastal community about 70 miles southeast of Orlando, recorded a 45 percent decline in passenger traffic at its airport from 2000 to 2008.
Ennis said carriers with larger jets like the Boeing 737-800 charge less per seat, which is an advantage enjoyed by Orlando International Airport and Orlando Sanford International Airport.
"It's the only way I can beat them out," Ennis said of the neighboring airports
 
Looks like this plan has a lot in common with Allegiant, as well as Skumbus. Never ceases to amaze me how persistent the startup airline market is. Just like cockroaches, you can kill all you want, but they keep coming at you.
 
JetAmerica ?? I figured Alaska owned the name from the merger ??

Wonder who is going to do the flying for them? Extra, Ryan, SunCountry? It should last about 2 months! Good looking paint job though.
 
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Old School, they're going to be doing their own flying. Job ads have been quietly circulating for a few weeks now for a V.P. Flight Ops, D.O., and Chief Pilot.

MOCO, it's not "major status", just another threat to the Majors by a low-cost entry undercutting mainline routes. (plus, where are you going to put this thread to where those who need to read about it will find it? I don't read any other sections of FI).

Employees are cheap with the high unemployment rate, lots of pilots and mechanics floating around, too. Many parked Airbus (and other) aircraft with GECAS bleeding money, happy for any semi-stable business plan to pay on the aircraft for a while so leases are cheap. Gate space will be cheap at those smaller, quote "underserved" airports, fuel is cheap for right now, etc, etc.

We'll see if their yields will keep them in business longer than SkyBus was. With the lower fuel prices, they may have better staying power, depending on how well-financed they are.
 
Makes you wonder what the sales pitch is to investors. "It will be different this time?"

Just what we need ;)
 
Never going to get off the ground, this is Air Azul with a new name. Sun Country pulled out cuz when it came time to pay Air Azul could never come up with the cash.
 
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-lowcost-airline-targets-apf-15347582.html?.v=4

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- A new low-cost airline will begin serving mid-sized U.S. cities that it thinks larger carriers have left behind.

34 nonstop passenger flights a week will start July 13 at Toledo, Ohio; South Bend, Ind.; Melbourne, Fla.; Newark, N.J.; Minneapolis and Lansing, Mich. Twenty-eight flights start or end at Newark Liberty International Airport. The carrier will add six more flights -- from Toledo to Minneapolis -- starting Aug. 14.

JetAmerica is targeting small and midsize cities like Lansing, which has seen the number of daily flights at its Capital Region International Airport fall from 35 to 12 the past five years.

Robert Selig, head of the Capital Region Airport Authority, said JetAmerica will give Lansing business travelers direct access to New York City and carry leisure travelers to central Florida. "We don't have access to either one right now," Selig said. "So, this is going to fill a major void in our schedule."

Filling that void won't be cheap. The Lansing, South Bend, Melbourne and Toledo airports are subsidizing JetAmerica with $1.4 million in grants in its first year, along with about $867,000 in waived airport fees and $1.1 million in marketing and advertising assistance.

South Bend, Toledo and Melbourne received their grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Small Community Air Service Development Program, which has awarded $104 million to 223 recipients since 2002 in an effort to restore lost service and bring air fares down.

Newark and Minneapolis, each of which serve more than 20 million passengers a year, are not offering assistance to JetAmerica.
So as I read this; local midwest taxpayers, many of who have lost jobs in manufacturing, are having $3.4 million taken from them at gunpoint to subsidize a politically sexy experiment which has a long history with a zero success rate. The local politicans will enjoy some free travel, model airplanes with some one off paint scheme and get to feel important.

The US taxpayers will have $104 million, plus interest, taken from them at gunpoint to fund the same exercise, while our President tries to pump money into trains, believing that airtravel is a polluting, dirty business and we must find alternatives.

Meanwhile, to some small extent US Airlines in a fight for their very lives, who employ many tens of thousands of Americans get shot in the back as money is taken from people and given to competitors with no real business, or viable business model.

Many of these small airports went nuts with the "rj revolution" and they think now the answer to a 34 seat a day market is putting a bigger airplane on it.

Standby for old folks giving interviews about how great it is to see their grand daughter when they booked a ticket seven months early for $18 round trip. Standy this press report plus two weeks for a nearly identical geriatric customer who died after the airline lost her heart medication in a bag she checked for $95. Standby the customer who went to the front of the line in god's waiting room, plus six months, for stories about how the President of this airline took millions in subsidies out the door with him as he left and promoted a six week MBA grad to be his replacement. The MBA grad will talk about what a bright future this innovative airline has. Two weeks after that Skippy will announce "this place is a mess" and declare bankruptcy. The politicians will all say they were screwed and they need more regulation to prevent this from happening again.
 

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