Skybus the Latest

[Bob_Sacamano]

You cannot be serious. They had an absolutely atrocious idea AND their product sucked. Skybus didn't deserve to make it. Paying barely above the poverty level for newhires, charging the price of 2 Happy Meals for a ticket, flying into podunk airports 60 miles away from the cities they advertise, cancelling tons of flights and not re-booking on other airlines. Yeah, great product...

I do wish the employees and their families the best.

I was really hoping Skybus was going to make it. They had a good idea and product but just couldnn't get it to work for them in the face of 100 dollar oil. My best of wishes for their employees and families.

 

[climbhappy]

i think airtran would never have made it had vaulejet not crashed. valuejet had a great idea. undercut delta at the businest airport in the world. that's why they're there today. jetblue , again , in the biggest market, most densely populated area... good idea.

fly to columbus, greensboro, st augustine, no way.

growing a business when cost spiral out of control... that's what killed them.

 

[Sir Innocenti]

No, they didn't. They had a substandard product with substandard customer service.

They had jam-packed seating tighter than any other carrier: 156 pax on a plane 12 feet shorter than JetBlue's 150-pax A320. They didn't have jetways to keep the customers warm and dry -- it was a real treat watching one of their first flights get delayed because it took them half an hour to get a handicapped customer on board. And good luck getting any sleep, with the entire flight being a non-stop sales pitch, because the $9/hr flight attendants can't survive without commissions. And if you have a problem? Good luck. Send an e-mail. There's nobody to call for help.



And the market spoke: we don't want EasyJet here.

Couldnt have summed it up any better! A real piss poor product!

 

[Soverytired]

Competition is a good thing.

Competition is a good thing for the traveling passenger. Drives down fares, give more options, etc.

A MONOPOLY is a good thing for pilots, at least those who are already employed by a 121 carrier, anyway. Jack the sh!t out of ticket prices and tell the flying to piss off if they don't like it.

"Good" is really a value judgment, and like most value judgments, there are very few unqualified "good" or "evil/bad" values. Eye of the beholder, from a certain point of view, and all that.

 

[AirCobra]

RTMCFI,

The pilots at United did not outsource or trade away their flying, management did and there were plenty of guys flying SAAB's to take those jobs in shiny new RJ's. The jokes on regional pilots now. They took away so much mainline flying most can't advance to a major anymore. Look around, Northwest stopped hiring, Compass is still going strong. Did you notice the regional jets keep getting bigger, yet pay stays the same. Like I said before, I understand why it happened but I hate to see hypocrisy. Skybus tried something a lot of other airlines tried and failed, how you can blame the pilots is beyond me. What does an A-319 seat 120-130? So someone flying an 100 seat RJ on a route that used to be flown by a 737 or DC-9, making $22 and hour is not undercutting anyone, but if you add 20 more seats, that pilot is the scum of the earth? I fail to see the logic.

 

[rtmcfi]

The pilots at United did not outsource or trade away their flying, management did and there were plenty of guys flying SAAB's to take those jobs in shiny new RJ's. The jokes on regional pilots now.

Management had willing accomplices....the pilots. United pilots had a scope clause. They relaxed it to allow RJs. Jokes on everyone that is not left seat in a widebody. Lots of mainline guys furloughed, lots of regional guys stuck at the regionals.

Did you notice the regional jets keep getting bigger

Yep, cause mainline guys keep folding like a cheap card table when it comes to scope. I think that is changing now....I hope.

 

[AirCobra]

The shift to 40% United's of domestic flying going to regional airlines was done with aircraft with seating capacities that met scope seating capacity agreement. Then United management brought in Skywest, a non-union carrier and later added Go Jet to further cloud the scope agreements. Relaxing of the scope clause was done while hundreds of United pilots were still on furlough so what barganing chip did they really have? Also did you forget the RJDC which worked only to reduce the number of jobs at mainline carriers and likely had no effect on regional pay. This is simply a matter of airline management outsourcing pilot labor plain and simple. The scope argument is BS because United and every other major would just fly more smaller RJ's and ERJ's if a stronger scope was in place.

 

[flyboyike]

Again, compass was created by NWA. The pilots (foolishly I think) traded away those airframes.

Either that or they gave themselves somewhere to flow back to while staying in the red-tail "happy family". On second thought, that might be foolish too.

 

[HA25]

As someone furloughed from a legacy myself, and someone who has constantly blamed RJ's and poor scope clauses for my problems, I think it merits my reposting post I made from another thread:

If you think you understand the Skybus pilot, you probably don't.

Pilots are their own worse enemy.

As for Skybus pilots.. I see guys here and other places running us down as losers and guys who couldn't get hired elsewhere..

the truth:

I'm one of the lightweights I knew at skybus.. in my short time there, I had the pleasure of flying with seasoned captains from Delta, Northwest, American / TWA, USAir, Emery, Ryan International (he was #1 when he left), ATA, various Air National Guard Fighter, C130, C17, and Tanker unit guys, and many Independence Air veterans (mostly very senior), The average guy had between 15000-20000, the low timer over 5000 and at least a check airman on the RJ and at least one if not three of four airline careers behind them in many cases, and in one case 10 airlines (not by choice).... yes, we were losers, but not as airman or pilots, only in the fact that we timed our careers and picked our airlines without the benefit of hind sight incorrectly. Yes, and the few low time RJ guys were hired too, and from what I could see all but a small handful were smitten by flying an Airbus.. Most of us flew bigger and faster jets before.. it was the chance to be a part of something new with the promise of being like those Southwest founders... rich with stock that lured many of us.

.. we weren't a bunch of whores like people who just love to hate want to portray, we were mostly like the guys you fly with... I can't speak well enough of the caliber of the average skybus pilot I knew.. as good as anyone I've seen at ASA, American, or Gemini..

Lastly, while we all fight with each other here the real problem, hedge fund managers, and airline CEO's with no real desire to run airlines but who are more interested in making money for themselves in the short run are the real problem.

This is why it didn't take long for the guys at Skybus to get an 80% card count for the IBT to represent us inside of 1 year from the day we began operations. We weren't a bunch of kids with shiny jet syndrome.. we were airline pilots trying to make best by our families.

I specifically can recall one of the guys, who was with Ryan International for 20+ years had cashed in his 401K and moved his family.. he had adopted his grand children as their step daughter was not able to care for them.. straddled with the cost of the move, and a $47,000 tax bill for closing out his 401K, he is now facing bankruptcy with no job.. If you revel in this, you're satan himself.

I can stand the heat... go on flame.

 

[Capt.LongThrust]

FMS,

I made a similar post on another Skybus thread. Although I have no dog in this hunt so to speak, I do see a common theme among pilots. When pilots realize that it is us against them then the profession might improve. The fact remains WE are ALL PILOTS. PERIOD. I don't give a $HIT what you fly or who you fly for. This bull$hit of cheering the shutdown of an airline makes me cringe. Until some of these a$$holes actually experience a shutdown they will never learn what it is like.