Skybus wanabee's, think long and hard!

[Palomino]

Here we go... train of shame!

http://video.msn.com/v/us/fv/msnbc/fv.htm??g=724021fe-002c-4a54-a2c9-106c7b680abc&f=00&fg=email

nice jetway!
looks like a cattle yard contraption.
how appropriate.

 

[sleeves]

What are the mins at SkyBus?

Pretty low, I think like 65 for a capt. and 30 for an f/o.

 

[HighSpeedClimb]

Airline sells $10 flights

Bloomberg News
May. 22, 2007 10:35 AM
Skybus Airlines Inc. started service today with some tickets as low as $10 for a four-hour flight across the U.S. The new carrier's goal is to charge even less.

"We're sort of embarrassed our fares are as high as $10," Chief Executive Officer Bill Diffenderffer said in an interview.

Closely held Skybus is betting it can mimic the success of Ryanair Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest discount airline, which routinely gives away tickets while charging fees for baggage and selling merchandise and ad space in cabins. Diffenderffer says fares initially will make up 85 percent of revenue at Columbus, Ohio-based Skybus, and the ratio will fall from there.

Skybus is "really pushing low-cost, self-service to the limit," said Alan Sbarra of San Francisco-based Roach & Sbarra Consulting. "But if the fare is low enough, I think people will do what it takes."

The carrier, which began flying with 14 jets, promises to sell at least 10 seats per flight for $10, with the rest costing at least "50 percent below whatever was prevailing in the market before," Diffenderffer said yesterday.

Like Dublin-based Ryanair, Skybus will fly to smaller airports that charge lower landing fees and are less congested. The airline's goal is to get planes airborne with a new load of passengers after just 25 minutes on the ground.

Smaller Airports

Service started today from Columbus to Kansas City, Missouri; Portsmouth, New Hampshire, near Boston; and Burbank, California, a Los Angeles suburb. Flights begin in the next week to Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Greensboro, North Carolina; Oakland, California; and Bellingham, Washington, 78 miles north of Seattle.

Skybus's leased Airbus SAS A319 jets can carry 144 passengers, and the 65 new models being delivered starting next year hold 156 seats. With one class of service, Skybus is able to expand beyond the plane's usual 124-seat configuration.

Travelers have to book tickets and communicate with Skybus entirely online, saving the airline money on staff. Skybus also will shave maintenance and training expense by flying only one type of plane, the A319, and by offering a simple route network that doesn't allow passengers to make transfers.

Priority boarding, checking luggage and buying drinks or food onboard all come with separate fees. Skybus flight attendants also peddle products such as perfume, and the carrier sells advertising space inside the plane and on the fuselage, where a full-body ad costs about $500,000 a year.

Watching

"Skybus is very Ryanairesque," Dan Garton, executive vice president of marketing at American Airlines, said in an interview. "We're watching that carefully, and the question is, 'Is that a direction we want to go?'"

AMR Corp.'s American, the world's biggest carrier by traffic, unveiled a new Web site yesterday enabling travelers to see what services are available at each fare level. Garton said fliers can now "assess the tradeoffs," a possible first step toward Skybus's fee-for-service model.

Diffenderffer said Skybus has sold "a couple hundred thousand" tickets since they became available on April 24 and will fill more than 80 percent of its seats in the first month.

Analysts including Sbarra say Skybus faces competition at its Columbus home base from established low-fare carriers Southwest Airlines Co. and JetBlue Airways Corp., both of which have said domestic demand is weakening. With jet fuel surging 26 percent this year, Skybus's costs will be pressured, too.

Skybus also is bucking the move by most U.S. discount carriers to behave more like traditional airlines, bundling food and entertainment within the ticket price, said Michael Boyd, president of consulting firm Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colorado.

 

[GuppyWN]

Stock options are the carrot for many new airlines. Very few, SWA is actually the only one I can think of, actually make you a wealthy person.

I worked for a start-up commuter who offered stock options. I am willing to part with them now and sell them to the highest bidder. The bid starts at $.25 for all 200 options.

Stock options? What a crock. The stock option program at WN is THE most devisive issue that the pilot group has known. A guy hired in 1994 got stock options that were valued at one time at around $500,000. A guy hired in 1999 got options worth ZERO dollars.

Man what a terrible idea.

Gup

 

[GuppyWN]

I can see it now. The following is a transcript from 2009 Skybus pilot meeting with management seeking pay improvements.

Pilots: We need more pay. Comparible rates for the Airbus at XYZ is in the ballpark of $150 an hour.

MGMT: We don't compare ourselves to them. We do things differently, some would say better, here at Skybus. I'll give your guys $72 an hour.

Pilots: But boss we.

MGMT: NO BUTS! We are unique. We have a mission and that mission is being competitive because XYZ is breathing down our necks.

Pilots: I thought we didn't compare ourselves to them.

MGMT: Listen. We're on the ropes and when they've got us on the ropes they keep us on the ropes. I'll give you $68 an hour and stock options.

Pilots: Deal! Thanks for listening to our concerns Boss.

Gup

 

[HA25]

So true WN.. so true..

 

[LearLove]

"We need to educate the next generation on the importance of protecting the profession. [/quote


How about we start by FIXING what the CURRENT GENERATION (50-60 year old guys) has done. To start with: How many f'in airplane have you guys let be contracted out? Whats that about people living in glass houses???????

 

[Old School 737]

This industry screwed up long ago. Pilots should have made it a closed community like a Doctor. You have to be board certified and all that crap. No outsiders. Airlines wan't a pilot, you come to the association/board and get one. Wages would be higher and there would not be a pilot surplus because the current pilots would not allow it. Also pay would be basically the same for like equipment. Much higher and steady, less up and down. Would have helped if the industry was never deregulated as well.

 

[HA25]

This industry screwed up long ago. Pilots should have made it a closed community like a Doctor. You have to be board certified and all that crap. No outsiders. Airlines wan't a pilot, you come to the association/board and get one. Wages would be higher and there would not be a pilot surplus because the current pilots would not allow it. Also pay would be basically the same for like equipment. Much higher and steady, less up and down. Would have helped if the industry was never deregulated as well.

thanks for the constructive addition. Yeah, that's the guild idea that I and guys like Ty Webb have championed on here.. I still don't think it's too late. You'll never get everyone to join at first, but if we had a well capitalized effort to form a guild that over saw the certification of pilots over and above the feeble governmental FAA crap that a monkey can pass, we'd then a) be able to limit the entrants to this profession to those who "understand" the stakes, and b) be able to police our own if one were to step outside the bounds of reason and break a union contract, or accept a job with a profitable operation for below industry scale wages for that type of operation. It would be complicated with the advent of LCC's vs Legacies, and ACMI vs Mainline Cargo but over time we could bridge the gaps and repair the mess that was created by the managements of the past, and the anti union pilots that have flooded this profession over the years.