TMA News?

[FutureTEDpilot]

Word is that TMA never got out of CHAP11 when they filed that in 2001. Weird stuff huh? Great place to work, the crews were awesome our CEO was one big FLAKE! Back to job hunting!

At least I got a DC-9 (MD80) type out of them for free.

 

[FutureTEDpilot]

here comes Allegiant..

Allegiant Air to fly to Orlando starting Dec. 15
The airline will offer four flights a week.

By CHUCK SWEENY, Rockford Register Star
>> Click here for more about Chuck

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ROCKFORD — It won't be long before Walt Disney World is back on the Forest City's air-service map.

Just six days after TransMeridian Airlines folded, Allegiant Air said Wednesday it will begin nonstop jet service Dec. 15 between Greater Rockford Airport and Orlando/Sanford International Airport, about 25 minutes northeast of Orlando, Fla.

The destination is popular with Rockford-area travelers: TMA's flights were more than 80 percent full on average.

Allegiant Air will offer four weekly flights, on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. That's one more flight than TMA offered at the time of its demise.

Allegiant Air also offers package deals with 18 Orlando and three Daytona Beach hotels, with round-trip air fare and three-night hotel stays starting at $185 based on double occupancy.

Allegiant Air flights will leave Rockford at 12:15 p.m. and arrive at Orlando/Sanford at 3:45 p.m. Flights leave Orlando/Sanford at 10 a.m. and arrive in Rockford at 11:40 a.m. Introductory one-way fares start at $59 when booked at www.allegiantair.com.

The airline will use 150-seat MD-80 jets to fly the route.

Allegiant Air, based in Las Vegas, currently serves 12 cities from Orlando/Sanford and 25 cities from Las Vegas, said Tyri Squyres, the company's director of corporate communications.

This is the second destination offered by Allegiant Air from Greater Rockford Airport. Starting Nov. 3, the airline will fly four times a week from Rockford to Las Vegas.

Derek Martin, Greater Rockford Airport's deputy director, said the airport has courted Allegiant for two years to provide service to Las Vegas and Orlando.

"Originally, Allegiant wanted to be in Madison, Wis. I spent two years trying to convince them that Madison wasn't the place for their product, Rockford was," Martin said. "We talked about Las Vegas and Orlando, and when opportunities came about to bring Las Vegas on board, we started those conversations again, and they were looking for the timing, and the timing happened very quickly."

Squyres said that when TMA shut down abruptly Thursday — it is expected to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the coming weeks — Rockford airport leaders immediately phoned Allegiant Air.

"It was some late-night phone calls for a couple of days, and we got it all worked out pretty quickly," she said.

The airline made its decision Monday.

"Everything is about the numbers, and it all pencils out very favorably that this is going to be a great market for us," Squyres said.

The airport is not giving Allegiant Air service guarantees or fee waivers, Martin said.

"The only thing that's been committed is to include them in our advertising package throughout the region." Allegiant's portion of that package is valued at about $75,000, he said.

Airport Authority board member Bharat Puri said that by coming to Rockford, Allegiant is tapping into a growing market in Chicago's far western suburbs.

"From Randall Road, it takes you less time to drive to the Rockford airport than to drive to O'Hare, where you have all the security and the $35 a day parking. Here, parking is free, and you can take advantage of the under-$100, one-way trip," Puri said.

Allegiant Air was founded in 1997 and has turned a profit for the past two years, "which is enormous in our business," Squyres said.

To make reservations on Allegiant Air, call a travel agent, visit the company's Web site or phone 800-432-3810.

Contact: [email protected]; 815-987-1372

 

[FutureTEDpilot]

More CEO "wonder boy drivel"

TMA exec: Several factors hit at once to close airline

By HEATH HIXSON, Rockford Register Star
>> Click here for more about Heath

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ROCKFORD – If you shut down your debt-laden airline with no warning, there is only so much you can say to comfort the hundreds of passengers stranded at airports across the nation who were left to find their own way home.

But you can try.

"We deeply regret the inconvenience that we have placed upon you and offer our assurance that everything humanly possible was exercised and done to ensure disruption to as few of our guests as possible," said John Affeltranger, chief executive officer of TransMeridian Airlines. "And we apologize."

Five days after Affeltranger and the TMA board of directors agreed in an afternoon meeting to cease operations with the airline's last flight of the day – a plane that would land at 10:30 that Thursday night – the airline's top executive told the Rockford Register Star in one of his first interviews since the stoppage that it was a critical mass of factors that prompted the company to ground its planes.

TMA was the airline that in 2003 brought commercial passenger air service back to Greater Rockford Airport, which had been without such service for two years. It had been flying from Rockford to Las Vegas and Sanford, Fla., near Orlando, until Thursday.

With the apology out of the way, Affeltranger's other comments painted a picture of a company barreling into financial disaster. He spoke of three issues:

High fuel costs exacerbated by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina ate up the airline's limited cash reserves.

Lower flight bookings in the third and fourth quarters resulted in decreased revenue.

Market pressures that took away business, such as tour operators using more regularly scheduled airlines rather than the public-charter airlines like TMA.

Speaking by phone Tuesday from the company's Lithia Springs, Ga., headquarters, Affeltranger said that those three factors combined at the wrong time and forced company officers to shut the airline's doors, ground its fleet, tell as many as 500 employees to stay home and prepare for the likely Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.

That's the potentially fatal bankruptcy that will likely lead to the liquidation of all of the company's assets.

"It was very traumatic," he said. "We had been working the best we could to get through the third quarter. ... In the final financial analysis, we just had a lot of pressure to try and catch up, and we just could not do it. We had to make a very, very difficult decision."

The company is working with attorneys to figure out when and whether it would file Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Affeltranger said TransMeridian's downfall had nothing to do with its service at Greater Rockford Airport. He said the future of Rockford's airport remains positive and credited local officials with keeping the airport competitive.

"They have done their level-headed best to serve the Rockford market. I have never seen any more enthusiasm. I have never seen any more support. And I have never seen any more can-do attitude," he said. "In my mind, I would say the Rockford market has a viable future depending on the routes that are going to be served."

Passengers weren't the only ones caught off guard by the shutdown.

Until that last flight, the majority of workers -- not to mention airport officials -- were still in the dark.

"I got an official call right around 8:30 – 9 o'clock (p.m.) Eastern (Standard) Time," Pete Torosian, a pilot and immediate past president of the TMA pilot association, said by phone Tuesday from his home in Atkinson, N.H. "Absolutely no indication."

Torosian said he talked to dispatchers as late as 8 p.m. that day, and they had not heard about plans to cease operations.

Still, there were indications before the announcement that all was not well with the airline.

Workers heard that the company had lost a few contracts with groups seeking charter flights.

Negotiations over the pilot union's contract had stopped. And talk about needed investment to pump more cash into the company never went anywhere, Torosian said.

The company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization protection in 2000, but Affeltranger said that had nothing to do with the airline's latest difficulties.

Affeltranger said the board was attempting to keep the company operating until the end. He said board members chose to stop the airline's operations last Thursday because that was a day that would affect the fewest customers and because they had to move fast, which meant no warning.

"From our perspective, you just do not pick a date and say, 'We are going out of business,'" he said. "You fight every step of the way."

Joseph Schwieterman, a professor at DePaul University in Chicago who analyzes the airline industry, said bankruptcy among low-cost carriers such as TMA is not rare.

And he said it is unlikely that the company would survive the bankruptcy.

"Small airlines have little cushion to weather bad times," he said. "The fuel costs and Katrina made it an impossible proposition. The good news is that there is money flowing to other discounters that undoubtedly see Rockford as a potentially profitable niche."

Rockford airport officials declined to answer questions after being contacted Tuesday by phone and e-mail.

They suggested that some of the Register Star's coverage Saturday of TMA's shutdown reflected negatively on the airport.

During an appearance on Rockford talk-radio station WNTA (1330 AM) on Monday, airport Executive Director Bob O'Brien said he felt the coverage was overly focused on negative comments from passengers upset by the airline's service stoppage.

Contact: [email protected]; 815-987-1343