Archive for May, 2009
May 27th, 2009
He doesn’t like it very much:
After some fits and starts, it appears that Jet America (or JetAmerica, they write it differently in different places) is actually going to get up and running. You can stop checking the calendar. It’s not April Fool’s Day. This airline is actually planning a Toledo base.
I honestly couldn’t make this sound any worse if I tried.
He also doesn’t think JetAmerica’s reason for dropping RFD in favor of Lansing and South Bend - hey, they’re closer to Toledo! - makes any sense. Interesting read.
(Oh, and you can’t book flights online right now - there’s a “runtime error”).
May 27th, 2009
(UPDATE - Just did a little write thru,with a new link at the bottom)
Tom Skancke, a former federal highway commissioner, thinks Americans would gladly pay around 5 cents more a gallon in federal gasoline taxes if the way projects are chosen and delivered is turned into a “performance-based” system that focuses on systemic improvements, not earmarks. The Highway Trust Fund is broke, and projects take 10 years - at least - to get done. The Interstate Highway System was not designed for the current loads.
Here’s a link to more about Skancke’s commission and its recommendations.
All interesting thoughts. I’m working on a story out of the Tri-State Alliance transportation summit in Dubuque. What are your thoughts?
May 22nd, 2009
The Airline Industry Examiner blog talks about how Allegiant Air is dropping hints on its Twitter account about flying to Hawaii.
The only problem? It’s not Allegiant’s official Twitter account. It’s apparently some random Allegiant fan talking about the airline. Allegiant’s official account is @Allegiantair. In fact, after I contacted Allegiant about this today, they tweeted that “@allegiant is NOT the official @allegiantair account. Anything from them is not coming from us. We are working to resolve the issue asap.”
So is Allegiant going to Hawaii? It’s in their long-term plan - they talked about it back in November. The key is finding planes to handle the longer hauls, and a suitable time to make the leap. It makes lots of sense, but they will take their time.
(Too bad JetAmerica doesn’t have a Twitter account. Not even a fake one!)
May 19th, 2009
Nothing.
But here are some things that I don’t “know” but find interesting, culled from their not-yet-public Web site that’s hosted apparently at their Web developer’s domain (but because the site is not live, and still being worked on, and hasn’t been advertised by the airline, don’t assume everything on it is final):
- As an alert reader has pointed out, Rockford is no longer listed on the front page nor on the flight schedule page.
- But, if you try to book a flight, not only is Rockford an option, but you can even select dates for RFD-BWI and RFD-EWR. (Though, please, don’t book a flight until we’re sure they’re taking off!)
- They’ve yet to announce a new CEO, and they’ve downplayed supposed connections to Skybus, but if you check the news page, it says that coming soon is a head shot of John Weikle.Weikle, of course, was the founder of Skybus and, according to a LinkedIn page, is still “founder and CEO” of Jet America (though, there it’s two words so maybe it’s entirely a different airline and there are two John Wiekles and this is one big giant coincidence. Maybe).
By the way, it’s been eight days since I’ve gotten anything more than an email from the JetAmerica folks, and even longer since they’ve taken my calls.
Stay tuned.
May 8th, 2009
Cranky Flier picks up our story on The Airline Formerly Known as Air Azul changing its name to JetAmerica.
First off, he links the new airline to a defunct airline that made a splash (but no money) last year:
There’s something more significant at work here regarding the name. Jaunted has been covering the original Skybus founder John Weikle’s efforts to start a new airline for over a year. The name of that airline? JetAmerica.
You remember this one. It was supposed to be Skybus but out of Charleston, West Virginia. While I haven’t seen any confirmation of Weikle’s involvement in this one, the use of the name tells me that he will be involved with this bad boy somehow. Want another clue? Nine seats on each flight will be sold for $9. How very Skybussy.
I’ve asked about the Skybus link and no one will confirm it. But could Weikle - or someone close to him - be the new CEO? Worth watching.
Secondly, Cranky - a well-respected and insightful blogger with his finger on the pulse of the industry - doesn’t think too much of JetAmerica’s propsects. Check out the photo illustration in his post…
At least one report says that all aircraft will be based in Toledo, though that statement was retracted by JetAmerica just as fast as it was announced. Oh boy.
Something tells me that the chance of this working is very, very slim. And that’s being kind. Let’s hope that it at least lasts longer than, well, Air Azul did . . . .
Obviously, the Rockford airport hopes it lasts. On the one hand, it’s low risk from a financial point of view: the airport’s only incentives for JetAmerica are waiving fees for an introductory period (a small amount of money it wouldn’t get anyway if the airline didn’t come) and marketing dollars for the new routes (but all RFD marketing also promotes the airport in general, in the hopes of drawing passengers for any route).
The question, as always, is how do you quantify the effect of having airlines come and go (or say they’ll come and not) and name changes and uncertainty? Festival Airlines is still a punchline around here. Does that make people less likely to try new service out of RFD, thus causing new service to underperform? At some point, does it hurt RFD’s reputation. Or, conversely, does the constant effort to draw new airlines - regardless of the success rate - bring more passengers than sitting back and waiting for “sure things”? If RFD didn’t take chances, would it even have Allegiant Air or Apple Vacations? Would it have grown to 200,000 passengers a year?
Interesting questions. As always, keep watching.
May 7th, 2009
(Of course, I haven’t flown anywhere yet. With two trips planned, there’s still time to make a fool of myself.)
Rick Seaney, CEO of Farecompare.com, lists the top six worst airline passengers of 2009. My favorite was:
“Get Me Outta Here”: An American Airlines jet had landed but was still waiting for gate space when an impatient passenger decided, “Enough!” He opened an aircraft door, deploying the emergency slide that he then used to make his getaway. He was detained by the cops but so were all the other passengers because they had to wait for “slide removal” before the aircraft could get to the gate.
Cue a Southwest “wanna get away?” ad. Oh wait, wrong airline.
I’ve been fortunate not to have any unruly passengers on the flights I’ve been on. Even the babies seem to be well-behaved. Any of you have horror stories to share?
(Hat tip to Consumerist.com for the link.)
May 6th, 2009
Wish I had gotten this Monday, when I wrote about Air Azul changing its name to JetAmerica, but it came in late yesterday.
JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin said, “At JetBlue, we vigorously protect our brand. We are very concerned about the confusion the Air Azul name might create and have asked Air Azul to change their name.”
Azul means “Blue” in Spanish. If that wasn’t a poke enough, its slogan was “Come fly the new blue.” Bet the “old” blue didn’t take kindly to that, either.
Oddly enough, there’s also Azul Airlines in Brazil, started by - wait for it - former JetBlue head David Neeleman.
The Airline Formerly Known As Air Azul won’t directly comment about JetBlue, just saying, “The more we don’t use that word, the better everybody is.”
(Another funny note - there’s a Jet America Ltd. out there that apparently flies small jets on a contract basis. I guess the lack of a space in JetAmerica makes all the difference).
A note of clarification -”Sun America” is the holding company for Air Azul, now JetAmerica. It never was an interim name. That’s been the one constant the past few months.
Of course, it wasn’t just the name thing that forced the new airline to delay startup.It’s changed which airline it’s leasing planes from (with no word why), it’s changed CEOs (with the new guy still a secret) and it seems to have a different marketing bent. I did erronously report that it’ll use bigger planes - the planes will be the same size, but configured for more seating (so you’ll pay less, but have less legroom).
Not that you all care about little old me, but I was one of those who booked a flight in June on Air Azul and had to make other plans. Thankfully, my A+ Rewards credits on AirTran meant I could fly MKE-LGA for less, including parking and gas.
More on JetAmerica as we hear it. This certainly is a turbulent takeoff.
May 6th, 2009
Folks,
Sorry for the hiatus. With all that’s been going on, I’ve neglected The Passenger Seat. Time to change that. With gas prices about to start their summer ascent, interesting news out of RFD, summer road construction and - could it be - movement on the Amtrak issue, it’s worth getting back here again.
Thanks for your patience.
