Yes, this sounds like a good idea: start a low-fare carrier in an era of $100+ oil. Compound that brilliance by making it point-to-point only, but based at an airport with less than 285,000 enplanements in 2006 and a metro area of 300,000 people. Throw in the fact that even scheduled charter services masquerading as airlines are having trouble in that market, and you have the recipe for a great airline!
. . . Well, OK. This might be a recipe for disaster, but at least you can get the city — Charleston, W.Va., in this case — to pony up $3 million to support the theoretical “hometown airline.” Behind this plan is the same guy who did this with Skybus in Columbus, Ohio, and he seems to have come up with a pretty good shtick.
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It is very easy to dump on idea one does not understand. Its good the writer (Evan) was not around to critique the Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, Edison, Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Herb Kellerher, Fred Smith and anyone else that had vision beyond their own nose. Here’s to the founder of Skybus – another
man of great vision and the passion to see it through.
Also, the airlines will still be flying with
oil at $100 a harrell. The ones that survive however, will be the no frills airlines that have control over their controllable expenses. Perhaps you have heard of Ryan Air.
Two things: the visionaries listed by Mr. Flysalot were subject to plenty of helpful “critique.” Second, starting a budget airline in the sort of market in which dozens and dozens of similar enterprises have failed is vastly different than the pioneering work of the Wrights, Edison, Ford, Smith, and the rest. It’s an added insult that the taxpayers of Charleston will be underwriting it.