All-You-Can-Fly Airline Plies the California Coast

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/business/airline-banks-on-a-buffet-style-business-model.html

by Stupendous • 13 years ago

111 49 13 years ago

jpatokal• 13 years ago

Fascinating! Although, as a cautionary data point, selling "all you can fly" didn't work too well for American Airlines:

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-...

United857• 13 years ago

That was because the people were allowed to fly with a "guest", and started selling their seats to strangers in violation of the rules.

With this airline, everyone will be required to buy a membership -- no "guests".

russell_h• 13 years ago

Also, this seems to be month-to-month as opposed to a lifetime deal. "Unlimited" for a month could be true. "Unlimited" for life isn't.

kngspook• 13 years ago

No, there are guests allowed. I asked if I could fly someone to visit me instead of me going to them, but the account manager said I had to accompany all guests. =\ Understandable, but less useful for me.

natnat• 13 years ago

It's funny that a huge part of the reason that a business like this exists is the TSA. If flying commercial airlines didn't require an hour and a half of waiting in line for security and a fair dose of humiliation, I think people would be much more willing to fly from SFO to LAX.

Instead, we're running inefficient propeller planes for short distances and really high prices, and people are treating it like it's some amazing new innovation.

tptacek• 13 years ago

I fly a fair amount and don't find that I wait significantly longer for airport security now than I did before 9/11. I don't like the TSA any more than you do, but I don't think they're the major cause of commercial airport delays.

objclxt• 13 years ago

In the case of California and the SFO-LA route, isn't it pretty much universally acknowledged that SFO is one of the better airports for security, precisely because it's not run by the TSA but out-sourced instead?

temphn2• 13 years ago

But of course they are, or more general the web of DHS/TSA/FAA/etc. regulations is the reason why commercial air travel has not advanced in door-to-door speed.

Without the regulations you could imagine an airport that pre-screened travellers. You roll up to the curb, get valet parked, and your bags checked, and then you get on the flight. You'd build the entire airport around this rapid on/off experience. You could have an airline that would run an Uber-style service to pick you up at your door. You'd solve the whole problem.

But there's no Toyota-style optimizations applied because these optimizations are illegal. Prime among them is that efficiency of this kind would make the airport more of a target IF it was also prevented by law from discriminating against potential dangerous passengers, which it would be.

And that's why when you ban selectivity at the federal level the necessary consequence is mediocrity.

rdl7• 13 years ago

Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft; it's just that passengers strongly associate turbofan aircraft with "quality and comfort", so the commercial market loves those.

And, for commercial service under some parts, you're forced to use twin engines. Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways, and on par for overall safety (it's better to lose an engine in ideal cases in a twin, but things often go wrong with the recovery procedures, and engines are very reliable, and with twins you have twice as many engines to potentially break anyway...)

Some of the badness is actually FAA not being able to fund better ATC allowing more flexible routing.

sjtgraham• 13 years ago

Turboprops or even piston are a better choice for routes like SB to Burbank than turbofan aircraft.
Single engine aircraft are objectively better in a lot of ways.

Do you feel like giving us any reasons? :)

davidwihl• 13 years ago

The Pilatus PC12 single engine turboprop is far more efficient for this sort of mission than a twin engine turbofan jet. This lowers operation and maintenance costs which this airline is passing onto consumers.

coin• 13 years ago

Yup, turbo props are far more efficient than turbo jet at low altitudes.

vacri• 13 years ago

I was in California in 2009 and found it weird that there was no daily train between LA and SF - it only runs (ran?) every second day. The day I left, I had to get a bus to Bakersfield to connect to the train.

The other striking thing was train travel in the South being heavily subsidised - huge distances travelled for not much money, with power for your laptop and lots of space to move around. If the train schedule was appropriate for you, you'd be crazy to fly instead.

britta• 13 years ago

The Coast Starlight (http://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train) has been running once a day between LA and Oakland for years, with a connecting bus to SF - here's its schedule: http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/935/314/Coast-Starlight-Schedule... It takes about 12 hours if there are no delays. It's a lovely and relaxing trip, but that's a long time compared to flying or driving.

If you want to leave SF/Oakland later than 9 am or LA later than 10 am, you have to take some long bus connections (which aren't very fun) and the San Joaquin or Pacific Surfliner.

guard-of-terra• 13 years ago

What you actually need there is sleeper cars.

Imagine getting on the train at 7 in the evening, lying on your own bed reading books and drinking tea, sleeping actually then getting off the train at 9 in the morning at the railway terminal in another city.

TsiCClawOfLight• 13 years ago

I find the railway network in the US simply deplorable. In most of Europe, people complain if they miss an hourly connection, and we have night trains on most days to most large cities.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

And the economics of air travel, such as they are, make a round trip flight to Santa Barbara $500 as the 'cheap' fare [1] in coach. If you fly four times a month you save money with this plan.

But the TSA thing is a real pain too. A friend of mine who has his pilots license requires all passengers have at least 16 oz of fluids and a knife with them when they fly :-) We joke but he did point out that if you were in flight 214 trapped under a stuck seatbelt or malfunctioning escape slide with no pocket knife you could have died.

[1] Plus fees of course

Jazonk• 13 years ago

It's not just the TSA that will make this popular - I see the convenience as a big draw. As this expands to more regional airports, it will be even more practical. Being able to drive to a smaller, less crowded airport will be a selling point. You don't have to deal with the stresses of huge terminals and tons of people.

ballard• 13 years ago

Very cool. Virgin started with one only plane. SA's present niche is quite different. The bottom line is that it's doable considering others still exist.

Tip: Virgin LHR counter is well run and I look forward to stopping by for that reason. It's not about promoting a particular brand as a good way of doing life... leave the world a better place.

OldSchool• 13 years ago

I've never quite mentally reconciled the idea that people whose industry is built on telecommunication should have to spend hours and days traveling to talk about it.

ApertureHour• 13 years ago

I suspect that might change in the near future if telepresence with large, 4K screens showing life-sized, full body representations of people became commonplace. It seems like a lot of the necessity of in-person conferences and meetings is still things like realistic eye contact and subtle body language cues.

justincormack• 13 years ago

No, lower profit margins will kill it. With current enterprise software pricing you can afford lots of flights as part of the sales process. With SAAS type models you can't.

rdl7• 13 years ago

It's interesting that he ran the numbers and picked single engine aircraft for safety (but with two pilots); this seems correct from what I've seen of small aircraft stats. If you look at successful dispatch rate, it's even more clear that single engine is the way to go.

I'd do something like this if they covered Seattle, SF, Reno, Portland, and central-WA (datacenters) and central-OR (datacenters). Throw in SB/LA/SD/LV for extra fun, but the northern areas are what I care about much much more.

neurotech1• 13 years ago

Light twin piston engine aircraft have can be difficult to control on one engine, and may not even maintain altitude in some conditions. A PC-12 uses a PT6 turboprop engine, which is one of the most reliable turboprop engines available.

Light twin piston aircraft are not exactly cheap either.

rdl7• 13 years ago

Indeed; I've had this conversation (in favor of a Grand Caravan) with lots of crappy C-23 (Shorts 330) military pilots. And the "oh, let's put fuel above the passenger compartment in a plane we're flying in a warzone" question, too. The C-12 King Airs were somewhat better, but tiny. I'd take a PC-12 > King Air anyday, and a Caravan or Grand Caravan in general (due to superior cargo capability, even at the cost of range), but that's my preference.

JHof• 13 years ago

I'm a PC-12 pilot in the Northeast and have been watching this company since it was little more than an idea and a Twitter account (original name Plane Red). Their marketing and execution is so much better than other small airlines. I'd love to see a service like this come to the NYC area. So many people spend far more than this per month on tickets to go to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, the Hamptons and coastal Maine.

FollowSteph3• 13 years ago

It's like web hosting. You have to be careful not to overload the servers, or in this case planes, so that paying the monthly is not worth it.

lnanek2• 13 years ago

I know a lot of consultants who fly every weekend. If this had better city coverage it would actually be cost effective.

glasz• 13 years ago

great place for the dhs to blow shit up and give the tsa reason to fuck around. i hear they're policing highways already. about time for these assholes to expand to europe. it's more likely i get struck by lightning but i'm so afraid of terrorists! come grope me!

hkarthik• 13 years ago

If they could find a way to drop the monthly cost of this to around $500, this could potentially make working in the Bay Area more viable for a lot of people.

If you could shave $500 off your monthly rent or mortgage by living in a coastal CA city and just flying in to work in Silicon Valley or SF, I think a lot more people would be willing to sign up. The service would essentially pay for itself.

justinlloyd• 13 years ago

I am on the waiting list, depending on limits and schedule of the service I will be using this about three or four times a week to do a daily commute between my condo in Los Angeles and eBay in San Jose. It works out to about what I would pay for a Bay area shared room but I get to come home each evening and see my cats and dog. And my wife.

deserted• 13 years ago

Daily commuters are exactly the kind of person that will make this airline cease to exist, because the service could no longer pay for itself.

cmbaus• 13 years ago

If they can make this work in Tahoe that would be great. A few commercial airlines have tried service to South Lake Tahoe, but the weather has made service too unpredictable. It might make sense to use Reno or Minden NV airports to access Tahoe.

All-You-Can-Fly Airline Plies the California Coast

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