The the in-flight meal order has the option of “Potatoe Chips”!!

BTW, this is a very old page. Why not join the discussion on Cranky Flier’s August 19th, 2009 page? Its over one year newer and more are likely to see your comments there. Over 135 comments the last time I looked.

To reply: (Is there a way to post my replies in color or something different?)
Dan ~

Are you for real? — Uhhh… yes!

First off, as of August 4th, 2009 the DOT DENIED Family Airlines their application, therefore the airline is NOT going to be flying anytime soon from what I can see.

—- Where did you see that we were ‘denied’??? The letter from the DOT of August 4th was a request for more information, which our CEO and legal counsel supplied in vast quantity approx August 18th. We’re still in business, we’re still plugging away at that DOT certification and eventually the FAA Part 121 Air Carrier certificate.

Also – Are you kidding me?? Come on – a 747-300??? What are you guys thinking?? Why not get a 767-400 or get some 757, especially if you plan to fly them over the pound with them? The 747 is a higher cost to operate period.

—Sounds reasonable doesn’t it. But… smaller planes require more gates, more staff, more landing fees, more jetways, more customer service and ramp people.
When we take off, its a big deal… And we want to take a LOT of people on one flight and go someplace!
Economy of scale is the reason the 747 was built in the first place. But with those huge fuel tanks, most airlines find it more efficient to use them on very long haul — less wear and tear and more miles for each takeoff and landing.
We find that capacity useful in another mode — domestic flights. Yes, we’re willing to eat the cost of increased cycles on the planes. The 747 is higher cost to operate (big plane!) but… divide that by the number of seats and you’re back on par with the smaller planes — and you have only ONE landing fee, one gate, one set of 2 pilots (OK, plus FE if you have a ‘ropestart’ 747) etc.

And where do you get the idea you need to carry 5 set of crew of a 737?? I think the last time I check, you only need additional crew members for fights over 8 hours.

—- Hondo, you make me laugh. Did I say we need 5 sets of pilots on a single 737? Look again. That’s 5 sets of pilots to fly 5 planes — a simplification of approx 100 passengers per 737 plane and we plan on carrying 500+ passengers on a single 747. I.e., it would take 4 or 5 737s to do the same job. Yeah, we’re pretty stupid sometimes, but not that stupid!

You need to come up with a new business plan period – that is why the DOT rejected your application plus FAI finanical situration.

— Again, our business plan does not look like anything TRADITIONAL airlines would think of — and they’re going bankrupt right and left. They cater to a market that they hope will pay any price to fly often and when they want. We plan to cater to a market that wants CHEAP prices, and is willing to fly on one big plane, probably once a day (transcons, more often on the shorter runs), whenever it has to be scheduled. There IS a market like that. People who just don’t care when the plane flys, and are willing to accept the lack of a backup flight in the next hour, if the price is right.
— And, again, the DOT has NOT rejected our application — unless you know something we don’t!

Dan – answer me the following questions:

Where is FAI going to get finanical back from?
— From private investors, brokers, large funds (retirement funds, who knows where those money-folks find big quantities of cash!). We have a plan for a private offering of stock to qualified investors. There are strict SEC regulations on how this is handled and we have 2 lawyers and 2 accountants well experienced in this type of thing working very hard on it. Just about ready to ‘go to press’ with it this week. And yes, we do have some potential investors who have expressed sincere interest, including one potential investor who just may be willing to buy the whole package. We’re still following up on that lead. Sounds too good to be true, and probably is.

Operating expernse per passenger including/excluding fuel?
— All of that is in our PPM (Private Placement Memorandum) and business plan, especially our vast excel spreadsheet that displays every assumption, predicted costs,and predicted incomes for every flight, every month, every city pair, etc. If you are a qualified investor (able to invest $100K and not be devasted by the risk, more or less), let us know (contact on our website, http://www.familyairlines.com) and you might become an investor.

What is your projected average revenue per passenger going to be?
— I don’t know. That’s a money question for the financial department of the airline. I’m the ‘ops’ guy — my job is to get the planes from Point A to Point B. But the numbers are probably available in our PPM or business plan spreadsheet.

What is your projected average revenue per flight going to be?
— Same answer as above. In the PPM.

Do you plan to do any part 135 operations?
—- Not at this time. No charters are planned, no ‘air taxi’ service.
Also, no military charters, but I would think they might be tailor made for us with big planes capable of carrying 581 passengers — as long as they don’t want to fly to foreign lands (I guess that kind of counts us out).
We’re a domestic -only carrier. Furthest destination is Hawaii.

How do you justify flying to SAN, LAX and SFO with a 747?
— Thats the big story here. You’d have to have a deep understanding of our entire concept to comprehend that one. But basically, there are LOTS of passengers who want to fly those routes, all day every day. If our timing is even close, (and we do plan multiple flights per day on those routes), we think they’ll flock to us at our fares.
But as for ‘justify’, are you asking how do we justify the wear and tear on a 747 for those high cycles? Or do you question just being able to fill the plane on short routes?

Where are going getting your 747s from?
— We have always found used 747s on the market. Never been a total lack of supply. There were plenty of them manufactured, and even though they cut them up or convert them to freighters and the supply is decreasing, we are often contacted by brokers and dealers and airlines willing to sell us airplanes. There are plenty of web sites that will tell you where all the known used 747s are for sale. Yes, I’m evading the direct answer of where, specifically, we will obtain our airplanes, because we have a couple of primary sources, but could buy them from just about anywhere. We simply do not see this as a problem. They come and they go. If we miss a deal here, there’s another one somewhere else. Ever seen the line of 747s parked at places like Marana, AZ? Or Victorville, CA? Or Mojave, CA? Or still flying with third world or other foreign airlines that are ready to sell?
Not a problem. They’re ‘out there’. When we’re ready, we’ll snatch them up.

I work for an airline and I find it funny to start an airline right now, the only airline that got close was Jet America but…So again, my question is “Why now?”
— Well, ‘now’ was really about 6 years ago, I’m told. But it takes a long time, and with volunteer-only staff, these things take much longer than you’d expect. So… ‘now’ gets dragged out until it gets done! There will always be a need for airlines with cheap fares. Its just more difficult to get one started in economic distress times. Our work is cut out for us. Wanna come to Vegas, and volunteer to help?

FAI website says the timing could not be better…really? Have you opened the paper lately?
— Yep. That website was written maybe two or three years ago. Its sadly in need of much improvement! Can you do that for us? The pay and benefits for our “IT” department are as high as all the other departments! (no pay, no benefits).

Southewest can’t even turn a profit and they are 90% fuill…Delta and Northwest had to merge because of funding…the only airline that seems to be doing any thing is Allegiant. I don’t see how you can compete in the market right now.
— Do those airlines fly lots of planes with high per-flight costs? Do they put a lot of money into flying each plane with only 100+ passengers? Do they have to pay landing fees, gate fees, customer service fees, for 4 or 5 gates and planes when only ONE (big one) would do the same job? Do they try to fly a plane every hour, just for passenger convenience, and those planes go out with very light loads? Shame! They should copy our model and pack a big plane full, pay only one landing fee, rent only one gate, pay for 2 pilots (not 10), sell advertising all over the plane (ads on the overhead bin doors like a bus, ads on the tray table — I see USAirways is doing that now — our CEO had that idea 20 years ago!) and charge a fare that beats all the others, and yet still pays them a profit!
Compete? There will be no competiion — they can take the passengers willing to pay a high price for the convenience of a small plane every 30 minutes, and we’ll take the passengers who want to pay dirt cheap fares, and are willing to fly when we can fill up a 747!

Hondo, if you have more comments, please post them on the current blog of 19Aug2009 where all the other Family Airline ‘fans’ can read them!

Dan

Are you for real? First off, as of August 4th, 2009 the DOT DENIED Family Airlines their application, therefore the airline is NOT going to be flying anytime soon from what I can see.

Also – Are you kidding me?? Come on – a 747-300??? What are you guys thinking?? Why not get a 767-400 or get some 757, especially if you plan to fly them over the pound with them? The 747 is a higher cost to operate period. And where do you get the idea you need to carry 5 set of crew of a 737?? I think the last time I check, you only need additional crew members for fights over 8 hours. You need to come up with a new business plan period – that is why the DOT rejected your application plus FAI finanical situration.

Dan – answer me the following questions:

Where is FAI going to get finanical back from?
Operating expernse per passenger including/excluding fuel?
What is your projected average revenue per passenger going to be?
What is your projected average revenue per flight going to be?
Do you plan to do any part 135 operations?
How do you justify flying to SAN, LAX and SFO with a 747?
Where are going getting your 747s from?

I work for an airline and I find it funny to start an airline right now, the only airline that got close was Jet America but…So again, my question is “Why now?” FAI website says the timing could not be better…really? Have you opened the paper lately? Southewest can’t even turn a profit and they are 90% fuill…Delta and Northwest had to merge because of funding…the only airline that seems to be doing any thing is Allegiant. I don’t see how you can compete in the market right now.

Dan wrote:

Hondo and CF:
Why fly 4 or 5 737s with 5 sets of pilots to pay, 5 gate fees, 5 landing fees, 5 times the risk for problems or damage or accident on each pushback, departure, and landing, when ONE flight will do all that and NOT increase the ‘crowded skies’ nor stress airport arrival quotas?

Because that’s when people want to travel. Do you think the airlines figured that they would fly a bunch of small planes because they liked the idea? No, they tried it and found that they could get a premium by having good frequency. I understand you aren’t trying to get a fare premium at all, so this doesn’t apply, but it’s certainly a great reason to fly 4 or 5 737s around a day.

As for ‘never fill it anyway’ — with a Las Vegas hub, (ever see an empty seat on a flight to/from Vegas even at today’s prices?), and our CHEAP prices, think about it! At $69 from New York, we don’t think we’ll ever have an empty seat, other than a no-show. And no refunds, so the seat is sold. We could raise our prices to just under the current market, and STILL fill every seat, every flight, every day. FAI logically assumes every flight will be sold out at least 30 days before departure. All sales on line. No reservation center. No ticket sales at the airport.

There is nothing logical about that. Airlines are successfully filling seats in Vegas but only with massive capacity cuts and incredibly low sale fares. There is no way that you’ll fill your planes 30 days in advance. I just don’t see it happening.

The cost to operate a single 747 is far less than a fleet of 737s to carry the same number of passengers, especially when the ground / turn-around / airport fees, etc are considered.

As for ‘never fill it anyway’ — with a Las Vegas hub, (ever see an empty seat on a flight to/from Vegas even at today’s prices?), and our CHEAP prices, think about it! At $69 from New York, we don’t think we’ll ever have an empty seat, other than a no-show. And no refunds, so the seat is sold. We could raise our prices to just under the current market, and STILL fill every seat, every flight, every day. FAI logically assumes every flight will be sold out at least 30 days before departure. All sales on line. No reservation center. No ticket sales at the airport.

My question is if this airline is for real, why use a B747-400? Why not use a B737-800/900? Yeah, you will have less passengers but the RPM could be much higher and cost to operate would be alot less than the 747. You can easily place 150 on a 737-800/900 and only need 3 flight attendants and 2 pilots. I doubt you will pay $69 for a flight, throw in fee, if you check baggage, want a exit row seat and so fourth, then you are looking at over $100 each each per person…

Take a look at the DOT filing….what a joke!