Comments on: JetAmerica is Gone . . . For Now

By: Who the F*&@ is Vision Airlines? - >> The Cranky Flier

Who the F*&@ is Vision Airlines? - >> The Cranky Flier — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:46:41 +0000

[...] is this actually the reincarnation of Jet America under another name? I suppose we’ll find out if we see any flight going to Toledo or [...]

By: D

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:45:36 +0000

@ Chuck:

pro air should have never been shut down… i used to work for them..read this

http://home.comcast.net/~skydrifter/proair.htm

By: BDY

BDY — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:35:09 +0000

Steve – CF
We were one of those that purchased tickets for a family vacation. Can’t afford 4 airline tickets normally. $9 tickets ($25 after fees) would have been great. To answer the question if all passengers have been reimbursed. We received an e-mail saying that all reimbursements were done and if we haven’t gotten it to contact our credit card co. Well we haven’t gotten it. So we are in contact with them. They are filing a dispute so hopefully we will get our money back soon.

We have learned and won’t do this type of thing again!

By: CF

CF — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:25:04 +0000

Steve – I don’t know about employees or contractors, but passengers should have all been reimbursed. Scheduled charters don’t get to keep the money until the flight is flown. So until then it just sits in an account untouched. Everyone should have gotten their money back.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:27:22 +0000

Has everybody gotten paid by JA? How did they work this thing with the credit cards?

By: catherine

catherine — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:09:53 +0000

Damn. I knew it was too good to be true. I live in Melbourne, FL (one of the few airports they were going to use) and go to school in New York, so this airline was going to be perfect for me especially with those “$9 seats”. Once again, if it looks too good to be true…it probably is.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:51:39 +0000

I really appreciate the thorough response.

By: CF

CF — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:46:57 +0000

Tony – I’m happy to answer the questions

1. No, they didn’t. This policy has been in place at least since last year. You can read the rules here.

2. Nope. There may have been a miscommunication or something like that, but the rules are very clearly stated and this doesn’t single them out.

3. Why would they single an airline out for selling so many tickets? (First of all, they didn’t sell that many tickets.) That rationale just never made sense to me.

4. Apparently not. But airlines aren’t supposed to sell tickets until they’ve obtained slots, so it was a big mistake for them to even start.

5. Who knows? When this airline was getting started, it was pretty lean so maybe JetAmerica contracted with someone to handle the govt communication side of things.

6. I’m not entirely clear on this one. It looks like they don’t need to get slots from the same pool of slots as the scheduled carriers but rather they needed to get “reservations” from the charter and unscheduled carrier side of things. If they couldn’t get those, they could apparently look toward scheduled slots, and at that point, they have to pay what the market can bear.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:49:13 +0000

I’m trying to understand this Air America situation, but I’m not nearly as in tune as you all are. I’m hoping that you can help with any of these questions below based on these quotes. I have a few questions at the end. I hope you can answer any of them.

On July 2, JetAmerica’s Vice President of Operations Brian Burling said: “In February 2009, the Federal Aviation Administration advised us, through an intermediary, that our operations at Newark could be accommodated.”

The FAA’s change in the slot policy for indirect air carriers is beyond our control. We are working hard to obtain all the slots we need as soon as possible.

Jet America Chief Executive Officer John Weikle said that they just found out about this on May 30. And they were trying to get slots for July and August.

The airline reported that it would have had to pay $450,000 for the slots at Newark. How could they expect to get this money, considering that it was such a small operation?

In speaking only about Newark:
1. Did the FAA change in the slot policy for indirect air carriers, like Jet America says? Opinions?
2. Or did they single Jet America out?
3. If they singled Jet America out, is it because they sold so many tickets so quickly?
4. Was it realistic that Jet America would obtain slots for its daily flights by August 14?
5. Looking at the quote from Burling, who could the “intermediary” be? Wouldn’t the FAA communicate directly with an airline?
6. Could they get the slots without having to pay $450,000?

I really hope you guys can help me understand any of this.

By: Yo

Yo — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:08:49 +0000

National had a good product, but bad management. They spent like drunken sailors when they started up. They had so much capital for startup, but damn, they blew money like it was going out of style. Lots of perks for the Sr. Management. Problem was, they never had enough markets out of LAS to make any money. New York, Chicago and Miami are great, but LAX, SFO were too close, too many competitors, etc.

West Pac, had the Beauvais family, nuff’ said. I’m sure they all made out nicely money wise. But, who the hell would hub an airline at COS? When the DEN moves came out, the sand was out in the hourglass.

Onedia Air was the one that got kicked around forever, changed to Northern Airlines, but never saw the light of day. Then there was Vanguard, which had such decrepit planes, I was amazed they even flew, same with Pan Am (2) and their antique A300′s.