The Cranky Flier

Browsing Posts in Who/What the F***

Who the F*** is Air Azul?

March 24, 2009 CF 27 comments

Long-time readers may vaguely remember my “who the f***” series of posts, but it’s been quite awhile since my last one. When I saw “Air Azul” pop up on my radar for the second time, I figured it was time to bring it back. So who the f*** is Air Azul?

First let’s clear the air. This is not the Spanish version of JetBlue. Nor is it related to David Neeleman’s Azul venture down in Brazil. And no, it has nothing to do with Pakistan’s AirBlue. It’s just another airline trying to ride on the “coolness” that was “blue” when JetBlue took flight.

It’s first semi-scheduled route connected Nashville with Somerset, Lake Cumberland Regional Airport (Kentucky) four times a week with little Metro props. The service started on December 27, 2008 under a $1m grant, but if you believe the website, it’s ending May 1. Nice. But the airline doesn’t actually operate any aircraft – it just leases the planes from Locair to fly as a public charter. (That’s why I say it’s semi-scheduled.) So if those flights are ending, why the heck am I even writing about this airline?

Air Azul has a new plan. They’re going to continue doing public charters like so many other failed airlines before (Remember SkyValue?), but now they’re going big. You can read all about it at FlytheNewBlue.com. Yes, apparently they have decided that JetBlue is old news, and now they’ll be so much better. What exactly is going to differentiate them?

My guess is that their biggest differentiator will be their empty planes. They’re using 737-800s from Sun Country. Those planes have a lot of seats, 162 to be exact, so you’d think they’d be flying to places with decent demand, right? Not so fast. How do these routes sound?

Baltimore to Lansing (three times weekly)
Baltimore to Rockford (twice weekly)
Newark to Lansing (three times weekly)
Newark to Melbourne (Florida) (twice weekly)
Newark to Rockford (three times weekly)
Newark to South Bend (three times weekly)
Newark to Toledo (three times weekly)

Something tells me that now is not the time to be betting on secondary airports in the suffering Rust Belt, but that appears to be the plan. They seem to be trying to channel Allegiant but instead of sun destinations, they’re going for New York and Baltimore. Could it work? Maybe in theory to New York, but Baltimore? I wouldn’t bet on it.

I also wouldn’t want to be flying expensive 737-800 aircraft around for this kind of operation. Let’s just say that they have an uphill battle, and that’s being kind. I’ll be particularly interested in seeing how they do with their on-time performance since their plane flies through Newark at least once a day.

I’m not quite sure what these guys are thinking, but apparently they think they’ve got something here. Anyone want to take bets?

What the F*** is a Wet Lease?

November 1, 2007 CF 2 comments

When SAS started talking about how they would actually replace those Q400s they’re ditching, I noticed plenty of discussion about wet leases and dry leases. That made me realize it was a great time for the latest installment in the far too infrequent “What the F***” series.

The basic idea of a lease is pretty simple. An airline pays the owner of an aircraft for the ability to use that aircraft in the operation of their flights. Usually, the owner is another airline or an aircraft leasing company that specifically buys airplanes in order to lease them out to others. But there are a bunch of different types of leases, and that’s where it starts to get confusing. Below, you’ll see a handy chart showing what is included in the different types of leases.

	Aircraft	Crew	Maintenance	Insurance
Wet Lease	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Damp Lease	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Dry Lease	Yes	No	No	No

So those are the basics. Why am I bothering to write about this? Well, as a passenger, you might find yourself on planes in some of these situations and it may seem kind of strange. Now you’ll know why.

Aircraft on a wet lease (also called an ACMI lease) tend to be the easiest ones to spot. The reason for that is because the crews are actually employees of the aircraft owner instead of the airline you bought your ticket on. There have been a handful of airlines recently in the US that have operated exclusively under a wet lease. Most of you probably haven’t heard of them, but SkyValue and (the last attempt at) Western were really just a brand name being operated by a different airline entirely.

Airlines in general tend to consider wet leases for more short term needs. That’s why SAS is looking to replace their Q400s in the next couple of months with planes operated by another carrier. These types of leases are certainly much more common in Europe than here in the US. Airlines will often lease extra planes during the busy summer season and then send them back in the winter over there. That’s when you see airplanes wearing funky paint schemes because it’s in a hybrid of the owner and the lessee.

Then we have dry and damp leases. For a customer, the difference between a damp lease (which is rare) and a dry lease is virtually indistinguishable, because on both aircraft the crews are from the airline from which you bought your ticket. Most of the time you’ll never know if your plane is leased or owned by the airline unless you bother looking it up. (You can look up US-based aircraft here.) Dry leases tend to be for longer periods of time than wet leases for obvious reasons. You don’t want to hire and invest in training for crews and maintenance personnel if you’re just going to have to let them go in a couple of months.

If you’d like to learn more, I found this page that can get you into even more detail.

Mergers/Finance, Who/What the F*** none

Who the F*** Is, er, Was Western?

February 8, 2007 CF 3 comments

They aren’t kidding when they say what goes up must come down. I was working on a post about the new Western Airlines when I found out that they’re already going out of business!

The airline started service on January 18 from its base in Bellingham (Washington) to San Diego, Ontario, and Mesa (near Phoenix). Since Bellingham is so close to Vancouver, they thought they’d be able to steal traffic from across the border. Unless they had figured out a magic way to cross the border quickly (they didn’t), I would have been surprised if that strategy worked.

Airline dorks were pretty excited to see the Western name return to the skies 20 years after the original was bought by Delta. The airline even used “Still the Only Way to Fly” as their slogan, a take on the old Western’s line.

The airline was “wet leasing” a plane from XTRA Airways. That means XTRA was responsible for flying the airplane around under Western’s name. Apparently Western forgot that they had to actually pay XTRA for that privelege, and that’s where the trouble started.

Clue #1 – If you go to the Western website, click on the reservations link. It has said “System Update in progress . . . please check back later!” for at least a day now.

Clue #2 – XTRA Airways sent out a blast email yesterday with the following:

XTRA aviation are pleased to advise of the following
Availability update:
We will have a B737-400 with 12J / 138Y (150Y) which will be available for
ad-hoc Charter from 12 Feb – 01 April 2007 inclusive Please forward all
outstanding requests and any new request which Xtra Aviation will be happy to
re-quote

Clue #3 – Well, this is more confirmation than a clue. The Bellingham Herald put out an article confirming that San Diego flights are canceled while the others likely will be as well. The company is out of money and is trying to find more. Good luck with that.

So, we say so long to Western. They almost made it a month.

Western Airlines, Who/What the F*** none

Who the F*** is SkyValue?

January 5, 2007 CF No comments

In the second installment of my “Who the F*** is . . .” series, we look at SkyValue (Allegiant was the first). These guys are certainly less well known than Allegiant, and they are much smaller.

In fact, as you call tell by the route map below, they’ve appear to fly only 5 routes. In actuality, one of those was canceled almost immediately, so they’re down to four.

From their base in Gary (Indiana), they fly Mondays and Fridays to Williams Gateway (in Mesa, outside of Phoenix), Thursdays and Sundays to Las Vegas, Saturdays to St Petersburg and then on to Orlando before returning, and Sundays just to Orlando. They had originally planned Ft Lauderdale flights, but those were dropped.

An article in Northwest Indiana’s Post-Tribune notes that the service has done well enough for them to fly year-round instead of just through April 1 as planned. This is certainly somewhat surprising, but congratulations if they can really make it work.

It’s interesting that while Ft Lauderdale flights failed early on, the flights to Williams/Gateway in Mesa near Phoenix have been successful. I personally think that airport has a lot of potential as a secondary field as the population moves toward that part of the Valley. Flights to Chicagoland make sense because of the strong ties between the areas. Many people from the area come to Arizona during the winter, and the Cubs hold Spring Training in Mesa. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more airlines try limited flights out of that airport at some point.

The article also notes that SkyValue is looking at extending their Williams flights to connect on to southern California. If so, I’ll have to give a try sometime when I go back to visit the family, but I’ll have to do it quickly because I bet that fails miserably.

Flights are actually operated as a charter by Xtra Airways on 737-800 aircraft (even though the article says 747-800). Fares begin at $79 each way.

GYY - Gary, IWA - Phoenix/Mesa, SkyValue, Who/What the F*** none

Who the F*** is Allegiant Air?

September 22, 2006 CF 11 comments

If I went up to 100 people in the US asked them about Allegiant Air, my guess is almost all of them would pose the question asked in the title of this post. I’ve mentioned some of their seemingly random route announcements before, and you’ve probably asked the same question. So, who the f*** IS Allegiant Air?

On the surface, these guys seem like a train wreck. They fly a couple times a week bringing small town folk to places like Las Vegas and Orlando using gas-guzzling MD-80 aircraft. That does not sound like a recipe for success, but believe it or not, these guys are on to something. In fact, even the New York Times (username required) is paying attention these days.

The airline now has 21 planes radiating from its three operational bases in Las Vegas, Orlando/Sanford, and the newest one in St Petersburg/Clearwater. This is a route map only a mother could love.

You might wonder how an airline could fly to all those cities with only 21 planes. Well, it’s because they fly to most of them only 2 to 4 days a week. Most airlines wouldn’t dare fly a schedule like that because it doesn’t help you attract the business traveler, but Allegiant isn’t looking for the business traveler.

Start with their hubs. Vegas, Orlando, and Tampa are all big leisure destinations, so there should be decent traffic from just about anywhere in the country if you fly it twice a week. Think about it from the perspective of a local. If I live in Topeka, Kansas, I can fly to Vegas on Monday or Friday. Well, going out Friday night and coming back Monday afternoon is the perfect gambling weekend. And what are my alternatives?

Well, you have no choices locally – nobody else even flies to Topeka. So you can drive 75 miles to Kansas City and fly out or you can fly Allegiant. Plenty of people are willing to drive 75 miles though, so the key is also making sure you have low fares. Allegiant has extremely competitive low fares and that combined with convenience make them hard to beat in these smaller markets.

The obvious caveat to having low fares is making sure your costs are lower than that. Allegiant has done an excellent job of keeping costs down. While those MD80s burn a lot of fuel, they are downright cheap to acquire on the used market. And who do you think will charge more for landing fees – Topeka or Kansas City? There are some serious cost advantages to flying from these smaller airports. According to the NYT, they also keep crew costs down by having out-and-back routings so that they don’t have to pay for crew hotels or meals on the road. Crew wages are also lower. A 10 year captain will make $105 an hour whereas a 10 year captain for American makes $154 per hour on the same plane.

In addition, they’ve embraced the Ryanair model and have boosted ancillary revenues onboard. Want an assigned seat? That’ll cost you. How about a drink onboard? Fork over the cash. Oh and by the way, if you need a hotel or car rental at your destination, Allegiant will be happy to help and take a commission from the sale.

These guys are doing things right and they’re making it work profitably. If you live in a small town, they either fly there already or they’re thinking about it.