Topic of the Week: PeopleExpress Tries Yet Again

Jan 17, 2014

More Reading on This Topic: Miscellaneous

Remember when the new PeopleExpress said it would be flying by Summer 2012? Ha, not even close. It bought the certificate for XTRA Airways but that didn’t go anywhere. Now it’s said to be trying to buy the certificate of defunct Ryan International. Is this going to go anywhere? Anyone think we’ll see them fly ever?

A quick admin note. I found out that if you subscribed to get emails for comments on specific posts, the emails haven’t actually been going out since December 17. That has been fixed as of last Wednesday. There’s no need to resubscribe if you already signed up. The data is all there. The emails just hadn’t been going out.

Brett

13 responses to “Topic of the Week: PeopleExpress Tries Yet Again”

ANCJason

Jan 17, 2014 at 5:39 am

Maybe they’ll enter into a codeshare agreement with Air Azul and Festival Airlines.

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B757capt

Jan 17, 2014 at 6:34 am

Maybe they will change their name to family airlines.

All that aside I would bet they found out the charter business makes more money then the silly flying they wanted to start.

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PF

Jan 17, 2014 at 6:35 am

They operate for a couple years and acquire Frontier (again)

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Pilotaaron1

Jan 17, 2014 at 6:39 am

Being from the PIT area, I’m hoping they do start since they want to make us a focus city. With that being said, we also don’t need a Columbus and Skybus.

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David SF eastbay

Jan 17, 2014 at 8:01 am

I had forgotten all about them. Speaking of which, what happen to California Pacific Airlines? Surf Air at least got off the ground.

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1. David M
  
  Jan 17, 2014 at 12:57 pm
  
  Pretty much dead. FAA said it would be until sometime in 2014 before they’d be able to begin reviewing their latest application. They’ve laid off their staff, returned the airplane, and the CEO’s gone home to Florida.
  
  http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=9b27e728-4425-4311-94bf-55580e2ba919
  
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Sean S.

Jan 17, 2014 at 9:17 am

Do I see PeopleExpress ever happening? No. Do I see another airline entrant in the future? Yes. When companies main reason for profitability is severe capacity constraints in the market you are painting a huge target on your back, one that can be exploited by a new entrant. While we are certainly starting to see a re-investment in on-board product, the reality is that airlines are mostly getting ahead by whatever you want to call it, nickel and diming/unbundling/fee’s. It’ll be interesting to see how Frontier’s experiment in using alternative airports works, and whether we might be seeing a step away from fighting over marketshare in the traditional hubs.

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Frequebtflier

Jan 17, 2014 at 9:49 am

I don’t think anyone, in the industry ever thought PeoplExpress would get off the ground, unlike Kiwi. If they found a market like Stewart (SWF) to florida, or Islip (ISP) to BOS etc then maybe but who needs another start up now.

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Jeff Mills

Jan 17, 2014 at 9:51 am

I was with Frontier when PE took over and it was a disaster for both. PE was a catchy name for an airline,but that’s all!

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1. VIB
  
  Jan 17, 2014 at 4:18 pm
  
  I feel your pain.
  
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No Fly Zone

Jan 17, 2014 at 11:07 pm

Oh, fun. Sorry Bret, but you’re not old enough… Does anyone remember the Freddy Laker-like folks that made the ‘Original’ People Express? New York to Los Angeles and maybe San Francisco returns? B742 and even 741 hardware, one class, max legal seats and if you need a tissue for your nose, it was ‘use your sleeve.’ I don’t recall why that edition of People Express failed but it was not due to low load factors. Management issues? I know of one NYC “Acting” Supreme Court Judge, essentially a purchased seat, who flew the route frequently and with a lap infant, to conserve funds and to complete the payments necessary to retain her little seat… Any NYC lawyers recall DAL? In those years, seat retention was expensive, but if one could hold on for a while, there was good money to be made.
The take-home is that filling huge airplanes with bi-coasties has never worked well in the U.S. I’m not sure why…

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1. XlF
  
  Jan 19, 2014 at 11:59 pm
  
  Thanks for helping me. As I didn’t follow the recent PEx activities, I was confused on Brett’s article.
  About the “original” PEx you can use the wikipedia article as a starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Express_Airlines
  Funny enough, there was a “Frontier Airline” involved as well back then :) .
  
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yo

Jan 18, 2014 at 8:16 am

I smell Gumbo, or is that The Coast?

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