Another Tuesday, so it’s time for another
podcast. This, actually, will be the last Tuesday podcast. My finger has healed to the point where I can now type (with breaks), so the regular posting schedule will return next week after the Thanksgiving holiday. Whether the podcast will live on… well, that’s something we’ll discuss soon.
Back back to this week, it’s time for another slightly different format. At the Boyd conference in September, I sat down with Trey Fayard, CEO of GLO, at the hotel bar. GLO is a regional air service provider based down in Louisiana. It’s flying turboprops as an independent regional. This model hasn’t worked very well elsewhere (with the possible exception of Silver in Florida), but Trey says things have grown nicely in the last year and profitability is coming shortly. I have to say, it was a really interesting conversation that’s well worth the listen.
This 25 minute podcast has background noise and all to make it feel like you were sitting right there with us. You can download directly here if you don’t want to listen in the browser. Please leave your comments here as always.
9 comments on “Cranky Flier Podcast #4: Grab a Seat with GLO CEO Trey Fayard”
Hi CF – Great interview! Did their Public Charter certification come up in the conversation? Why go Part 380? What kind of restrictions does that place on them?
Phillipsbm – Well, right now their service is operated by CFM, GLO doesn’t have its own certificate. So in the future we might see that change and GLO does want to operate itself. But we didn’t get into exactly what kind of certificate GLO would want.
Doesn’t Silver Airways act as a code share partner of United Airlines. I think they are a United Express operator.
They’re a codeshare partner, but according to UA’s website they don’t operate as United Express.
And JetBlue also codeshares on Silver.
They operate independently in Florida, and have a small ua codeshare presence out of IAD
Interesting to see another business model with the smaller planes. I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t go the route that Ultimate Air Shuttle did and try to fly to some non-commercial airports so that pax could avoid airline security, at least at airports outside of New Orleans. For flights of these lengths, being able to avoid airport security is an easy savings of 30+ minutes for pax.
Also, any chance they will apply for EAS funding?
Kilroy – They’re more interested in matching the commercial experience.
Just added Pre Check, in fact. As for EAS, I don’t get the feeling that’s in the cards, but we didn’t discuss.
Since the closest comparison is to Silver, I have a follow-up concern – how’s their website? I’ve received several e-mails from Silver in the last few days promoting various sales (Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and whatever today was, pre-Cyber Monday?), but every time I’ve tried to price a short hop to Key West, their website fails. I’ve tried off and on for three days, on both my PC and iPad (to see if it’s a browser compatibility issue). Yes, it’s a busy time of year and they can’t be expected to have Amazon levels of tech robustness, but three days?
I’m curious as to how GLO does in this regard.
And a side question: why is it called GLO? It’s not an airport code, GLO is Gloucestershire, England.
Craig – I’m afraid I don’t know about either of those. I haven’t used the GLO booking engine, but it looks like they use Radixx which is a lower budget system for smaller airlines. I also don’t know the story behind the name.