92 ms·

All-You-Can-Fly Airline Plies the California Coast

111 points by Stupendous 13y ago

jpatokal 13y ago
Fascinating! Although, as a cautionary data point, selling "all you can fly" didn't work too well for American Airlines: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-golden-ticket-20120506 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-...
- United857 13y ago
  That was because the people were allowed to fly with a "guest", and started selling their seats to strangers in violation of the rules. With this airline, everyone will be required to buy a membership -- no "guests".
  - russell_h 13y ago
    Also, this seems to be month-to-month as opposed to a lifetime deal. "Unlimited" for a month could be true. "Unlimited" for life isn't.
    - rdl 13y ago
      I wonder how the duration-limited "all you can fly" JetBlue deals worked out for them. "Unlimited airpasses" for international visitors to places like Southeast Asia are pretty common, combined with long-haul international flights, too.
  - kngspook 13y ago
    No, there are guests allowed. I asked if I could fly someone to visit me instead of me going to them, but the account manager said I had to accompany all guests. =\ Understandable, but less useful for me.
natnat 13y ago
It's funny that a huge part of the reason that a business like this exists is the TSA. If flying commercial airlines didn't require an hour and a half of waiting in line for security and a fair dose of humiliation, I think people would be much more willing to fly from SFO to LAX. Instead, we're running inefficient propeller planes for short distances and really high prices, and people are treating it like it's some amazing new innovation.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I fly a fair amount and don't find that I wait significantly longer for airport security now than I did before 9/11. I don't like the TSA any more than you do, but I don't think they're the major cause of commercial airport delays.
  - objclxt 13y ago
    In the case of California and the SFO-LA route, isn't it pretty much universally acknowledged that SFO is one of the better airports for security, precisely because it's not run by the TSA but out-sourced instead?
  - temphn 13y ago
    But of course they are, or more general the web of DHS/TSA/FAA/etc. regulations is the reason why commercial air travel has not advanced in door-to-door speed. Without the regulations you could imagine an airport that pre-screened travellers. You roll up to the curb, get valet parked, and your bags checked, and then you get on the flight. You'd build the entire airport around this rapid on/off experience. You could have an airline that would run an Uber-style service to pick you up at your door. You'd solve the whole problem. But there's no Toyota-style optimizations applied because these optimizations are illegal. Prime among them is that efficiency of this kind would make the airport more of a target IF it was also prevented by law from discriminating against potential dangerous passengers, which it would be. And that's why when you ban selectivity at the federal level the necessary consequence is mediocrity.
    - 13y ago
ballard 13y ago
Very cool. Virgin started with one only plane. SA's present niche is quite different. The bottom line is that it's doable considering others still exist. Tip: Virgin LHR counter is well run and I look forward to stopping by for that reason. It's not about promoting a particular brand as a good way of doing life... leave the world a better place.
OldSchool 13y ago
I've never quite mentally reconciled the idea that people whose industry is built on telecommunication should have to spend hours and days traveling to talk about it.
- ApertureHour 13y ago
  I suspect that might change in the near future if telepresence with large, 4K screens showing life-sized, full body representations of people became commonplace. It seems like a lot of the necessity of in-person conferences and meetings is still things like realistic eye contact and subtle body language cues.
  - justincormack 13y ago
    No, lower profit margins will kill it. With current enterprise software pricing you can afford lots of flights as part of the sales process. With SAAS type models you can't.
    - GFischer 13y ago
      There will always be software that is worth the equivalent of millions of dollars (at least for the foreseeable future). Maybe you can build a SAAS equivalent to SAP that puts it out of business... but companies will want a HumanBrainSimulatron (R) or a perfect weather forecaster or whatever the next complex software is, which will still be multimillion dollars' worth.
rdl 13y ago
It's interesting that he ran the numbers and picked single engine aircraft for safety (but with two pilots); this seems correct from what I've seen of small aircraft stats. If you look at successful dispatch rate, it's even more clear that single engine is the way to go. I'd do something like this if they covered Seattle, SF, Reno, Portland, and central-WA (datacenters) and central-OR (datacenters). Throw in SB/LA/SD/LV for extra fun, but the northern areas are what I care about much much more.
- neurotech1 13y ago
  Light twin piston engine aircraft have can be difficult to control on one engine, and may not even maintain altitude in some conditions. A PC-12 uses a PT6 turboprop engine, which is one of the most reliable turboprop engines available. Light twin piston aircraft are not exactly cheap either.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Indeed; I've had this conversation (in favor of a Grand Caravan) with lots of crappy C-23 (Shorts 330) military pilots. And the "oh, let's put fuel above the passenger compartment in a plane we're flying in a warzone" question, too. The C-12 King Airs were somewhat better, but tiny. I'd take a PC-12 > King Air anyday, and a Caravan or Grand Caravan in general (due to superior cargo capability, even at the cost of range), but that's my preference.
JHof 13y ago
I'm a PC-12 pilot in the Northeast and have been watching this company since it was little more than an idea and a Twitter account (original name Plane Red). Their marketing and execution is so much better than other small airlines. I'd love to see a service like this come to the NYC area. So many people spend far more than this per month on tickets to go to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, the Hamptons and coastal Maine.
FollowSteph3 13y ago
It's like web hosting. You have to be careful not to overload the servers, or in this case planes, so that paying the monthly is not worth it.
lnanek2 13y ago
I know a lot of consultants who fly every weekend. If this had better city coverage it would actually be cost effective.
glasz 13y ago
great place for the dhs to blow shit up and give the tsa reason to fuck around. i hear they're policing highways already. about time for these assholes to expand to europe. it's more likely i get struck by lightning but i'm so afraid of terrorists! come grope me!
hkarthik 13y ago
If they could find a way to drop the monthly cost of this to around $500, this could potentially make working in the Bay Area more viable for a lot of people. If you could shave $500 off your monthly rent or mortgage by living in a coastal CA city and just flying in to work in Silicon Valley or SF, I think a lot more people would be willing to sign up. The service would essentially pay for itself.
- justinlloyd 13y ago
  I am on the waiting list, depending on limits and schedule of the service I will be using this about three or four times a week to do a daily commute between my condo in Los Angeles and eBay in San Jose. It works out to about what I would pay for a Bay area shared room but I get to come home each evening and see my cats and dog. And my wife.
- deserted 13y ago
  Daily commuters are exactly the kind of person that will make this airline cease to exist, because the service could no longer pay for itself.
cmbaus 13y ago
If they can make this work in Tahoe that would be great. A few commercial airlines have tried service to South Lake Tahoe, but the weather has made service too unpredictable. It might make sense to use Reno or Minden NV airports to access Tahoe.

111 points by Stupendous 13y ago

Fascinating! Although, as a cautionary data point, selling "all you can fly" didn't work too well for American Airlines: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-golden-ticket-20120506 http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/05/business/la-fi-0506-...

United857 13y ago
That was because the people were allowed to fly with a "guest", and started selling their seats to strangers in violation of the rules. With this airline, everyone will be required to buy a membership -- no "guests".
- russell_h 13y ago
  Also, this seems to be month-to-month as opposed to a lifetime deal. "Unlimited" for a month could be true. "Unlimited" for life isn't.
  - rdl 13y ago
    I wonder how the duration-limited "all you can fly" JetBlue deals worked out for them. "Unlimited airpasses" for international visitors to places like Southeast Asia are pretty common, combined with long-haul international flights, too.
- kngspook 13y ago
  No, there are guests allowed. I asked if I could fly someone to visit me instead of me going to them, but the account manager said I had to accompany all guests. =\ Understandable, but less useful for me.

natnat 13y ago

It's funny that a huge part of the reason that a business like this exists is the TSA. If flying commercial airlines didn't require an hour and a half of waiting in line for security and a fair dose of humiliation, I think people would be much more willing to fly from SFO to LAX. Instead, we're running inefficient propeller planes for short distances and really high prices, and people are treating it like it's some amazing new innovation.

tptacek 13y ago
I fly a fair amount and don't find that I wait significantly longer for airport security now than I did before 9/11. I don't like the TSA any more than you do, but I don't think they're the major cause of commercial airport delays.
- objclxt 13y ago
  In the case of California and the SFO-LA route, isn't it pretty much universally acknowledged that SFO is one of the better airports for security, precisely because it's not run by the TSA but out-sourced instead?
- temphn 13y ago
  But of course they are, or more general the web of DHS/TSA/FAA/etc. regulations is the reason why commercial air travel has not advanced in door-to-door speed. Without the regulations you could imagine an airport that pre-screened travellers. You roll up to the curb, get valet parked, and your bags checked, and then you get on the flight. You'd build the entire airport around this rapid on/off experience. You could have an airline that would run an Uber-style service to pick you up at your door. You'd solve the whole problem. But there's no Toyota-style optimizations applied because these optimizations are illegal. Prime among them is that efficiency of this kind would make the airport more of a target IF it was also prevented by law from discriminating against potential dangerous passengers, which it would be. And that's why when you ban selectivity at the federal level the necessary consequence is mediocrity.
  - 13y ago

ballard 13y ago

Very cool. Virgin started with one only plane. SA's present niche is quite different. The bottom line is that it's doable considering others still exist. Tip: Virgin LHR counter is well run and I look forward to stopping by for that reason. It's not about promoting a particular brand as a good way of doing life... leave the world a better place.

OldSchool 13y ago

I've never quite mentally reconciled the idea that people whose industry is built on telecommunication should have to spend hours and days traveling to talk about it.

ApertureHour 13y ago
I suspect that might change in the near future if telepresence with large, 4K screens showing life-sized, full body representations of people became commonplace. It seems like a lot of the necessity of in-person conferences and meetings is still things like realistic eye contact and subtle body language cues.
- justincormack 13y ago
  No, lower profit margins will kill it. With current enterprise software pricing you can afford lots of flights as part of the sales process. With SAAS type models you can't.
  - GFischer 13y ago
    There will always be software that is worth the equivalent of millions of dollars (at least for the foreseeable future). Maybe you can build a SAAS equivalent to SAP that puts it out of business... but companies will want a HumanBrainSimulatron (R) or a perfect weather forecaster or whatever the next complex software is, which will still be multimillion dollars' worth.

rdl 13y ago

It's interesting that he ran the numbers and picked single engine aircraft for safety (but with two pilots); this seems correct from what I've seen of small aircraft stats. If you look at successful dispatch rate, it's even more clear that single engine is the way to go. I'd do something like this if they covered Seattle, SF, Reno, Portland, and central-WA (datacenters) and central-OR (datacenters). Throw in SB/LA/SD/LV for extra fun, but the northern areas are what I care about much much more.

neurotech1 13y ago
Light twin piston engine aircraft have can be difficult to control on one engine, and may not even maintain altitude in some conditions. A PC-12 uses a PT6 turboprop engine, which is one of the most reliable turboprop engines available. Light twin piston aircraft are not exactly cheap either.
- rdl 13y ago
  Indeed; I've had this conversation (in favor of a Grand Caravan) with lots of crappy C-23 (Shorts 330) military pilots. And the "oh, let's put fuel above the passenger compartment in a plane we're flying in a warzone" question, too. The C-12 King Airs were somewhat better, but tiny. I'd take a PC-12 > King Air anyday, and a Caravan or Grand Caravan in general (due to superior cargo capability, even at the cost of range), but that's my preference.

JHof 13y ago

I'm a PC-12 pilot in the Northeast and have been watching this company since it was little more than an idea and a Twitter account (original name Plane Red). Their marketing and execution is so much better than other small airlines. I'd love to see a service like this come to the NYC area. So many people spend far more than this per month on tickets to go to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, the Hamptons and coastal Maine.

FollowSteph3 13y ago

It's like web hosting. You have to be careful not to overload the servers, or in this case planes, so that paying the monthly is not worth it.

lnanek2 13y ago

I know a lot of consultants who fly every weekend. If this had better city coverage it would actually be cost effective.

glasz 13y ago

great place for the dhs to blow shit up and give the tsa reason to fuck around. i hear they're policing highways already. about time for these assholes to expand to europe. it's more likely i get struck by lightning but i'm so afraid of terrorists! come grope me!

hkarthik 13y ago

If they could find a way to drop the monthly cost of this to around $500, this could potentially make working in the Bay Area more viable for a lot of people. If you could shave $500 off your monthly rent or mortgage by living in a coastal CA city and just flying in to work in Silicon Valley or SF, I think a lot more people would be willing to sign up. The service would essentially pay for itself.

justinlloyd 13y ago
I am on the waiting list, depending on limits and schedule of the service I will be using this about three or four times a week to do a daily commute between my condo in Los Angeles and eBay in San Jose. It works out to about what I would pay for a Bay area shared room but I get to come home each evening and see my cats and dog. And my wife.
deserted 13y ago
Daily commuters are exactly the kind of person that will make this airline cease to exist, because the service could no longer pay for itself.

cmbaus 13y ago

If they can make this work in Tahoe that would be great. A few commercial airlines have tried service to South Lake Tahoe, but the weather has made service too unpredictable. It might make sense to use Reno or Minden NV airports to access Tahoe.