The TAG Aviation / AMI Jet Charter Fiasco
Almost every species that ever lived is extinct. Many of them became so during a single event almost 70 million years ago by an ELE, or Extinction Level Event. Something - probably an asteroid crashing into the Earth - kicked up enough dust to dramatically cool the planet almost overnight, ending the 130 million year reign of the dinosaur. (Photo by Dan Hyde.)
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This article was first published on IRMI.com and is reproduced with permission. Copyright 2007, International Risk Management Institute, Inc.
It is not often that we write about clients but in the case of Worldwide Jet, the inner workings of his company were too good not to share. This is a charter company that makes money with their own heavy jet equipment. On the surface this seems absurd, but anyone who knows corporate aviation, the charter business, etc. will agree that pretty much “no one” makes money. If they do, it is only via management of “someone else’s aircraft” that they get paid to crew, maintain, charter and hangar.
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Whole New Ways To Fly (WNWTF) are very attractive. Unfortunately, flying and making money at the same time is not easy. It is even harder when you are long on passion and short on reason. Herb Kelleher.. or Richard Branson… where are you? We need you. Please. Bring us some solvency.
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But then again, when you are in North Dakota, one of the first things you do is make sure you can fly in known icing conditions. Air taxi geeks take note, this will be the first of a string of many failures in the space.
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The problem with good marketing with no substance, is that you leave the customer slightly anxious about their decision. Did I really need to upgrade to Vista? Does that herbal supplement really make me a better lover? Will my Eclipse 500 really replace my TMB 700?
Eclipse Aviation has its share of pumpers and detractors. Microjets (VLJs) have caused much attention to come to the world of general aviation, air taxi etc. Eclipse, however, may yet be more famous for their ability to market the idea rather than build a profitable aircraft manufacturing company. My take? Smart money usually follows the smart people.
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Nothing makes a small air charter firm go a little whacky like the opportunity to pitch an aircraft owner. Much like those who fail to understand the basic tenets of proper courtship, the reality is that being too eager rarely leads to a second date.
We’ve all made the mistake of seeing that airplane as “the one we really really need,” rather than one we’d simply like.
And there begins one of the horribly flawed dynamics of the Part 135 industry: We need this guy so bad, that we put up with him - to keep his plane on our certificate. No one creates a monster the way we do. We are, after all, really good at spoiling people - it is our nature.
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Thanks to Google’s news feature I can push air taxi news to the top of my queue everyday and read funny tidbits like this. While no one is as crazy as I am about air taxi (I am going to back to air taxi school for F-’s sake!) the reality is that most of what the press seems to be harvesting is misleading to the ultimate end user.
The amazing thing is that investors are actually buying into the whole scheme. Investing in infrastructure to support manufacturing a toy is one thing. (Yes, the VLJs.) Whether the manufacturing and sales of those units makes sense is more the domain of Mr. Aboulafia. Building an industry (that does not yet exist) around a broken culture of air charter that does not yet make money on its own is quite another that I can blab about with some authority.
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Shampoo and cell phones banned on my “carry on” luggage? Yep, the day has come. But, due to the recent madness over what we can and can’t carry … there is renewed interest in air taxi as a concept for the everyday traveler. While there are major cultural and infrastructural hurdles to overcome, the fact is that most of us welcome the thoughts brought on by the statements like: “Hey, why can’t we use small planes?”
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When places like slashdot have posts about deteriorating conditions on sched-air and then look to the internet for the air taxi replacement, you know the culture is getting primed for air taxi. While the debate rages about the viability of air taxi, the fact is that there is a growing demand for it - the problem is, in its present form, no one can use it.
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