4 Strange Airline Start Ups That Flopped

[DE727UPS]

"Besides that, they rarely flew to the cities they marketed....BLI marketed as YVR."

Don't think that's worth knocking. Alaska has direct flights from BLI to Honolulu, Maui, and Las Vegas. Alligent has a pilot base in BLI. Point being, in some very specialized markets, not going to the big place (YVR) and going to the smaller cheaper place (BLI) has some merit.

 

[ChasenSFO]

"Besides that, they rarely flew to the cities they marketed....BLI marketed as YVR."

Don't think that's worth knocking. Alaska has direct flights from BLI to Honolulu, Maui, and Las Vegas. Alligent has a pilot base in BLI. Point being, in some very specialized markets, not going to the big place (YVR) and going to the smaller cheaper place (BLI) has some merit.

True. But they provided no ground transportation between the two and sold the tickets as "Vancouver(BLI)", I'm sure a few people weren't too happy about that...

 

[DE727UPS]

You're asking pax to read between the lines. These are the same pax you knock for getting on the damn YYC plane when they were supposed to go to Eureka, or whatever. Now it's the airlines fault they didn't provide ground transportation from Vancouver to Bellingham. At what point is the pax responsible for his transportation?

 

[Area 5150]

At what point is the pax responsible for his transportation?

When dad's lets them hold the keys to the chevy?

 

[ChasenSFO]

You're asking pax to read between the lines. These are the same pax you knock for getting on the damn YYC plane when they were supposed to go to Eureka, or whatever. Now it's the airlines fault they didn't provide ground transportation from Vancouver to Bellingham. At what point is the pax responsible for his transportation?

No, not at all. I'm saying the very subtle hints Skybus had in their booking system that you were going to BLI instead of YVR were such that I'd bet money many pax were in for an unpleasant surprise when they got where they were going. I had booked a ticket at one point from OAK-CMH and played around on the site enough to come to that realization. That model isn't exactly customer friendly, which I'm sure didn't help the airline and its reputation, which is all I meant by my post.

Allegiant, for example, will tell you that the San Francisco area is indeed Oakland very clearly. As they should.

 

[Deleted member 27505]

Minus the fact all routes started and ended in CMH with no connectivity. Besides that, they rarely flew to the cities they marketed. SWF was marketed as NYC and BLI marketed as YVR. CMH-secondary cities wasn't a great plan. Pretty much any LCC that made it big had a strong local market or a big city on one end of any given route.

Meh, BLI...YVR. Hydrocarbons...Carbohydrates. You're being too picky.

 

[Cruise]

I worked the ramp for Hooters back in the day. Also ramped for Southeast Airlines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Airlines

 

[skyw82]

Should we take bets on future "also flew" airlines? I'm betting the new peoplexpress doesn't last.

First time I've heard someone call Song a "terrible idea". It was the test bed for the current IFE and everyone I knew who flew Song raved about it.

well being liked does not equal profit.

 

[skyw82]

You guys remember in the early 90s an airline that started out of IAH that had md-80s and tried to be "houstons home town airline" ?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

In early 2002 a bunch of furloughed USAir pilots were summoned to LGA to meet someone known only as "Padre" who, supposedly, was starting an airline called "Legacy". Legacy was going to fly 737s based in Utica, NY. Padre (who was also supposedly a Roman Catholic priest and a licensed Dentist) told us that if we had previous jet time we would be Captains. Commutair guys who showed up too would be Copilots.

Since we were all furloughed or about to be furloughed we salivated at the chance. Padre had a model of the 737 in legacy livery. He said the airplane was in paint. He had a number of job fairs during which he asked pilots for photocopies of our licenses, medicals etc. After a few months of padre hiring pilots (and no airplane in site) we grew suspicious and attended another job fair in SYR in the terminal. There were easily 200 pilots in attendance. Pilots are a gullible bunch.

After that meeting one pilot called ALPA security since they were a little concerned that padre had all of the info he needed to manufacture some fake IDs.

Never heard anything after that. Still waiting for my class date I suppose. Lol

Rumor has it that padre was in fact courting investors. He did not, however intend to actually start an airline. If the rumors are true he was later arrested for stealing investor money and camping out in South America.

Can't help but wonder where he actually is.

 

[ChasenSFO]

well being liked does not equal profit.

Interesting thing to say. You're sure Song didn't make a profit in the grand scheme of things? I've never read any reports of Song losing money for Delta. Pretty sure they only merged Song back into Delta because it served its purpose as a market testbed and they got the results they needed.

You guys remember in the early 90s an airline that started out of IAH that had md-80s and tried to be "houstons home town airline" ?

Could you be thinking of TranStar, which was Muse Air after being bought by Southwest and flying Blue MD-80s out of HOU in the late 80s?

Also ramped for Southeast Airlines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Airlines

I always thought it was very cool they brought back the National Airlines "Sun King" logo. Scheme looked good on the DC-9s and Mad Dogs.

 

[Apophis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATSair

Okay, it wasn't a 121 carrier, but still an interesting story nonetheless. SATSAir was almost exactly like the place I"m at now....except with much more FAIL.

 

[skyw82]

Could you be thinking of TranStar, which was Muse Air after being bought by Southwest and flying Blue MD-80s out of HOU in the late 80s?

Hmm I'm not sure, I remember this airline more in the early to mid 90s and only had a few planes. I remember that continental workers would remove their advertisements in IAH.

 

[ChasenSFO]

Hmm I'm not sure, I remember this airline more in the early to mid 90s and only had a few planes. I remember that continental workers would remove their advertisements in IAH.

Hmm, not sure then. Must exceed my nerdom.

 

[Minuteman]

Bizzaro QANTAS

 

[skyw82]

Bizzaro QANTAS

View attachment 25470

Oh god, "hipster" has gone mainstream.

 

[ChasenSFO]

Yeah, when I first saw those uniforms I thought it was a bad joke.

 

[n57flyguy]

Oh god, "hipster" has gone mainstream.

 

[rd757]

I worked the ramp for Hooters back in the day. Also ramped for Southeast Airlines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Airlines

I flew on a Southeast MD80 from LCK-PIE round trip one summer long ago. I remember it wasn't many thing special, but the boarding passes were hand written and the check-in line took an hour and a half. They actually delayed departure time because a majority of the passengers were still checking in, at no fault of their own.

The gate next door was being used by Hooters Air, going direct MYR for spring break. Interesting crowd on that flight.

 

[Kingairer]

SouthEast Airlines...The airline Paris Hilton brought down.