Great Lakes 135 approval

jgheggie

jgheggie

Well-Known Member
I don't mean to stir the pot or get anyone's feathers ruffled. But for those of you watching the Great Lakes saga and taking a poll on the airlines failure; here's a link alleging that lakes has gotten the ok to rip 10 seats out for 135 ops.

Straight from an EAS routes blog...

http://www.easflights.com/2014/02/great-lakes-moves-forward-with-reconfiguration/#more-949

It's interesting that they will only serve a few cities under 135. And only two aircraft will be configured for the 135 ops.
 
I know a guy who got hired for the 135 operation. He said that at this moment, the planes have received their STC but operations manual for 135 ops is still awaiting approval.
 
JayAre said:
I heard a rumor AMF will be putting seats into the 99s and bidding these routes.
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post-30824-Jack-Nicholson-Creepy-Nodding-SRXv.jpg
 
This way, they are able to fill FO-seats. The quality of the asses in those seats is probably about equal to what it was when this was the hour-norm, but they know how to run their railroad that way.

I expect we'd all agree that the way to fill seats is to pay a more reasonable wage. It doesn't help the profession when garbage men and prison guards make more. This requires systemic change: the amount majors pay their feed partners has to increase, the amount the regionals pay their flight crews has to increase, and these facts will inevitably raise ticket prices.

Don't wait for airline execs to voluntarily lower their salaries & bonuses. The number who would is way smaller than the percentage of not-pure in Ivory soap, which we all know to be 99 44/100% pure. Only legislation and/or stockholder revolts can do that.

If GLA disappeared tomorrow, how long would it take for others to ramp-up to take on those cities, albeit with perhaps a more realistic business plan for this century's realities?
 
FloridaLarry said:
If GLA disappeared tomorrow, how long would it take for others to ramp-up to take on those cities, albeit with perhaps a more realistic business plan for this century's realities?
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Probably a month or so. Cape air seemed roll out those Montana routes without much problem.... at like 2x the bid that Silver was flying them for.
 
FloridaLarry said:
If GLA disappeared tomorrow, how long would it take for others to ramp-up to take on those cities, albeit with perhaps a more realistic business plan for this century's realities?
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I'm having this mental image of hordes of 9 seaters filling the skies out of small towns...Piper firing up the Navajo line again...$60,000 jobs flying out and backs in a brand new Chieftain or Garavan....basically Alaska but without the VFR nonsense and the ridiculous cost of living.
 
Roger Roger said:
I'm having this mental image of hordes of 9 seaters filling the skies out of small towns...Piper firing up the Navajo line again...$60,000 jobs flying out and backs in a brand new Chieftain or Garavan....
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Only problem is a lot of the EAS routes take you well above 10k. PC-12 anyone?
 
z987k said:
Only problem is a lot of the EAS routes take you well above 10k. PC-12 anyone?
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Hmm, if they could put two engines on it....and make the air go through those engines the right way...and put the wing up top...and make the wing smaller so it rides better in turbulence..but put big ol slotted flaps on it so it still has short field performance....
@Boris Badenov
 
Roger Roger said:
I'm having this mental image of hordes of 9 seaters filling the skies out of small towns...Piper firing up the Navajo line again...$60,000 jobs flying out and backs in a brand new Chieftain or Garavan....basically Alaska but without the VFR nonsense and the ridiculous cost of living.
Click to expand...
z987k said:
Probably a month or so. Cape air seemed roll out those Montana routes without much problem.... at like 2x the bid that Silver was flying them for....Only problem is a lot of the EAS routes take you well above 10k. PC-12 anyone?
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The fastest take-over I can think of was about 5 months from approval, and that with an existing going airline. Start-up companies take years for FAA approvals. Negotiations, leases, proving flights, updates to company manuals, EAS approvals, and probably more. GLA currently flies to 22 EAS cities out of hubs in DEN, LAX, PHX and (barely) MSP, plus 8 non-EAS cities. No one has that much spare metal sitting around, even on rotting tires. Then the new guys have to hire & train more pilots and maintenance, stock spare parts, etc, and THAT isn't a flight in the park right now.

Absent the single-engine issue with PAX (the EAS issues would probably expedite under duress), Pilatus would seem to be the answer. Pressurized, service ceiling 30,000 feet, take-off runway about 1,500 ft, landing less, reliable PT-6 power. Costs about what a B-1900 did when new back then! SeaPort has been running one or more around Kansas-Missouri (at least until they did an all-gear-up landing at SAL last month. Even GLA never did that - only partial gear-ups when less than 3 greens).

Lots of capital to start-up.
 
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