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Starting An Airline
- fosk 12y agoIf you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline (Richard Branson).
- lutorm 12y agoThat's a variation on an old aviation proverb: "How do you make a small fortune in aviation? Start with a large one."
- dfc 12y agoAnd countless other industries, eg architecture, casinos, farming: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/small_fortune/ http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/small_fortune/
- jayzalowitz 12y agoAnyone else want to kickstart an airline that operates with as few humans as possible? You aren't allowed to check luggage at all...(all the underbelly goes to companies like fedex and ups) just attacking it as an engineering problem?
- balls187 12y agoI'd go for the opposite. An exclusive airline that is basically 1st class through out the entire cabin. * No carry-on suit cases * Free alcohol * Free meals on all flights Membership required, and can be revoked by: * Talking on your cell phone * Not following crew member instructions * Trying to prevent the person infront of you from reclining * Trying to jump the line and board when your row isn't called * Not being able to actually lift 40lbs but requesting an exit row seat anyway * Trying to smash your carry on into an already full overhead bin * Listening to music loudly etc.
- jayzalowitz 12y agoI actually sort of like the membership idea, that makes the rest really easy and invalidates the need for a "rewards program" Just always provide good service.
- jonah 12y agoSomething like: http://www.surfair.com/ http://www.surfair.com/
- Anechoic 12y agoAn exclusive airline that is basically 1st class through out the entire cabin. Midwest Express tried this in the late 1990's-early aughts. It didn't work out for them.
- iLoch 12y agoYou said: * No carry-on suit cases And then you said: * Trying to smash your carry on into an already full overhead bin Are you sure this isn't just a list of your air travel pet peeves? :)
- batiudrami 12y agoI assume you'd be allowed a small bag of carry on (with a laptop/book/whatever in it), just not a 'maximum allowable size suitcase with everything you need', specifically to avoid paying the checked baggage fee.
- sachinag 12y agoEos tried business class only from JFK to London. It didn't work.
- khuey 12y agoSeems to work for BA.
- 12y ago
- bherms 12y agoThe planes practically (can) fly themselves these days now anyway. Remove the ticket people, checking bags, food/drinks on the plane, and build a nice, efficient website for booking... Then structure your routes on flexible demand. Almost like crowdbuying tickets... There are probably a low number of people (outside business travel) that need to be somewhere at an exact time. Operate the ticket buying process like Massdrop. Let the collective decide when a plane takes off. There's a lot of tweaks that could change the airline industry, but certainly no easy task.
- rabino 12y agoWith the exorbitant costs of maintenance and fuel, plus the prorated cost of the plane itself, I'm wondering how much impact those small-ish changes could have.
- zachlipton 12y agoOutside business travel? Bahahhahaa. Airlines make most of their money on business travel.
- btgeekboy 12y agoMuch of this sounds like Spirit Airlines.
- Tortoise 12y agoThe problem is that you can't actually fire anyone on board the plane. Those flight attendants aren't there to serve your drinks. They're there to guide/assist you "in the unlikely event of an emergency." The pesky regulations say they need x attendants per passenger.
- dsl 12y agoEngineers often fail to understand that sometimes the cheapest solution is to throw minimum wage workers at the problem.
- alttab 12y agoUnless its not the cheapest solution on a different time horizon.
- mattmaroon 12y agoIt's because they don't understand basic finance concepts. If they knew what time value of money and net present value meant, they'd realize that something that paid for itself in ten years is a bad investment. Everyone in every discipline should be required to take Finance 101.
- sanxiyn 12y agoSomething that pays for itself in ten years is a bad investment and how humanity progresses. Long term investment is essential and basic science requires it.
- jonah 12y agoBudget airlines like Allegiant [1] streamline thing to save money. * Very few ground staff - say 4 at a small-to-mid-sized destination. They do all tasks: Ticket agent, baggage handler, gate agent. * No connecting flights - direct only. * All the same type of equipment (MD-80s) to streamline maintenance. etc. [1]
- kator 12y agoIt's called Ryan Air[1] [1] http://www.ryanair.com/ http://www.ryanair.com/
- chimeracoder 12y agoIt's unlikely ever to happen, but I wish someone would start an airline that only requires pre-2001 levels of security screening[0]. I'd be interested in seeing how having some competition on security policies would affect the larger market. Would people value the sense of security that the theatre gives them, or would they prefer the less invasive measures? Unfortunately, AFAIK, every airport in the country is required either to use TSA screening or to use private security companies whose policies are set by the TSA[1], so this is unlikely ever to happen. [0] With the exception of ensuring that cockpit doors are always closed and locked during flight - this was the one absolutely critical security improvement that came out of 9/11. [1] I believe SFO is one airport that uses a private company.
- btgeekboy 12y agoThe TSA screens operations running under 14 CFR 121; there's not much you can do about that other than fly under 14 CFR 135, which is for "Commuter and On-Demand Operations." (This is how companies like Surf Air get away with not having to have TSA screening.
- maccard 12y agoRyanair already have this down to a T. You don't actually interact with any ryanair staff from the time you book your flight until you're passing through the gate. At that point you meet the cabincrew/stewards for your flight, two at the door who check your boarding pass and glance casually at your passport, and you then walk across the runway to board the plane in no particular order. Everything is an extra,you're bombarded with ads for the duration of the flight (particularly annoying on a 45minute flight where they start at takeoff and keep going until you land). You also print your own boarding pass, and are normally located as far as humanly possible from the airport terminal, in an airport nowhere near the location advertised (London Stansted, Barcelona Reus, Paris Beauvais). But I can fly to London return for 30 euro pretty much any time of the year in return for that.
- elwell 12y agoOne of the situations when the V in MVP has to be taken very seriously.
- leorocky 12y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437831
- dang 12y agoThanks; burying as dupe.
- rickdale 12y agoI submitted this story. Honestly I submitted to hn because after stumbling on the site I thought I had seen it on hn before, so I figured submitting was the fastest way to find discussion. Is there a reason that the submission didn't get flagged from the get go?
- leorocky 12y agoThe URLs are very similar, but not identical.
- dang 12y agoThe duplicate detector is deliberately left weak so that good stories get more than one crack at the bat. But if a story has had a significant discussion within the last year, then we bury it as a dupe. The best thing to do is check HN Search to see if this is the case.
- danieldrehmer 12y agoWith all this wealth of information available at my fingertips, it is now 10,000% more likely that I will start an airline. Yet, the probability this will ever happen still is very close to zero.
- djyaz1200 12y agoBefore anyone goes out and does this research supply of planes. Locked up for many years to come from Boeing and Airbus. CEO of American Airlines outlines this in details and suggests fairs will go up and stay up as a result. Not sure if he's right but he seems pretty sure of it.
- dbloom 12y agoThere's a healthy market for used planes. Allegiant is a great example. They fly slightly less fuel efficient MD-80s which can be bought at bargain prices from the legacy carriers (MD-80's are those narrow body jets with the engines in the back and the 3-2 seating arrangement). They make it work by flying nonstop flights from smaller airports (without competing carriers on those routes), with low frequency. The low frequency also gives them longer until they have to do a heavy maintenance check -- which, for an older MD-80, usually costs more than the plane is worth. http://www.fastcompany.com/1325762/heard-allegiant-air-why-its-nations-most-profitable-airline http://www.fastcompany.com/1325762/heard-allegiant-air-why-i... .
- dbloom 12y ago> The low frequency also gives them longer until they have to do a heavy maintenance check -- which, for an older MD-80, usually costs more than the plane is worth. By the way, that's why we have this phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_boneyard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_boneyard
- sliverstorm 12y agoWhat do you mean? The only way to not have a boneyard is: a) Never take any planes out of service b) fly every plane until it crashes No manmade machines have infinite service life, so a is out. No airline passengers will accept b.
- dbloom 12y agoThe point I was making is that many of the planes in the boneyards are in working condition (assuming you gas them up and do some other trivial un-mothballing work). It's not like a car, where it can be driven until the wheels fall off. Planes are flown until they need an expensive scheduled maintenance check, even if they seem to work just fine. (To be absolutely clear: I don't think this is a bad thing. Maintenance checks are good. Falling out of the sky is bad.)
- sytelus 12y agoAir travel is a commodity which means razer thin margins and fight for shaving off every last cent. In this type of markets, usually way to succeed is provide upscale product but with only slightly higher margins. In other words, instead of fighting for margins at the bottom, you fight bit above. In airlines case this strategy would translate in to providing all business class plane but with only 15% extra prices, for example. Lot of customers who are extremely unhappy about nickling and diming would flock to this model.
- mattmaroon 12y agoThe problem is that first class takes up much more than 15% more space per person than coach. You'll notice there are three chairs per side per row in a standard 787 coach, but only 2 first class. That's 50% more right there, plus there's more leg room so it's worse. Their margins are already thin even packing it as they do, so at only the equivalent of 2/3 current capacity that would be a recipe for failure. They'd have to charge probably twice as much.
- neom 12y agoI agree with this, whenever I think about the airline industry (and I do often as I travel 100% of my time for work) - I believe the only way we can really re-invent it, is to change the plane, not the airlines.
- gumby 12y agoBoeing should know: not only do they sell to a lot of airlines, they founded United Airlines [0] until they were forced to divest. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines#Beginnings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines#Begi...
- dsr_ 12y agoThis reminds me of a vendor of networking products that we could call L. They ended up with a portfolio of machines that were almost perfect for handling all the dial-up traffic an ISP could want, with good management and reference designs and consultants ready to show you how to start or grow your ISP with many many points-of-presence. And they sold their expensive equipment and made lots of money, only it turned out that many ISPs couldn't really afford all this upfront, and it made sense for L to operate a financing company itself and finance the purchases of the expensive hardware. There was a huge and growing demand, and if an ISP defaulted, well, L could take back the equipment and refurb it and sell it to the next company that came along. Only when the market actually saturated, there was L holding all these valuable financing agreements backed mostly by the hardware that nobody new wanted to buy.
- vxNsr 12y agoIs the next letter of that company's name u?
- jpollock 12y agoWasn't just L that happened to, N had the same issue.
- dfc 12y agoI am curious why you used the mysterious L in your comment instead of referring to Lucent by name? None of what you wrote was libelous. For people not around at the time it will not be obvious who you are referring to. As a result only the "cool older kids" know who L is and it makes it hard for newcomers to learn about the history of the industry. Personally I do not think hacker news comments should be written in such a way as to reinforce boundaries and segregate "people in the know" from the unwashed masses. For anyone interested in learning more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucent#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucent#History
- dsr_ 12y agoBecause it doesn't really matter which company L was: the point applies across markets. When you finance all of your sales with only the products you make as collateral, market failures come easily.
- dmitrygr 12y agoPrices for current boeing jets: http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/startup/pdf/business/prices.pdf http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/startup/pdf/busi...
- mermoose 12y agoWarren Buffett: “If a capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money. But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in. You’ve got huge fixed costs, you’ve got strong labor unions and you’ve got commodity pricing. That is not a great recipe for success.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2774088/Buffett-My-elephant-gun-is-loaded.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2774088/Buffett-My-elepha...