Originally Posted by jamesholzhauer

There is a huge difference between ride sharing and part 121 scheduled air carrier operations. Trying to flex supply/demand with Uber/lyft is easy. Neither ride sharing company requires a whole lot of capital or operating costs, as those costs are mostly carried by the drivers (yet both companies still can’t turn a profit and are still hemorrhaging money, but I digress). Also, the capital assets (cars) are dual use (used to drive and make money and used for personal use throughout the day). The drivers require no special training or pay, unlike an airline pilot. A driver can drive the rider anywhere in the local area. A scheduled air carrier doesn’t have the ability to flex to demand or routes in real time...flights are planned by 121 carriers months in advance, not minutes. They can have seasonal routes, seasonal bases, etc, but that’s about the extent of it. An Uber/lyft is a last minute, short time frame, inexpensive transaction that can take you anywhere. A last minute Breeze flight from Fargo to Provo (or any other city pair) has only a limited number of possible riders, with a fixed number of aircraft and routes/city pairs that severely limits this sort of ride sharing type flexibility and ease that some are associating with BreEZe.

I do agree that a younger, made from scratch IT backbone and ecosystem will enable a cleaner set of systems, but I think the benefits/paradigm shift you mention are overstated and won’t be revolutionary.

I do see some good potential in the business plan simply based on Allegiant’s success and the low capital, low utilization fleet (195) mixed with an extremely versatile, low CASM fleet of A220s.

Neeleman has never had to pay pilots what they are worth due to his timing with startups. This is where I think he might be miscalculating. There will be a revolving door and a lot of training churn, or pay will have to go up. I’m curious, to what extent, they’ve planned for that. After the new wears off and the early seniority numbers are taken, there is about zero incentive to be there at those rates. It’ll be no different than a regional...get in, get your time, then go to a major. He thinks if regionals can staff at regional rates, he can up those just a little and still staff his operation consistently. Maybe he’s right. But the talent and experience of the pilots he will get will follow the “you get what you pay for” mantra so long as other higher paying airlines are hiring by the thousands. They are banking on guys living in base (hence their live in base bonus), establishing roots, and getting comfortable and not wanting to commute to a major...substituting pilot pay with culture and no commute. Will be interesting to see if it works.