Originally Posted by
Rocinante
A round robin like that would be an innovative way to meet the requirements and cut costs. It could be done in one FDP too.
So, some more very rough napkin math. Assuming a rough correlation of 4% market share to 4% grant entitlement, that's around $1 billion of grant money (25,000,000,000 * .04 = 1,000,000,000). I've seen numerous estimates on the flight hour cost of an A320, but generally in the $7000-$10,000 range. Assuming an average 2.5-hour block, and taking the middle of that operating cost range, we might be looking at ~$21,250 per flight (8,500 * 2.5). Suppose the company even had to double our current 56 flights per day to meet the government's requirements, that's an additional $1,190,000 per day (21,250 * 56), or $35,700,000 per month (1,190,000 * 30), or $214,200,000 for the six month period (35,700,000 * 6). Granted, this math is extremely crude, but ~1 Billion > ~250 Million.
Seems like they'd take the money?
Per hour cost is a little high I think. Our CASM ex fuel is 5.4 cents per seat mile. For a 2 1/2 hour trip which is about 1000 miles that’s $54 per seat. Times 182 seats on a 320 is $9828. That’s $3931 per hour. That’s all costs including Pilot salary, paying contractors, toilet paper at the GO, Bendo’s bonus, Ted’s guitar lessons, etc. Fuel cost is on top of that, but at a dollar a gallon it’s only about $4 more per seat. Which only reinforces your point that grant money will go along way for us.