Yeah, the guys running this weren't part of the catastrophic team who ran skybus... Bill Diffendorfer (CEO), Ken Gile (COO), and Mike Hodge(CFO) where the three top players in SX for over 9 months into the company's last days. They took the control of the company from Weikle in a boardroom coup, siting among other things, his cosy relationship with the pilots. Weikle, who had planned a MUCH slower and low profile growth for the company and wanted to stick religiously to the Ryanair model, give huge incentives to his pilots and run in routes that the majors or large LCC's wouldn't touch due to economies of scale...

They on the other hand took the company from him, immediately alienated the pilots with a major change in how pay was going to work (thus the stories of the $60K/yr CA's).. and other interesting episodes of anti-pilot behavior ensued (like the buy your own water and coffee).. This along with completely going off the business plan with 2 times the growth rate originally planned, changes to routes, trans-cons, and high oil sealed it for SX..

Diffendorfer is a former EAL and CAL lawyer turned Airline Exec who needs to be barred from ever working in aviation, Ken Gile is a WN former DO who had no spine, and Hodge is a Hedge fund manager (the bane of aviation).

Weikle is a 25 year Abex operaions man; also UPS Airlines, and also owned a chain of UPS Stores. He has been trying to found an airline for a while, SX being the closest he got to success, but again, it was stolen from him.. literally a couple of weeks into the airlines beginning of operations.
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