I've noticed on FlightAware recently that a lot of Flexjet aircraft have flown into TUS and rarely leave. Anyone have any info regarding if they are parking aircraft there? Otherwise are they doing maintenance in TUS? Just curious...

OK, here is the word from TC at the last recurrent class.

18 airframes to be parked. Used car sales, (sorry, used aircraft sales) can only take 2 airframes a month. That is the limitation as to how many they can take off the books at any one time.

So,,, Flex is shrinking. How small can they be before they are no longer viable??? In a matter of time they will be down to less than 80 airframes. 80 X 4.3=344. And I am being generous on the airframes. If you are in the 300 to 360 range, your on the bubble!
Fred comes on board, the place goes to hell. Economy?? Look at his history! He will cut (he has), He will maximizw his bonus on the backs of others, and in 3-4 years, he will be gone.

So, if you are out, you are gone. People are taking overtime to pad their pockets, not just hurting you, but those on reduced schedule. Nobody gives a rats ass about you, and never will.
Best in class, I don't think so.

can you tell us a little about Fred?? who is this fellow? where did he come from, what's his background??

It isn't just Fred cutting to make a better bonus for himself and the others in upper management- all the fractionals except Avantair have been hammered since the melt down and have had massive levels of shareholder sell backs. If you don't have customers to support the airplanes you have to do something with them and since the market won't bear selling them all right away, the next cheapest alternative is to park airframes somewhere that at the least has low ramp fees. With less demand and less airframes needed you will obviously require less pilots and support staff to run the business. NJA has been lucky to get good participation in the furlough mitigation program and the pilots have been lucky to work for an employer that offered a program to avoid furloughs in the first place, but unless owners stop leaving the program faster than new owners come aboard they will have to furlough also. It sucks for the pilots and staff that get furloughed or fired, but it would be mismanagement not to do something to help slow the bleeding and unfortunately furloughs are often the easiest, though one of the most painful ways to do that. At least Flex management is doing a little something beyond just furloughing to help the company. The fracs have to go beyond just cutting employees and/ or man hours in order to survive and while parking airplanes may seem weak, at least it is something. Good luck all.

"80 X 4.3=344"

What is this figure? Is this the pilot to aircraft ratio?

Thanks in advance for clarification.

To answer the original question, yes, Flex aircraft will appear on flightaware, go to Tucson and "never leave." That's where they go when Flex is getting rid of them.

Makes sense, thanks for the info. I wonder if they are parking any of their airplanes at the air base next door (DMA)? If so maybe FlightAware only captures TUS as the destination.

Judging from the low tail numbers on the 300's going in there, they are probably given new tail numbers when they are sold and flown out to live happily ever after.

Fred was originally CEO of Lufthansa. He went to Delta (either Pres. or COO) and was #2 to CEO Leo Mullin. When Delta was sinking ('03-'05) the top 35 execs (of which he was one) created a bankruptcy proof trust to protect their pensions ("to retain the top talent" as they put it). They planned on taking $60 million for it but only got $30 million in it before ALPA found out about it in an SEC filing and raised the BS flag. Of course almost all the 35 left the sinking ship including Fred. He then went to Virgin America and oversaw the startup of that airline. There was a big squabble over who controlled the company (foreign ownership rule) while they were trying to get their operating certificate. When Virgin finally was granted a certificate one of the conditions was that Fred leave. I never understood why but thought it was curious. And now he is at Flexjet..