Skybus founder John Weikle is "working on a plan" to get the ultra-low-cost carrier back in the air again, according to the News & Record of Greensboro, N.C. Weikle's comments on reviving Skybus came just days after the carrier halted flights, stranded passengers and declared bankruptcy.


"John Weikle said Monday night from Dayton, Ohio, that he had been working all weekend to build a team that could reorganize the airline and restore service," the News & Record writes. "I wrote a letter to the board today and said we've got to find a way to save this — save these 450 jobs," Weikle tells the paper.


How does he plan to do it? Weikle says the carrier still has about $10 million in cash to work with, which he believes will be enough seed money to lure new investors. The News & Record writes "Weikle is working with Mark Sparling, his vice president for finance during the founding of Skybus. Sparling and Weikle left Skybus not long before it began operations because they disagreed with the board’s direction and its choice for chief executive officer, Bill Diffenderffer."

 

If he really cares about the 450 employees divi up the 10 mil between them since he's gonna **** it away anyway.

 

the chinese investment corporation has a duke educated president who has 200 billion to invest in us companies. they already some citigroup, visa.

show me a fund manager willing to invest in skybus, or any airline right now and i'll show you an ex fund manager

 

It may be a case of a bit too late... the founder should have been at the helm from day one.. rather than the bean counters and the recycled EAL and CAL garbage that the board of directors in their infinite wisdom dragged in!

I think under John Weikle it would have worked.. furthermore, he intended to pay his pilots about 33% more than the Lawyer from EAL eventually settled on..

As with Steve Jobs and Apple.. the lesson should be: The best way to run a business is to have someone who actually wants to be in that business running it.. not bankers looking at spreadsheets.

 

ce750,
clear up something... with all the creditors listed, they clearly couldn't pay landing fees in normal net thirty terms. shouldn't the whole pricing grid be scrapped and just sell tickets for at least 100 per segment and up and also scrap the focus city thing. put planes all over at various class b airports and run them hard.

even with oil , it looks like there was enough cash flow to pay even the variable costs let alone airbus payments. what would you have done?

 

short answer is yes, but they claim they had "no pricing power" and that when tickets approached $100 they were losing the market segment they were trying to create.. this is sad, but people actually think they're entitled to $50 one way tickets to FLL from CMH..

 

Because Skybus gave them that impression with $10 tickets. That is what is sad.

MF

 

heck, i'm making a trip next week on WN for only $56 per segment (including all taxes/fees). i don't think $100 per segment (for your advance-purchased tix) would be a very competetive offering.

ironically enough - to achieve a .09 RASM (which is low, but higher than what SX's CASM was supposed to be once it built enough scale) on a 500 mile trip and a 80% load factor, the average seat revenue would have to be only around $56. i don't think you have to average $100 per seat per segment to make a profit.

 

i had always thought given the analysis that the state of NC did on air travel, that it would be hard for them to recruit and retain the frequent business flyer which of course is the bread and butter. cheap leisure seats I am told was always suppose to incrementally increase an airline's revenue.

So here it looks like they totally segmented a market that didn't exist and then found through whatever problems and the economy that they couldn't grow revenue, because this group ran out of money to spend.

this phenomenom to me is similar to a new culture on the web. they're called freecycle groups. you sign up and people list junk to pick up for free and stuff they want for freee. in your city you just respond and go get it. it would follow that with limited discretionary income for this group that "likes a bargain" that they would end up being maybe one time customers or we'll do that next year.

how do you grow revenue when the whole model has to depend on recruiting entirely new customers every single flight?

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmm I wonder what segment that was ?
ya reap what ya sow !