Got an email re Baltia pilot hiring forwarded from a furloughed friend. Anyone have any info on this outfit?

 

I've always thought St Petersburgh not being served with a direct flight was a market oppurtunity. However if this airline is successful, they will likely just wind up proving a direct will work and then watch as 1 or 2 legacy networks jumps on it and crushes them.

 

The Airline Blog: Baltia Air Lines, the 20 year old startup

 

Rich people will never get tired of playing with airplanes. Every hedge fund and tinpot royal thinks they are going to conquer the world with airliners and fulfill some Howard Hughesian prophecy. The overwelming vast supermajority of all these pigs don't work out, yet the DOT rubber stamps anything and everything. As the article you mentioned pointed out:
"December 2008: DOT declares Baltia "fit, willing and able" to fly."

This isn't the dot com boom anymore where legacy airlines shrug it off and wish them well. They will be absolutely crushed by the new mega DL, UA and soon AA. Crushed. Legacy airlines do not tolerate some punk start up coming in to take their bread and butter international flying anymore. They shredded MaxJet and Eos when they were far more divided (unmerged) and in far worse shape than today.

They probably know this at Baltia though. I'm sure they will find a way to short themselves even as they are proclaiming a profitable business model like every other start up in history.

 

hmmm, a start-up with 200 series 747's? Doesn't practically every supplemental with 200's have them slated to go lounging in Pinal or some other boneyard? Is Baltia's management missing something here? Maybe it's just me.