Geodesic Air Travel is here. I flew out of Albuquerque last week with one of the guys from Eclipse Aviation. Okay. We were on the same plane. I was in steerage. He wasn't. :-). Cheers, RAH ------- <http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB108491821399715012,00.html> The Wall Street Journal May 19, 2004 THE MIDDLE SEAT By SCOTT MCCARTNEY 'Taxi! Fly Me To Cleveland' New Four-Passenger Jets Spur Plans for Cab-Like Air Service; Memories of People Express May 19, 2004 Perhaps as soon as next year, travelers will have a new alternative to flying commercial airlines or buying their own jet. Using a new generation of small jets that are currently in flight testing, several entrepreneurs are trying to launch "air taxi" services. The goal is to let corporate travelers bypass crowded airports and fly into smaller, local airports, at half of the current cost of chartering a jet. The most advanced air-taxi effort is coming from the man who brought the bus to air travel. Donald C. Burr -- founder of People Express Airlines back in the 1980s -- plans to launch iFly Air Taxi Inc. service next year. He has teamed up with son, Cameron, as well as his onetime nemesis, Robert L. Crandall. The former chief executive of AMR Corp. and its American Airlines, Mr. Crandall once helped run Mr. Burr's People Express out of business. Venture capitalists and aircraft manufacturers say other groups are also developing plans for air-taxi service, but none has come forward publicly yet or has had to make a Securities and Exchange Commission filing as iFly did March 29. Air taxis are also envisioned as a growing part of the nation's air-transport system in a futuristic blueprint being developed by a government task force that will report to the White House later this year. One reason for optimism that now is the right time for air taxis: The arrival of a new generation of four-passenger "micro jets" that can operate more cheaply than conventional jets. These aircraft typically are much lighter than conventional private jets, and are powered by a new generation of small, fuel-efficient engines. None of the planes are in service yet. Manufacturers are accepting advance orders, which so far are being placed by a mixture of private individuals and hopeful air-taxi operators. The new planes have the potential to revolutionize transportation. Currently, chartering private jets is extremely expensive, costing $7,000 or more for a 500-mile hop, round-trip. Fractional ownership (where you buy a "share" of an aircraft that entitles you to use it periodically) is no bargain either. Corporate-owned jets, while sometimes economical for shuttling groups of executives, are often viewed as overly expensive perks. Air-taxi service would be different, in theory at least. Mr. Burr says he can provide rides for $3 to $4 a mile, on average -- which works out to be a bit more expensive than most first-class tickets. A trip to Cleveland from Teterboro, N.J., for example, might cost $1,000 to $1,400 on average. By comparison, an unrestricted first class ticket on Continental Airlines from Newark, N.J., to Cleveland costs $1,338. iFly is expected to announce an order for Adam Aircraft jets soon. The Adam A700, which at $2 million is half of the price of the cheapest Cessna Citation jet right now, began flight tests in July 2003. The Adam jet is one of a half-dozen new aircraft like this in development. Honda Motor Co. has been conducting test flights of its HondaJet in North Carolina; Toyota Motor Corp. is also working on a jet. Eclipse Aviation Corp., run by a former software executive with considerable financial backing, says it has orders for more than 2,000 jets. Other heavy hitters are working on the most important aspect, the engines. General Electric Co. is working on the Honda jet; Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp., is testing a new engine that will power the Eclipse jet; and Williams International is shrinking an engine currently used on Citation jets for the micro-jet class. It powers the Adam Aircraft jet. Corporate aviation has a solid safety record, with an accident rate per flight-hour about on par with commuter airlines, according to National Transportation Safety Board figures. Air-taxi operations also claim to offer convenience, since travelers would arrive and depart at small airports, park just a short walk from the plane, and could choose their own departure times. And taking a taxi would avoid security lines and reduce the chances of lost luggage. "It's a highly simplified charter operation," Mr. Crandall says. "We hope to run it like a limousine service." Much like airline tickets, iFly will be priced so that peak periods are more expensive than off-peak times. In addition the third and fourth seats on a "taxi" flight will be a lot cheaper than the first or second seats sold. This time, he says he intends to grow slowly. The lack of technology and aggressive growth ultimately cratered People Express, which was bought out by Continental in 1987. iFly, which has raised $6.3 million, plans to start service with two to three planes based in the New York area. It eventually hopes divide the country into as many as 13 regions, and have about 75 to 100 planes serving each region. Success may well depend on how well the company's computer systems can manage the planes, maximizing taxi fares each day while minimizing costs. The Burrs have spent three years trying to pull together a plan. Raising money was tough until big companies like GE, Pratt & Whitney, Honda and Toyota started investing in micro-jets. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has also helped advance the air-taxi concept through a project called Small Aircraft Transportation System that has pushed research on ways to relieve airport and highway congestion, and at the same time change travel patterns and boost small communities. "We have an abundance of airspace, we just don't know how to use it well," said Bruce Holmes, associate director in the airspace programs office at NASA Langley Research Center. Dr. Holmes is also part of a congressionally mandated task force drafting a blueprint for the "Next Generation Transportation System," which has been modeling different scenarios for what transportation will be like in 2025 and beyond. The task force's report is due at the White House in December, and it will endorse air-cab or air-limo services. There are a flock of unanswered questions about air-taxi service, including the issue of whether more planes in the sky will add to congestion, or will, in fact, relieve congestion. What seems clear is that transportation in the future will take many forms, and that our choices in the future may well be better than the ones we have today. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'