'Taxi! Fly Me To Cleveland'

[R. A. Hettinga]

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 at 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'