Air Taxi Whackos: Can we stop harping on our proprietary technology, secret sauce and other magician style dances and spells you cast on your investors? Alternatively, teach us how to lie “the right way” to raise the “right amount of money.” (Just be warned: Everytime I open an excel sheet now, I have some type of Pavlovian vomit reflex… once you get over the barf odor, we can start plugging in numbers and assumptions.)
Whether your passion is making aircraft or flying them, there is only one thing that will save your ass at the end of the day: VOLUME. (And Vern, I mean actual volume, not projected volume.) Volume, as proven by Herb Kelleher and early Southwest folks, is hard to pull off, requires a lot of work, financial risk, etc. And if everything goes well, you have a mediocre investment that generates mediocre returns.

The post popped into my mind as I read this bit on Dayjet.

–Adam

Dear Mr. Mark:

I enjoy JetWhine very much and would like to thank you for providing the link to FlightAware in your recent posting about DayJet (“DJ”) and its formal inauguration of air-taxi service. It prompted me to research DJ’s flight activity for the period from Wednesday, October 3, 2007, when DJ officially inaugurated its air-taxi service after months of intense marketing, through today, October 15, 2007 as of 6:00 PM. Since by regulation passenger flights must be flown IFR, you can track DJ’s commercial flight activity very accurately on FlightAware (albeit it took a bit of work at first – but as you will see not too much work is required anymore).

Here is what you find if you look at DJ flights from Wednesday 10/03/07 through Monday 10/15/07. First, DJ’s 12 aircraft fleet is as follows: #109, 110, 115, 116, 119, 126, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135 and 136. Second, the results of plotting DJ flights are interesting, but not at all promising for DJ’s future.

Wednesday 10/03/07 – “Inauguration Day”. Total flights made = 25 using 9 aircraft, while 3 aircraft (#116, 126 and 135) made no flights that day. Most flights appear to have been made for “show” with few, if any, paying passengers on-board. Of the 25 flights made, 5 were from TLH to LAL departing TLH at 11:48, 12:10. 12:17, 12:56 and 13:05; 5 were from LAL to BCT departing LAL at 13:36, 13:59, 14:03, 14:35 and 14:49; another 5 were from BCT to LAL (i.e., completing Florida’s version of a “Great Circle Route”) departing BCT at 19:12, 19:51, 20:03, 20:06, and 20:08. Odds of paying passengers being on-board those flights are essentially zero.

Thursday 10/04/07 - 31 possible revenue flights (I say “possible revenue flights” because I suspect a number had no paying passengers on-board but impossible to tell for sure); 9 aircraft utilized - 3 aircraft (#109, 110 and 126) made no flights that day; flights where I suspect there may not have been passengers on-board include 5 last flights of the day (i.e., may have just been deadheads to re-position) from PNS to GNV arriving GNV at 19:13, 22:01, 22:16, 22:27 and 22:33. Odds of all those flights having paying passengers on-board are close to zero.

Friday 10/05/07 - 15 possible revenue flights using 6 aircraft - 6 aircraft (109, 119, 126, 130, 132 and 136) made no flights that day; 8 of 15 flights were between GNV & BCT; suspect no paying passengers on some flights (e.g., deadhead arrivals at BCT @ 17:57, 18:11, 18:30 and 22:14).

Saturday 10/06/07 through Tuesday 10/09/07 - 13 possible revenue flights total in 4 days using 5 aircraft - 7 aircraft made no flights on any of those days; 9 of 13 flights between GNV and BCT (i.e., so much for demand in PNS, TLH and LAL); only one aircraft flew on more than one of those 4 days (#115 made 3 flights total on 2 days); on Monday 10/08/07 only 3 aircraft flew - 9 no fly; on Tuesday 10/09/07 only 3 aircraft flew - 9 no fly.

Wednesday 10/10/07 - A bit more flying than on Monday and Tuesday, but not nearly enough to break-even, let alone make money. Seven of the twelve aircraft in the fleet (#109, 110, 115, 119, 126, 131 and 134) made no flights; the other five aircraft made a total of just 13 flights for the day.

Thursday 10/11/07 – Pretty much the same pattern; 17 total flights utilizing only 6 aircraft, while the other 6 (#109, 110, 115, 126, 131 and 135) gathered dust sitting on the ground.

Friday 10/12/07 – Only 9 possible revenue flights utilizing 5 aircraft; the other 7 (#109, 110,116,126, 131, 135 and 136) did not fly.

Saturday 10/13/07 – 4 flights by one aircraft (#132), apparently a charter because it flew to non-DayPort airports (GNV – Destin, FL – Marianna, FL – Destin – GNV); other 11 aircraft did not fly.

Sunday 10/14/07 – No flights for the entire fleet.

Monday 10/15/07 – Only 1 aircraft (#119) possibly carried paying passengers. It flew 3 flights KGNV- KLAL- KBCT- KGNV starting at 6:28 AM and completing the loop at 10:16 AM. The only other flight for the day was a test or training flight (most likely the former) by # 132 KGNV – KGNV. The other 10 aircraft did not fly.

Conclusions to be Drawn:

Over the last 11 days, DJ has averaged fewer than 7 possible revenue flights per day and used on average fewer than 4 of its 12 aircraft. Frequency (or rather infrequency) of flights suggests that there is not nearly enough demand for a 12 aircraft “taxi fleet” in Florida, let alone a fleet of 100 air-taxis buzzing all over the Southeast.

Frequency of flights to date also suggests DJ wasted a huge sum of money building its computerized “complexity” optimized dispatch system over the past five years (i.e., since optimum financial result is achieved by simply not flying at all).

Only good news for DJ shareholders is that the cash “burn rate” is lower when empty aircraft stay on the ground rather than bore holes in the sky without paying passengers on board.

Thought your readers might like to know how it’s going down in Florida (sadly even worse than in Albuquerque).

AJG