Jaunted

Boston

Boston in July and Miami in August -- right?  That was the last we heard from our trusty tipster I think?

Virgin America and Skybus

Skybus flights were full.  That's where Skybus and Virgin were different.  Skybus flights were not half-full.  Even with the miserable 55% load factor in February, Skybus' overall load factor over its short 10-month history was 72%.  It had greater than 80% load during the latter half of 2007 but a 51% on-time performance started to scare off customers in the Winter/Sring.  SKybus could still make it if the Skybus board would stop blaming the economy and fuel for its failure.  CEO Diffenderfer and the President and COO Gile, in my opinion, and a board that refused to listen to their founder and the employees are the reason that SKybus failed.  The sad thing is, it could be saved.  450 people and others in service related employment could be back on the job if the board would just cooperate rather than fight the founder in saving the airline.  

I just read what had to be the most uninformed quote of recent times.  Director Robert Milbourne was quoted as saying if Skybus could be reorganized, the board would have done it" themselves.  He and the board still do not get it.  No one is going to give additional money to the same board and COO Gile, who, along with Bill Diffenderfer, managed to bankrupt the most heavily funded startup airline in US History.  Mr. Milbourne and his board need to take their heads out of the sand and cooperate with the founder in saving SKybus.  To do this, they will have to tacitly if not publicly admit they screwed up in backing Diffenderfer over the founder after it was pointed out to them in so many different ways that Diffenderfer was not the man to run the plan sold to the investors or the employees.  

If John Weikle does not have any money, it is because the board did not pay attention to all the warning signs that Diffenderfer and Gile were not competent to run his business model.  Mr. Weikle had his entire fortune or potential fortune tied up with Skybus.  He wanted to see it thrive.  Now he has asked the board to help him only to be insulted by Mr. Milbourne.  Wake up Mr. Milbourne and admit you and the board blew it in a big way.  No wonder then new investors were not willing to back the same team that put SKybus into bankruptcy chewing up $160 million in capital in what must be record time.  

I can only imagine the raucous laughter that must have filled the room after the SKybus execs and the board made its pitch for new money without first demonstrating they had a new team in place with airlines experience that could correct all of the problems created by its gross mismanagement.  

Just ask the pilots.  They can tell you the truth the Board does not want to admit!  It was not economy and high oil prices that killed Skybus, it was management and the board who allowed them to get to this point in the first place.  I hope they will wake up soon and work with Mr. Weikle in his bid to resurrect what is a super business plan (Ryan Air and Allegiant are doing very well).