Rush Hour Alternative Business

[Seth]

Name choice:

 

Any good name ideas out there? 

 

Gridlock Air

Belway Airways

Rush Hour Air

Beat Traffic Airways

Time Machine Flyers

 

 

Capitalize on my name?

Seth Shuttle

Seth Meyers Flying Cirucs

 

 

[Cruiser]

one thing you will need to look at is density. If you get 300 subscribers are they all going to want to fly at the same time? The likely answer is YES. 

 

We have a local Part 135 airline, Griffing Flying Service. They make trips to the five islands in the area. Typical flight is 12 minutes. In the winter they are the only transportation. They fly Piper Achers, a Saratoga and an Islander. Prior to Christmas they had so much demand they could only take passengers, no cargo. Some travelers were pretty upset because the Christmas presents didn't make it off the islands.

[Marauder]

Seth -- as one of your potential customers, I would want to know your dispatch reliability and alternate plans when your plane can't or won't fly. I have way too many hours on the airlines to know what happens when a flight is cancelled or delayed significantly.

I have friends who live remotely and work in the "big city". Your biggest competition will be trains. I have commuted to customers in Connecticut, NYC and Washington from Delaware and although the trip might be a tad longer I would venture to say that it may have the same end to end time cycle. Where the trains beat out flying is the ability to work on my laptop (comfortably), use my cell phone and actually get up and walk around.

Another thing that is happening in the industry is the increased usage of telepresence (video conferencing). We have dedicated rooms at our various sites that allow us to hold face to face meetings remotely. Our internet infrastructure has been beefed up and we are doing more desktop face to face teleconferences as well.

On top of that, the "work at home" environment has been widely accepted for office professionals. Which for many means the convenience of working without traveling somewhere and for the companies they work for, all those extra hours you put in because you can't separate work from home...

You picked a tough concept to work. Hopefully you will find a niche.

[Seth]

Seth -- as one of your potential customers, I would want to know your dispatch reliability and alternate plans when your plane can't or won't fly. I have way too many hours on the airlines to know what happens when a flight is cancelled or delayed significantly.

I have friends who live remotely and work in the "big city". Your biggest competition will be trains. I have commuted to customers in Connecticut, NYC and Washington from Delaware and although the trip might be a tad longer I would venture to say that it may have the same end to end time cycle. Where the trains beat out flying is the ability to work on my laptop (comfortably), use my cell phone and actually get up and walk around.

Another thing that is happening in the industry is the increased usage of telepresence (video conferencing). We have dedicated rooms at our various sites that allow us to hold face to face meetings remotely. Our internet infrastructure has been beefed up and we are doing more desktop face to face teleconferences as well.

On top of that, the "work at home" environment has been widely accepted for office professionals. Which for many means the convenience of working without traveling somewhere and for the companies they work for, all those extra hours you put in because you can't separate work from home...

You picked a tough concept to work. Hopefully you will find a niche.

 

 

Well said - with telecom being what it is now, you can work remotely easily in an accpeted environment.  I agree, going up against trains will be tough, however, there are areas around the Greater Washington DC Region where trains do not operate.  Those will be the target markets.  There may be some overlap, but it all depends on demand.

 

Also, if weather is that bad, we'll cancel flights and people can for that day revet back to what they used to do - drive.

 

The issue is if they get stuck in the City, or at work, and rolling thunderstorms, or widespread ground fog hits - then we'll go ahead and have a service with a car company (or in the end if it becomes too frequent, purchase some vehicles - most likely we'll keep this outsourced) and limo them home in a similar level of service they'd get from us if we fly them.  The particulars as to when we call the car service vs waiting for weather will be very mechanical with a set of procedures - of course if it's obivous that we're going to have to use the car service, we'll make that readily avaialable as soon as possible - and plane - and budge for it.

 

-Seth

[N601RX]

I'm not from a big city so I may be off here.  The problem I see is that from 6:00AM to about 9:00 everyone is going to want to get into the city.  Reverse in the afternoon, with not much in between. Perhaps you could make 6 one way trips each  morning and afternoon. The return trips might be empty.  I would think you would do better to look for highly compensated individuals who their time was worth more than their money was to them and sell slots on a predetermined time scheduled.  Example.  Each morning Mr A,B,C,D would be on the 6AM flight.  Mrs E,F,G,H would be on the 6:30 flight and so own.  I'm not familiar with part 135 rules, but it might be possible to let each of them own a share of the company (ie airplane) and skip the 135 stuff altogether.