New Air

[Fresh Prince of King Air]

New Air operated a flight this week out of YYC to YMM.

Sub Chartered an Air North 37.

[Four1oh]

yyc-ymm, eh? not very 'under the radar' is it?

[tonysoprano]

These guys have an OC already?

[Fresh Prince of King Air]

Don't think they have an OC. Like I said they sub chartered Air North. Don't think you need a OC to sub charter.

I would guess they are going to buy an OC rather then build their own. Corpac or HMY maybe?

705 OC's are hard to get these days with SMS in the picture.

[Four1oh]

He's already hiring his ex-clique.

[youngtimer]

So how many pilot resumes do you figure have shown up at his home or office in the last couple weeks?

[Four1oh]

I suspect there'll be a few current line pilots at WJ get poached, but I seriously doubt it'll be any significant number.

[Fresh Prince of King Air]

Another flight today. Same thing as last Wednesday.

[WJ700]

He's been lining up a few of the day 1 pilots. I think many are bored with the current job, sitting on millions, and looking for something exciting to do again. You'll see more than a few near retirement and near the top of the list go and do it if they get the OC.

[Four1oh]

I think Tim should get -200's again, and really make a few of those old guys happy!

[gulfan]

Looks like they have a splash page up now - http://www.naatgroup.com/

The address is 770 McTavish Rd, Calgary.

Ross Brown, from Altitude Consulting seems to be involved. You can read more about him here - http://www.altitudeconsulting.ca/ross_brown.html

He was last involved with Air North. Perhaps this would explain the usage of Air North jets previously.

[sanjet]

New Air was originally the cover name for JetBlue until it finally went to JetBlue in the final months before starting ops. Weird that the New Air name is also being used for this airline. I suspect David Neeleman (ex CEO of JetBlue) is part of this, although staying low. He also helped jumpstarting Westjet by helping Tim and Clive. If David and Tim run this show, things will be interesting.

[Lever]

Looks like they have a splash page up now - http://www.naatgroup.com/

The address is 770 McTavish Rd, Calgary.

Ross Brown, from Altitude Consulting seems to be involved. You can read more about him here - http://www.altitudeconsulting.ca/ross_brown.html.

Don't forget about Matthias Morel, the real brains to the operation. Hard working guy that Matthias is.

[gulfan]

Don't forget about Matthias Morel, the real brains to the operation. Hard working guy that Matthias is.

Yeah, I noticed his name when I searching for information. Do you think this will take off?

[Four1oh]

i'd say 'yes' but it's anyone's guess how much fuel will be in the tanks.

[WJ700]

Jetblue was more a brain child of Mark Hill who wrote the business plan. However, I doubt he's involved in this start up as it doesn't smell of his style. And from what I've heard he hates the numbers on the MD80's and seems to like A320's and NG's for LCC's.

[sanjet]

How available are MD-80's on the market? Must be a lot better than 320's or NG's. And must provide a much lower capital cost?

[beast]

I definitely wish this company the best, and hope they provide their employees with a decent package (although i doubt it)

To be perfectly honest, though, I can't see this particular venture being successful. Westjet entered the market at an opportune time, with market conditions perfectly suited to the addition of a new carrier. That environment no longer exists, and this new company will need to carve out a niche specially suited to a precisely targeted customer.

When Westjet was being born:
- Canadian airlines was imploding, resulting in a large vacuum in western canadian scheduled service
- cheap, used aircraft were in good supply, partially as a result of Canadian

- There was an abundance of underemployed, fairly desperate guys willing to risk it all with a new upstart in return for 4 silver stripes

- Air Canada was at the height of traveller hatred

Now:

- Both carriers (AC and WJ) are overflowing with new airplanes, lots of capacity, and money

- cheap, used aircraft are in short supply

- There is a shortage of real qualified pilots, and employment standards (pay) are higher
(Although it could be argued that westjet didn't initially hire really qualified pilots)

- Air Canada's image has improved, and Westjet has moved to a mainline format


My 2 cents - would not be invested in new air

[Biff]

As per the previous posts, MD80's in this environment probably wouldn't make much sense.

Now if we changed the assumption and assumed that New Air was really the name on the OC for Virgin Canada, and the idea of MD 80's was to confuse the competition, then things start to make sense. If it were Virgin Canada, all of a sudden I think the idea of Tim getting NG's from some part of the Virgin fleet worldwide would be possible.

[YYCcrew]

interesting thoughts... Sir Richard was in town a few months ago...

[WJ700]

Quoting beast: (Although it could be argued that westjet didn't initially hire really qualified pilots)


I'm just wondering where you're going with that one... a few pilots at the top of our list may take that one quite personally (I'm not one of them). They mostly had an airline/jet/airforce -one was a the first Snowbird and CP to CRA... and in their back ground they all had more than 5000K in hours except for one who was a fairly sharp FO from KFA with a lot of 727 time. I would feel fairly comfortable bombing around the West to all of three spots in a 737-200 and say that was a qualified group for that job.

Why am I sticking up for these guys? (who really don't need help). They are vastly responsible for providing me with a good quality of life by being responsible for not having seniority, getting Christmas off and having a good shot at select vacation times. They're also great to fly with and learn from.

The rest of your post is a very good observation though.

[complexintentions]

yeah I was scratching my head at that comment too. The senior guys at WestJet were extremely qualified, in fact the hiring standards for the first many years at WestJet were quite high at 5,000 hours. It's only been in the last few years they dropped the requirement to 4,000 hours and a Jazz PPC! (Well, it also helped during the TL Dark Ages if you came from CMA...)



But I don't really agree with "didn't initially hire really qualified pilots", nothing could be further from the truth.

[Four1oh]

how many guys who were hired initially had 737 time going in:?:

[Arctic84]

I was one of those unqualified WJ guys hired at the start.

How did it happen that, I, a neophyte with only 8000 hrs. TT, jet time, several years of airline experience, Capt. time on turbo-prop larger than 50,000lbs, squeak through? A miracle, I suppose.

p.s. There were at least 5 pilots that I can remember who had experience on the 737 at start up. Other experience was; F28 Capts, B727 Capts., one off of the DC-8 and DC-9, one with DC-10 Capt. time. We did not, repeat, not, have anyone with space shuttle time.

[Four1oh]

i wasn't stirring the pot, I really wanted to know who had 737 time, I didn't think many did, but I do know they were more than qualified.