AdamKuebler.com » aviation

The C-Series Has Been Tapped

Adam Kuebler — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:03:40 +0000

As you have probably found out by now, Republic has announced a massive order to purchase 40 CS300 aircraft (formerly know as the C-130, good idea to change the name!) plus 40 more options.

You know the details, if not head on over to aviation-buzz who has a pretty good overview.

As I have said before, Republic and the C-Series are both highly regarded by me. Republic because, whether you like them or not, they are ballsy. They don’t stick to the status quo, and they make things happen. The big question is how they manage the Frontier and Midwest acquisition into the future, time will tell. A full post on Republic will be coming in the future.

And I think the C-Series is an amazing aircraft (if it can be pulled off). One: geared turbo-fan engine, two: bigger windows and overhead bins, three: engines under the wings, four: the sweet spot of range and passengers as airlines are downsizing, and five: perfect for an airline concept I am working on. But more on my thoughts there later. Today is about the order.

Republic was in the best position out of anyone in the U.S. market to pull this off. No regional airline could do it because of scope clauses.

Delta is a bit preoccupied at the moment and while they could use the aircraft, there is a lot left from the merger which needs to be shaken out. American could use it, but they have a huge amount of 737s rolling in which they need to pay for. Continental could use it, but they are pretty conservative and I couldn’t see them being the launch customer for a new aircraft type with a new engine. United could use it, and potentially might choose it now that they have moved past their wide body choice (yikes!) and are now looking at narrow bodies. But it will take them another year or so at least to make that announcement and it will probably be equal numbers of 737s, A320s and maybe some C-Series thrown in for fun. US Airways could use it, but it seems as if they are standardizing on Airbus and Embraer.

JetBlue wouldn’t order them because a third fleet type is not in their model. And even though people are throwing out Southwest, I just don’t see it happening. Boeing is going to do whatever it takes to keep one of their biggest customers and if Southwest does it, they are going to do it big, don’t know if they are ready to make that sort of commitment. It would be a good aircraft for them minus the whole fleet commonality thing. Allegiant might have a fleet of C-Series… in 2040.

The only other airline who was in a good position to do this sort of deal is AirTran, which already has a split fleet, has an aircraft which this would replace, and flies to smaller destinations. It is very reasonable that AirTran will be the second American customer to order the C-Series.

But other than that, it was going to be Republic which finds and aircraft which will work well for Midwest (which will become Frontier, mark my words) and for Frontier which will give them a competitive advantage over United and Southwest. Plus, they were probably sold at cost to Republic to get the ball rolling. Which provides Republic with an even greater competitive advantage because they were able to take a risk on a new plane.

One last thing, let’s hope the Republic livery is there only because they don’t want to announce their plans to convert the Midwest brand into Frontier yet. (But they did say there would be STRETCH seats?) It is a nice livery I’ll give them that. But seriously Republic, you have to go with the Frontier brand.

I think that risk will pay off. But only time will tell if the new aircraft and new engine will work as advertised.

General Aviation Airport Entrepreneurship

Adam Kuebler — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:01:22 +0000

So I came across this article the other day about General Aviation Entrepreneurship.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/02/08/338060/big-vision-at-small-airfields.html

I may be partial, but this is really exciting stuff, and exactly what we need to see more of!

In 1978, when the airlines were deregulated, it was score one for capitalism. Routes abounded, fares plummeted, and air travel was open to the masses. But for some reason, there are still a lot of problems in the aviation industry. Security is a huge hassle, there are so many extra fees, and it all around is not a pleasant experience (to all but us airline nerds!)

I for one think no extra amount of security will make us safer and we should drop the level down a bit. It’s the law of diminishing returns. I also think that unbundling of the fees is a good idea, you pay for what you use. And Southwest has shown you can make money by not doing it. The market at work.

But for true success in the aviation industry there are two more critical pieces which need to fall into place. The first one is air traffic control. ATC needs to be radically changed. Alfred Khan, the man behind airline deregulation, said that for the full effect to happen, ATC must be deregulated as well. Now, many people have bad ideas of chaos coming from this. But it could actually be done in a very standardized way which would keep everything uniform. If you think about it, we don’t have problems with different groups running ATC around the world. I’ll probably speak more to this later.

And finally, the whole point of this article, is the airports. Airports are primarily government owned. And as this article points out, governments do a poor job running GA airports. But let’s expand this, does this mean that governments do well running large commercial airports? I think the trend of having private companies run airports is a good start, but I think in the long run, airports need to be both owned and operated by private companies.

In 1997, congress passed a pilot program to begin the privatization of airports. Branson has received a lot of press, but it is unfortunately in a very tough market. Chicago Midway was supposed to be the big one that would unleash the floodgates, but the deal fell through last year due to financing drying up. So there are difficulties.

But I think entrepreneurs willing to take on small airports is a great start, there has obviously been success here and hopefully these people will take on bigger projects at bigger airports.

Would love to hear what you think!

Republic Loses Sean Meanke

Adam Kuebler — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:58:21 +0000

I was planning on writing a wonderful post glowing about the future of Republic. Today, the future looks much less bright.

A little back story for those who don’t know. This past June, Republic Air Holdings (an airline holding company which owned three regional carriers) had provided various forms of financing to Midwest Airlines and (bankrupt)Frontier Airlines. Within the span of a 24 hours, Republic announced its intentions to purchase Frontier and that it would buy Midwest for practically nothing. After fighting off a competing bid from Southwest for Frontier, Republic completed it’s acquisitions of both airlines.

At that point, Sean Menke, then CEO of Frontier, moved to CMO of the entire company. At this point Republic management had done a wonderful job managing regional flying CPA (capacity purchase agreements) but had no experience running branded operations.

Sean Menke was the key here, by many standpoints he had done some good and in some cases pioneering things at Air Canada, and then was the architect of the much loved “Whole Different Animal” campaign with Frontier in Denver. He has a well established track record as an airline marketer, exactly what Republic lacked.

However today he has announced that he will be stepping down for personal reasons. One can only guess what that means. But unless Republic brings in a real top-notch marketing staff, things do not looks good.

I am having bad memories of the failed ExpressJet branded flying experiment. An idea I was firmly behind but believed could have been executed slightly different and the timing couldn’t have been worse, but I shall write about that one day.

I wish the best to Republic, I sincerely want them to succeed and I think what they are doing very out of the box and see a lot of good possibilities from it. However, Menke left big shoes to fill, and I’m not holding my breath.

Welcome to the Aviation Section!

Adam Kuebler — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:53:41 +0000

Hey everyone! I have decided to start blogging about aviation as well as entrepreneurship and parkour. It is something I talk about with my friends here at Embry-Riddle all the time, but I thought I would share some of my thoughts with everyone else! I don’t want to blog about aviation news, as there are plenty of people who do a good job of that. If you don’t know any check out Flight Blogger and Aviation-Buzz. Instead I want to go a bit deeper into some topics and add my opinion to various trends and companies.

I was thinking about what I should explore first. If anyone has a specific interest, the topics I am would like to look into are: Porter’s Business Model, Bombardier’s C-Series, and Republic Air Holdings. Watch out for a post later in the week and let me know if any one topic interests you!

My New Website and Categories

Adam Kuebler — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:43:02 +0000

Hey everyone! After a long Christmas break, I’m back to blogging.

I started blogging about entrepreneurship this past November. I wanted to start in aviation and pakour as well but didn’t want to have them all mixed together. I know many people would like to hear about entrepreneurship but could care less about aviation. I just switched over to Wordpress and divided each into their own categories each with separate RSS feeds. I realized that I want to share with people all my passions, not just one. And as a head’s up, watch out for a video post or two to come, especially in the parkour section. So I hope you like the new site, and enjoy what’s to come!

One of the things which influenced me was Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Crush It!. If you haven’t read it, check it out, it’s a great read!

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers, But If You Don’t Beg, You Can Choose

Adam Kuebler — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:17:00 +0000

So over the past couple days the Industry Advisory Board for Embry-Riddle’s College of Business is in town. I have had a chance to meet a few of them and listen to a bunch of them speak. Today was also the first day of the Career Expo here. I listened to people high up and well respected in their field speak about how you have to work your way up and how you can’t expect to get a good job right out of college. I also saw my fellow students at the Career Expo going from booth to booth asking for a job or internship opportunity. I looked at it as a whole and thought nothing but “rat race.”

I was speaking with my business partner and good friend Mike Bardi after the IAB forum tonight. We spoke about a lot of things but I was reminded by something a keynote speaker at the CEO National Conference said. Jewel Daniels (Thanks Exley!) said that when she was starting out, she didn’t apply to the want ads because everyone applied to those. She found a company she wanted to work for, and a job she wanted to do and just asked for it. It has been repeated many times and in many forms, but generally if everyone is doing something, you should consider doing the opposite. Zig when they Zag.

And that is exactly what I did. At the Career Expo, I went to two booths. One where I already had a contact, and jetBlue. I went to jetBlue because I love their branding and brand experience, and I would like to be involved with that. So while I was waiting, I noticed most people having 2-3 minute conversations. I got up there and straight up asked if they had business internships in marketing. I ended up having a 10-15 minute conversation with the rep about jetBlue, their brand, their culture, and the way they do business. I have since submitted my application for an internship and will go back to chat with Matt tomorrow.

After all of this I was brought back to the adage ”beggars can’t be choosers.” And I expanded on it, beggars can’t be choosers, but if you don’t beg, you can choose. Basically what that means is that most people are essentially begging for any sort of job opportunity and will take whatever they get. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes you have to do this to survive. But if you can, don’t beg. Be choosy in what you do, go for what really matters to you and don’t worry what other people are doing. In the end you will probably have more opportunities and most of them would be better than if you just took whatever you could get. I believe you will lead a more fulfilling life because of it.