
Starting An Airline - rickdale
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/startup/index.page
======
fosk
If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new
airline (Richard Branson).

~~~
lutorm
That's a variation on an old aviation proverb: "How do you make a small
fortune in aviation? Start with a large one."

~~~
dfc
And countless other industries, eg architecture, casinos, farming:
[http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/small_fortune/](http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/small_fortune/)

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dsr_
This reminds me of a vendor of networking products that we could call L. They
ended up with a portfolio of machines that were almost perfect for handling
all the dial-up traffic an ISP could want, with good management and reference
designs and consultants ready to show you how to start or grow your ISP with
many many points-of-presence.

And they sold their expensive equipment and made lots of money, only it turned
out that many ISPs couldn't really afford all this upfront, and it made sense
for L to operate a financing company itself and finance the purchases of the
expensive hardware. There was a huge and growing demand, and if an ISP
defaulted, well, L could take back the equipment and refurb it and sell it to
the next company that came along.

Only when the market actually saturated, there was L holding all these
valuable financing agreements backed mostly by the hardware that nobody new
wanted to buy.

~~~
dfc
I am curious why you used the mysterious _L_ in your comment instead of
referring to Lucent by name? None of what you wrote was libelous. For people
not around at the time it will not be obvious who you are referring to. As a
result only the "cool older kids" know who _L_ is and it makes it hard for
newcomers to learn about the history of the industry. Personally I do not
think hacker news comments should be written in such a way as to reinforce
boundaries and segregate "people in the know" from the unwashed masses.

For anyone interested in learning more:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucent#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucent#History)

~~~
dsr_
Because it doesn't really matter which company L was: the point applies across
markets. When you finance all of your sales with only the products you make as
collateral, market failures come easily.

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jayzalowitz
Anyone else want to kickstart an airline that operates with as few humans as
possible? You aren't allowed to check luggage at all...(all the underbelly
goes to companies like fedex and ups) just attacking it as an engineering
problem?

~~~
balls187
I'd go for the opposite.

An exclusive airline that is basically 1st class through out the entire cabin.

* No carry-on suit cases

* Free alcohol

* Free meals on all flights

Membership required, and can be revoked by:

* Talking on your cell phone

* Not following crew member instructions

* Trying to prevent the person infront of you from reclining

* Trying to jump the line and board when your row isn't called

* Not being able to actually lift 40lbs but requesting an exit row seat anyway

* Trying to smash your carry on into an already full overhead bin

* Listening to music loudly etc.

~~~
iLoch
You said:

    
    
        * No carry-on suit cases
    

And then you said:

    
    
        * Trying to smash your carry on into an already full overhead bin
    

Are you sure this isn't just a list of your air travel pet peeves? :)

~~~
batiudrami
I assume you'd be allowed a small bag of carry on (with a laptop/book/whatever
in it), just not a 'maximum allowable size suitcase with everything you need',
specifically to avoid paying the checked baggage fee.

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gumby
Boeing should know: not only do they sell to a lot of airlines, they founded
United Airlines [0] until they were forced to divest.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines#Begi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines#Beginnings)

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danieldrehmer
With all this wealth of information available at my fingertips, it is now
10,000% more likely that I will start an airline.

Yet, the probability this will ever happen still is very close to zero.

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dmitrygr
Prices for current boeing jets:
[http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/startup/pdf/busi...](http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/startup/pdf/business/prices.pdf)

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mermoose
Warren Buffett: “If a capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk back in the
early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his
progeny money. But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It
has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business
because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in.
You’ve got huge fixed costs, you’ve got strong labor unions and you’ve got
commodity pricing. That is not a great recipe for success.”

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2774088/Buffett-My-
elepha...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2774088/Buffett-My-elephant-gun-
is-loaded.html)

------
leorocky
Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437831)

~~~
dang
Thanks; burying as dupe.

~~~
rickdale
I submitted this story. Honestly I submitted to hn because after stumbling on
the site I thought I had seen it on hn before, so I figured submitting was the
fastest way to find discussion. Is there a reason that the submission didn't
get flagged from the get go?

~~~
dang
The duplicate detector is deliberately left weak so that good stories get more
than one crack at the bat. But if a story has had a significant discussion
within the last year, then we bury it as a dupe. The best thing to do is check
HN Search to see if this is the case.

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elwell
One of the situations when the V in MVP has to be taken very seriously.

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djyaz1200
Before anyone goes out and does this research supply of planes. Locked up for
many years to come from Boeing and Airbus. CEO of American Airlines outlines
this in details and suggests fairs will go up and stay up as a result. Not
sure if he's right but he seems pretty sure of it.

~~~
dbloom
There's a healthy market for used planes.

Allegiant is a great example. They fly slightly less fuel efficient MD-80s
which can be bought at bargain prices from the legacy carriers (MD-80's are
those narrow body jets with the engines in the back and the 3-2 seating
arrangement). They make it work by flying nonstop flights from smaller
airports (without competing carriers on those routes), with low frequency. The
low frequency also gives them longer until they have to do a heavy maintenance
check -- which, for an older MD-80, usually costs more than the plane is
worth. [http://www.fastcompany.com/1325762/heard-allegiant-air-
why-i...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1325762/heard-allegiant-air-why-its-
nations-most-profitable-airline) .

~~~
dbloom
> The low frequency also gives them longer until they have to do a heavy
> maintenance check -- which, for an older MD-80, usually costs more than the
> plane is worth.

By the way, that's why we have this phenomenon:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_boneyard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_boneyard)

~~~
sliverstorm
What do you mean? The only way to not have a boneyard is:

a) Never take any planes out of service

b) fly every plane until it crashes

No manmade machines have infinite service life, so a is out. No airline
passengers will accept b.

~~~
dbloom
The point I was making is that many of the planes in the boneyards are in
working condition (assuming you gas them up and do some other trivial un-
mothballing work).

It's not like a car, where it can be driven until the wheels fall off. Planes
are flown until they need an expensive scheduled maintenance check, even if
they seem to work just fine.

(To be absolutely clear: I don't think this is a bad thing. Maintenance checks
are good. Falling out of the sky is bad.)

~~~
djyaz1200
I know absolutely zero about this industry but I'm not sure this fits the CC
model. What's the plan to move up market? I just think there isn't any easy
money, especially not in airlines. You gotta just be awesome at everything...

~~~
livestyle
That article was written in 2009.

Go look at their route schedule. Looks like penetration to me to more
established areas.

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sytelus
Air travel is a commodity which means razer thin margins and fight for shaving
off every last cent. In this type of markets, usually way to succeed is
provide upscale product but with only slightly higher margins. In other words,
instead of fighting for margins at the bottom, you fight bit above. In
airlines case this strategy would translate in to providing all business class
plane but with only 15% extra prices, for example. Lot of customers who are
extremely unhappy about nickling and diming would flock to this model.

~~~
mattmaroon
The problem is that first class takes up much more than 15% more space per
person than coach. You'll notice there are three chairs per side per row in a
standard 787 coach, but only 2 first class. That's 50% more right there, plus
there's more leg room so it's worse.

Their margins are already thin even packing it as they do, so at only the
equivalent of 2/3 current capacity that would be a recipe for failure. They'd
have to charge probably twice as much.

~~~
neom
I agree with this, whenever I think about the airline industry (and I do often
as I travel 100% of my time for work) - I believe the only way we can really
re-invent it, is to change the plane, not the airlines.

