Start-up air taxi operator Dayjet has announced it will “scale back” its immediate growth plans and lay off employees in all areas of its operations. In an email release today, company founder and CEO Ed Iacobucci did not detail the numbers of people let go. Iacobucci blamed weak capital markets and not the company’s early performance for the decision. He said expanding the company to the point of profitability would require a $40 million capital infusion and he apparently couldn’t find that money. “I won’t dwell on this point, but suffice it to say that given the current state of the U.S. capital markets, the timing of our planned financing could not have been worse,” he said.
Iacobucci said the “proof-of-concept phase” the company is now in has proved the market is there for the small-jet people mover system he envisioned but it has to grow from its current fleet of 28 aircraft serving 11 “Dayports” to as many as 50 aircraft branching out from up to 30 hubs to be profitable and that’s why it needed the $40 million. While DayJet seems confident that it will eventually find the money and markets it needs, the larger question might be what the delay in doing so will do to Eclipse Aviation. DayJet is reported to be Eclipse’s largest customer with orders for 1,400 of the estimated 2,500 aircraft on Eclipse’s order book. Calls requesting comment from Eclipse were not immediately returned.
(from AvWeb).
Given that Van Raburn and some other senior Microsofties financed the company, it is a little hard to believe that everything is going well but they just can’t find $40 MM in financing.
I never really liked the model, but I love people thinking outside the box - so give the guy a lot of credit there.
The way I see it people fly private for a few reasons.
Convenience - you can leave from where you want and at the times you want.
security / privacy - comfort that you “know” everyone on the airraft.
Luxury / Comfort - Roomy plane more comfortable than commercial passenger service.
With the DayJet model you don’t get any of those things. You don’t get convenience as you have to leave from their “day ports”, on their schedule and times. For security / Privacy - they sell the plane by the seat - so you could still be with strangers. For comfort / luxury - an Eclipse Jet cabin is comparable to that of a Beech Baron. Its hardly the typical accomodations of a private jet. If tha cabin is full you will have less room by far than an economy commercial flight.
It doesn’t help that the Eclipse aircraft itself has a lot of problems. Specifically I was speaking with some DayJet pilots who indicated they are frustrated with the avionics issues they have with the aircraft. They have to us a lot of aftermarket standby instruments (Since the Eclipse was designed without them) because of a mositure problem with the pitot static system.
Unacceptable and pathetic… Cessna and Embraer are laughing on their way to the bank. And Cirrus, Piper, Spectrum, Diamond, etal, ought to be shaking in their boots. The aforementioned better get it right from the get go or they’ll end up like Eclipse…behind the financial 8 ball with a shoddy product.
Would this be a case of “you get what you pay for?”
Citation Mustang costs about a million more, but I would have absolutely no problem starting such an operation on a fleet of C510’s. I’m sure some others out there wouldn’t mind trading an extra million for Cessna’s jet experience and solid support.
Did any of these Eclipse issues pop up during certification? If so, why was nothing apparently done about them?
The FAA is not concerned with dispatch reliability, but rather airworthiness and other factors related to safety rather than economics.
It is more a case of you don’t get what you don’t pay for.
The Eclipse was never priced realistically as there was no way they could produce the plane using the same avionics, engines, etc. as others for half the cost. Their only new technology was friction stir welding (which is not really all that new), which no way could reduce manufacturing costs by the amount they had priced into their planes.
I give the DayJets guys much credit for trying something innovative, but they chose a poor platform in the Eclipse to build it on.
No shock regarding Dayjet news. I can’t figure how business people would gamble with a comletely un-proven product as the foundation of their business. If I operated a nationwide chain of submarine sandwich shops I might order a new model business jet but I sure wouldn’t buy an unknown bread oven to run my business.
Out here in Silicon Valley people do this every day. IBM built their PC on an unproven operating system from an unproven company called Microsoft. (It is well known in the valley that MS was actually their second choice, but the CEO of their top choice decided to go out windsurfing and blew off the meeting with IBM). Google built their company on an unproven search methodology created by 2 grad students at Stanford. Many of these enterprises crash and burn and a few go on to achieve major success. I think Van Raburn had much this same pioneering and entrepreneurial spirit, which turned out to be a fatal mistake. I don’t understand why he didn’t switch to the Mustang once that became available, but it may be some combination of the costs and contracts with Eclipse that prevented it. He also put too much confidence in their analysis that the scheduling software was the key to the enterprise, which shows his lack of experience in aviation.
Imagine the fallout had Damiross done the same thing (another full page debate on the banter thread perhaps with accusations of half-baked, inaccurate posts from third grade sources )
…or should this comment be in the BT as well…
sorry in advance BT Police
What make you think that PC guru can make a new airline
I worked for dayjet for 6 months the worst customer care management
I have ever worked with.
I am so gald to see them all out of job now…
I went through hell and back when i quit being part of the
back stabbers bunch.
I so happy in a major airline now and not part of a bad dream.
Those people like th stuff shirt bill brown, virginia kelly olga protzer,john fag staten can go lick stamps…
I have burger flipper soda fries witht that…
How many stinking planes did ray put together in a hour?
Sweat factory eclipses are scary rides for kids…
billy bob brown the x umpire can catch the bar of soap.
How does it feel man…
I can see the writing on the wall… welcome to the party pal
no work for you… Not even citrix take you back.
JOESMOE peelarat nworb peter
DayJet Expands Ops After Cutting Staff
Hoping to do more with less, air-taxi hopeful DayJet added two more DayPort cities to its system, for a total of nine. Jacksonville and Sarasota, Florida, are now part of the DayJet grid.
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