Skybus Mechanical Problems at KCMH

Aviation Airlines
1

It appears that Skybus has their hands full with a huge public relations nightmare. It appears that yesterday they had 2 flights cancelled due to mechanical problems. They have NO backup planes and no agreements with other carries to honor their tickets. They had hundreds of pax stranded at CMH. Some had driven here from other cities only to find that their flights had been cancelled. Skybus sent out no notifications of the cancellations Local TV interviewed several pax and all indicated that they would NEVER fly the bus again.

DB

2

Is this the beginning of the end for sky bus…Welcome to Flight aware btw!

3

With their financing they shouldn’t be running such a shoestring operation.

The Ryanair model works because it is robust and they offer a good amount of frequency. Skybus’ fleet is pushed so hard that minor problems cause huge disruptions and they have no way to address them.

I don’t think this is the “end” for them as they still have a ton of financing to burn through. But I don’t think things are looking good for them. I think you’ll also see them adjust their model a bit as you’ve already been seeing (dropping longer routes, focusing more on the east coast, flying more routes that don’t involve CMH)

4

like the gso hub and the northeast florida routes their starting

5

[quote=“drdisque”]
With their financing they shouldn’t be running such a shoestring operation./quote]
They may have the financing but what about aircraft? Does anyone know how many aircraft out of the 60 or so ordered have actually been delivered? Sounds like they may not have any extra aircraft yet.[/quote]

6

They’re flying with 9 aircraft right now from what I can gather. They’re running a very aggressive schedule for 9 aircraft.

7

If the local TV new is to be trusted, one plane was out Christmas Day, causing two or three round trips to be cancelled (one Burbank flight, the Chattanooga flight, and perhaps one more?) The local radio news is reporting this afternoon that --two-- planes are out of service for at least part of** today **(12/26) causing five round trips :open_mouth: to be cancelled.

WCMH-TV reported yesterday that seven A319s make up the current active fleet - again, I’m not at all sure that I can trust their accuracy :stuck_out_tongue: . Supposedly two more planes will be released for service within the next week for the 1/6/08 schedule changes - but that these will be based at Greensboro to cover the new flights based from that location Feel free to correct me on this if someone has better information.

Why the sudden rash of mechanicals? Are hour- or interval-based inspections coming due that require more out–of-service time - perhaps sooner than planned? Or are vacations and “mistletoe flu” outbreaks reducing the number of mechanic-hours available from their maintenance contractor?

Update: five round trips cancelled today (out of 19!) - BLI, FFL (1 of 2), PSM (1 of 2) this morning; GPT and MKE this evening. The airline is stating these were actual mechanical failures - a 29% fleet out-of service ration would knockany airline for a loop.

8

perhaps the lessee has not been paid . . . and repo’d the airplanes.

Seems like that might be more likely given the nature of Skybus operations.

9

Thats ashame, considering that if they go out of business then St. Augustine will have no commercial service anymore. Unless someone starts something…

10

Actually guys we’re running seven aircraft currently.

11

so, dgs - did the other 2 get repo’d?? You had 9, now you operate 7 . . . they were essentially new airplanes.

12

No we’ve had seven since December 17th. We do have a leased plane
(essentially number eight) but it’s non-op as of now. We have about 22 flights a day, but we should get a new jet and a new schedule in early January. We have never had nine planes.

13

I show the following aircraft in service.

N501SX…Airbus A319-112…3331…Brand New-WFBN delivered Dec 7/07
N551SX…Airbus A319-112…1901…Skyservice-ILFC…delivered May18/07
N552SX…Airbus A319-112…1884…Skyservice-ILFC…delivered Nov 5/07
N553SX…Airbus A319-112…3171…Brand New-WFBN delivered Jun 29/07
N554SX…Airbus A319-112…3309…Brand New-WFBN delivered Nov22/07
N572SX…Airbus A319-112…1963…Air Canada-WFBN delivered Nov9/07
N573SX…Airbus A319-114…0639…Air Canada-delivered Dec 12/07

In Question; ???

N521VA…Airbus A319-112…2773…Virgin America-AFSI del Nov 6/07
N522VA…Airbus A319-112…2811…Virgin America-AFSI del Feb 7/07
N571SX…Airbus A319-112…1853…Air Canada/JS 1853 Inc. Storage???

Awaiting delivery;

N502SX…Airbus A319-112…3385…Brand New
N504SX…Airbus A319-112…3388…Brand New

Airbus website shows 8 Airbus A319’s in service with Skybus. (N571SX?)

14

The ships we are currently using are 501, 521, 522, 551, 552, 553, 554. I’m not sure of the tail number on our hangar queen but I believe it’s 571 but as i said it’s in op. Umm I’m based out of CMH so if we had another one in the hangar i would know. Perhaps 572 and 573 are being painted in Texas but as of now they haven’t been delivered. Our newest aircraft is 501.

Robbreid do you know where ships 571 and 572 are at geographically?

15

It seems they are both at AMA Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport.

N571SX flew YMX Mirabel Airport in Montreal to AMA on November 10th.

N572SX flew YMX to AMA on November 16th.

and

N573SX flew YMX to CMH Port Columbus International on December 12th.
Apparently this aircraft is parked at Skybus hangar at CMH, it is all white with a blue tail.

Paint shop in Amarillo Leading Edge Corporation.

16

I hope Leading Edge uses water colors or some easily removable paint. . .

While I do not ‘bash’ Skybus - I would not fly them if you gave me tickets, my mother had died and I needed to get to the funeral.

They are NOT a service company. There are horror story upon horror story concerning irregular operation, failing to inform either pax or employees of canceled ops, and the inability to contact them for any reason. You need to sue them to get them to respond, literally. Google ‘I hate Skybus’ or words to that effect - for an outfit in business less than year they are uniquely hated.

17

571 was at CMH last weekend, you could tell it was ex Air Canada. I assume that it is your hangar plane now. She was bare, FAA regs show it was registered to Skybus in mid December.

18

does that mean they are done growing at CMH???

19

New routes might be in Skybus’ near future
Service to Philadelphia, Niagara Falls in works
Saturday, January 5, 2008 2:57 AM
By Marla Matzer Rose

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Flying to Philadelphia and Niagara Falls from Port Columbus soon may become less expensive.

Skybus Airlines reportedly is about to announce service to those markets, as well as a flight between its new hub in Greensboro, N.C., and the Chicago suburb of Gary, Ind.

These new destinations surfaced this week on air-service Web site www.theairdb.com. Skybus is expected to announce new routes this month and will have aircraft available for shorter flights in early March when it cuts its daily flight between Columbus and San Diego.

Skybus would confirm only that there have been discussions about starting the flights. “We have nothing to announce at this time,” said Bob Tenenbaum, a Skybus spokesman.

The expected service to the Philadelphia area would come by way of Wilmington, Del., about a half-hour away.

“I have no formal agreement with them, but we have been talking” to Skybus, said Steve D. Williams, director of operations for the New Castle Airport there. The airport has had no commercial service since September, when Delta pulled its twice-daily regional jet flight to its Atlanta hub.

A Niagara Falls, N.Y., flight would allow Skybus to serve Buffalo, 21 miles away, and Toronto, 80 miles away. There is no direct service from Columbus to Buffalo, although Air Canada Jazz operates three daily regional jet flights between Columbus and Toronto.

Columbus travelers have numerous options to fly to Chicago, with Southwest, American and United all operating multiple flights there per day. Greensboro has much less service to that destination and offers Skybus more opportunity on that route.

The Gary-Chicago International Airport, which is without commercial service now, is about 32 miles from downtown Chicago. Chris Curry, director of the airport, did not return a call yesterday, but in October, he told The Dispatch that flying into Gary could save an airline half the cost of operating in Chicago itself.

20

Although I’m no fan of the Skybus style of carriage (too many trips on Greyhound when I was in college), in all fairness a couple of points need to be made regarding comments above

“Done growing at CMH”:

  • The business plan has always been to develop several OPERATIONS hubs (not necessarily passenger hubs - let’s please not get into THAT debate again on this thread :smiling_imp: ) once their inital destination cities were in place. IIRC, their next priority is to get GSO up and serving the exisiting network while adding new destination cities at a slower rate. Certain destination city pars might also get direct flights (example - Portsmouth NH-Florida during the winter).

“I hate Skybus” sites"

  • the “Columbus Dispatch” although a part owner of the airline, has dutifully run first-person accounts of “stranded at the terminal” stories each time SKB has had capacity issues. Most (although not all) of them reflect the fact that SKB is primarily generating travel among people who would not otherwise fly, and tend to be relatively unlearned in the ways of air travel. As a result, they’re really not aware the difference in travel terms versus a legacy carrier, and are not prepared for the consequences when something does go wrong.

I fly Delta and NWA about three times a month out of CMH - on a proportionate basis, I’ve gotten hung out by the big boys at what appears to be about the same rate as what SKB seems to be encountering.