18 year old starts his own airline

[cwatters]

First think I saw when I visited their web site was the menu...
"Select Route". Way to go!

[Piltdown Man]

I wish the guy the very best of luck. We need more like him. My only hope is that he is allowed to expand before MOL moves in.

Piltdown.

[skiddyiom]

Well, having read through the thread, I can see that many of you here are obviously cynical and should be on anti depressants. Give the bloke a break!!

If this works, and I bet it does, then he will have done something useful. I just wish my spotty 17yr old would get off his ass and do something.

Good luck to Alpha1 and to Martin. He'll need it with all these knocking miseries about!

Skiddy

[Jamesair]

According to "The Times" he is talking to four other UK airports re new routes.

Anyone know who they might be?

[haughtney1]

Ok Im a sad git!!!!

Just a few figures to mull over..(Ok hate me..cos I love the Caravan )

C208B Caravan purchased & financed over 15 years..assuming 20 productive days a month (conservative)
£177.70 per day...this figure is purely a fixed cost..the hourly rate is based on only 2 hours daily utilization.


Pilot, Maintenance (includes hot section@3000hrs), Fuel@todays price, and insurance(includes 10% error over and above cost)
£225.00 per hour
£ 89.00 per hour (finance as above)
£ 50.00 per hour (Airways charges + landing fees..est)

Total
£364.00 per hour direct operating cost

Now the question is what margin do you operate with....I have assumed 40% over cost.

£510.00 per hour rounded to the nearest £

Assume Oxford-Cambridge sector 30mins..(real figure in C208B is closer to 26mins wheels off to touchdown..including Inst procedures)

£255.00 per hour sector cost = 6 seats break even in a 13 seat a/c@£45.00 per ticket

This ability to break even with 1/2 a load gives the ability to market lower cost tickets..aka Easy..Ryan, multi-trip concessions, and perhaps the icing on the cake..you have an a/c that can also carry an additional 500lbs or so of freight over and above a full pax load and legal fuel..( assumes 10% over standard weights)

All done over land..in an aeroplane that is comfortable and efficient.

Why havent I done this?...mayby I will if SEIFR becomes a reality

[gliderman69]

My only thought is......

will this be the death of another 2 GA freindly airports.....

I mean you can see it in their eyes now......

New airline, proper paying passengers....Class A airspace....

Cue sinister laugh from airport directors

To all the negative people on the forum, he will fail or succed either way little impact on your lives why so het up about it all? Do you curse the winner of the lottery just becuase YOU didn't buy the ticket?

Starting your own business is hard, and at his age good luck to him if I even want to travel to Oxford from Cambridge I will consider that method of travel.

[Danny_R]

Well it may not even be a real airline, but it's sure getting some attention! Just found this on a site, about the newspapers etc that this has been mentioned in:



The Times (UK)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printF...1536920,00.html

The Telegraph (UK)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai.../22/ixhome.html

BBC (UK and Worldwide)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/...ire/4371945.stm

USA Today (United States and Worldwide)
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flig...vemarch22_x.htm

CBC Radio (Canada)
http://www.cbc.ca/insite/AS_IT_HAPP.../2005/3/22.html

UTV (Ireland)
http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=58136&pt=n

The Scotsman (Scotland and the UK)
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4294737

Hindustan Times (India)
http://www.zeenews.com/links/articl...=208249&sid=NEW

TravelBiz.com (Australia and New Zealand)
http://www.travelbiz.com.au/articles/86/0c02e286.asp

Electric Newspaper (Singapore)
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/top/st...6,85210,00.html

Glasgow Evening Times (Scotland)
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/hi/news/5036836.html

Cambridge Evening News (UK)
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/bus...ca424a579eb.lpf

Martin has also appeared in; The New York Times (USA), The Guardian, The Express, The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Oxford Times, The Oxford Mail, Oxford Courier (UK), The Hong Kong Times, The China Times (China), The Sydney Morning Post (Australia) plus many many more papers worldwide.

Martin's TV and Radio appearance have included; BBC National News, BBC News 24, BBC South Today, BBC Look East, SkyNews, CNN, Central News, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Five Live, Passion FM, BBC Radio Oxford, BBC Scotland, CBC Canada, Belgian National Radio plus many more shows including radio and TV in the USA, India and the far east.

Martin's schedule for the next two weeks includes
TV:
The David Letterman show (USA), Working Lunch (UK), GMTV (UK), SkyNews (UK and Europe), CNN (USA), Fox News (USA), Richard and Judy (UK), This Morning (UK,) TV Company Moskovia (Russia), Channel One News (Russia) plus several others which will be reported on later.

Print Media:
The Times (UK) Q&A Session, The Sunday Express (UK), The Deccan Chronicle (India), The Mirror (UK), The Sun (UK) plus many more international and domestic papers.

Radio:
NewsTalk106 (Ireland), Star 107 (UK), BBC Radio 1 (UK)

On Wednesday this week Martin will also be flying off to Mumbai in India. He has been invited as Sir Richard Branson's personal guest to help launch the new Virgin Atlantic route and will also be staying with the Virgin boss for four days in the beautiful city of Mumbai. Martin has also this week been nominated for the Shell LiveWIRE young entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

There are currently 7 documentary makers in talks with myself to make a fly on the wall 'Trouble at the top' style documentary about Martin as well as many other exciting projects that are under discussion.




Thats from the lads PR lady.

[7006 fan]

I am fully in favour of Alpha1. It is a breath of fresh air to be made aware that one does not have to charge 50p a seat to make the news.
Britain has few enough people who are prepared to stick their head above the parapet in this nasty commercial world we live in. I just hope that as Alpha1's domestic network expands, they do not get beaten about the head by some of the regional 'sharks' and cut price pirhana's that are out there. The trouble is, once the market is open all the traders begin to set up their stalls.
Good on you Martin and keep it going.
Best of British to you.



And to all the whingers out there
"...If you think you can do better..then why arn't you?"!!!

[david_wilding]

Lucky Sod!! All that publicity is obviously very good, suddenly everyone will be visiting Oxford & Cambridge!

It did easyJet well with the ITV1 show "Airline", so if he does get a documentary, that will boost his popularity and airline well!!

david_wilding.

[Danny_R]

Problem i see with a documentary, is the fact it'll be very boring with only 2 flights per day, with only 8 passengers each-way. It just won't have the content that would be needed for a successful "airline" type program.

[jabird]

As someone 10 years older than Martin, I would still consider myself a young 'un compared to most on this forum, and most people I meet in business circles.

This is a classic case of a route which should be easy by public transport, but which isn't. We've heard of Hop, Skip, Jump etc, but by all accounts this operation will actually be starting for real next month.

I'm not one to fully understand the economics of this a/c type, but remember that for the rest of the day, Alpha won't be picking up the operating tab. Not sure what would happen if it was delayed whilst on other jobs though - especially if chartered out to business execs who get delayed in meetings???

BUT - let's not forget the bigger picture here. OXF and CAM are two under-used airports the other players haven't touched yet. There must be plenty more routes which both can serve, if the economics are right. I'd considered OXF to be more Flybe territory, but they don't seem interested atm.

Ryanair may be dominating the field for bringing flights into under-utilised airports across Europe, but there are countless more locations where the runway is not long enough for them, or demand too thin to support a daily 737-800. Flybe haven't set up bases in Europe yet, and are so far the only serious sub-100 seat player.

There is a niche there for someone, and it is sizeable. I don't know enough about Martin to know how he's going to get on, but he's clearly got off to a great start on the PR front.

I for one wish him well, and hope a few more of the naysayers here can take note.

[squitter]

As a Camridge resident, i believe this route could work. The main consumer targets will be the two Universities and the surrounding Hi Tech and agricultural research industries. There is a lot of intellectual and financial interaction between the two. Secondly, the flight time costs and landing costs are low. With season ticket sales providing the `bread and butter` revenue, a full aircraft will generate at least £7000 a week for a total flight time of no more than 2 hours per day.
Here in the UK we do not utilise our smaller airports well enough. In the USA, it is quite the norm to commute by air from smaller airports to the cities. If there were more routes available to the businessman, i am sure it would be welcomed here. Just look at the time and hassle of commuting into London, not to mention the congestion charges. If it werent for the £660 landing fee at London City, it would be viable to provide a Cambridge to London City commuter route. (check out the M11 on a weekday morning).
A few weeks ago, i hired a car from Manchester to Stansted. Hire charge + petrol + hassle of dropping it off at the airport. A Manchester to Cambridge flight for £40 would have been a blessing!
Take a look at your half mil charts and see how many suitable airports there are for this type of low cost connectivity. Plenty of under- utilised airports that could ease the congestion on our roads, not to mention provide flying jobs!
As for the wisdom of starting a new airline with a small twin engined aircraft? Refer to the origin of the name of Titan Airways. (Clue - Cessna 404).

[GJB]

The free advertising and marketing hype generated by this has been magnificent.

Only time will tell whether this is all his own work, or if someone has their hand up his backside.

I suspect the latter, but wish them the very best of luck and hope this is a success.

[mentaliser]

I am pleased to see that the level of vitriol against Martin Halstead has finally died down.

Frankly, as an aviation entrepreneur myself (and one who has, in a previous existence, drawn up business cases for numerous successful enterprises) I am shocked and appalled at the propensity of certain individuals to opine in strong terms on a subject matter of which they know little or nothing. You do not know his cost base, his market forecasts, his strategy going forward, ..., and hence are in no position whatsoever to issue a meaningful analysis of his chances of success. If you had started a business in your teens, maybe by now you would be successful entrepreneurs and not bitter and twisted pilots and former pilots.

And as for the notion that Alpha1 is not a "real" airline - as has been remarked before, the question of not having its own AOC is a purely regulatory matter which 99% of the public (his customers) do not know about and anyway would not care about even if they did. According to the definition in my Oxford English Dictionary, Alpha1 is an airline.

It seems that the consensus has settled on wishing Martin well - as I do in the warmest terms. My intuition is that Alpha1 is exploiting an interesting niche, and if run well (as I am confident Martin can do) I believe it will succeed. Good luck.

[The SSK]

I am pleased to see that the level of vitriol against Martin Halstead has finally died down.

I didn't notice any vitriol, or envy, or bitterness, just a number of well-reasoned arguments by people who are probably in a position to hold a valid viewpoint.

On the contrary, it's Mr Halstead's supporters who seem to be getting their knickers in a twist over this one, slinging mud at anyone who dares to voice a contrary opinion.

Anyway, time will tell.

[Honiley]

Thank you desk jockey - at last!

Reasoned opinions based on experience and knowledge from members of the industry who KNOW it will not work...the anger is been vented by people who clearly haven't a clue! He should enjoy the attention whilst it lasts....

[jabird]

Honiley,

To quote just one of the many posts which made me think there were lots of green eyes on the forum:

"Fair enough. Anyway more important things to worry about without giving this company free advertising."

"Reasoned opinions based on experience and knowledge from members of the industry who KNOW it will not work"

And no doubt many said Easyjet or Ryanair wouldn't work, or that people wouldn't want to pay £4 for a sandwich and fly to Haugesund for £1.

Then again, many here have said EU Jet wouldn't work, and the jury is still out. The naysayers have been proven so far to be right about now, Freshaer, Flywho etc.

Perhaps if anyone came back and said "I told you Easyjet and Ryanair WOULD work, but that x,y and z who are no longer with us would not", then it would add more weight than the "I've got xx years of industry experience, and I know it won't work" line.

Experts can and often do get it wrong.

I for one hope it does work, but I don't yet know enough about the venture to give a real opinion. However, if it doesn't, then Mr Halstead will at least have proven he has a great ability in the PR department - a service which numerous other transport companies could no doubt make great use of.

Also, what will have been lost? He isn't flying his own planes, and he isn't promising holidays to Florida which he can't deliver. Nor is he likely to be taking huge fortunes of people in plane tickets which they will never get to use.

And if this operation doesn't work in its current form, who's to say that something else won't be able to take its place. We should all be supporting regional airports for the range of services they provide, and for their ability to take people off the congested roads.

Now how people get from Oxford City centre to Kidlington during the rush hour is going to be an interesting one. Martin, you're only 18, any chance of offering a rickshaw service?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

He's probably doing it so that he has something very impressive to put on his cadetship application form and to talk about at interview. Which is a very cany angle to take.

Cheers

WWW

[Masser]

For those of you winging and being negative its simply jealousy. You simply wish that at his age you had had the balls and determination to do the same. If this was the US every comment here would be a pat on the back and good luck to you. Lets all be typically British and knock him down before he starts eh.

Go for it Martin and I hope you get all the free advertising that you can !

Mass

[Honiley]

For those of you winging and being negative its simply jealousy.

And another one.....

Thats correct. We are really green with envy that he's started a ticketing agency!

I

You simply wish that at his age you had had the balls and determination to do the same.

When I was 19, I was undergoing basic training in the RAF - 2 years later sat in the RHS of a Vulcan.....i'll show him balls!!!!!!