Ok. I muss admit that I have zero IFR competency but as far as I understand the airport site with respect of this discussion I'm not sure a commercial operator could just pick up any crew and perform IFR service to/from Sion simply with the guys/gals claiming to have been self briefed.

Thanks for the clarification. A fair point.

Tickets should have been available on 6th June. Now saying 13th June.

13th June. Tickets on sale now!

Operating with an Embraer 170 with 76Y or 190 with 106Y. No mention of the operator thus far.... which they should be publishing. They're using POW as thier IATA designator even though it doesn't officially exist.

Powdair suggest one E170 although looking at the timetable they will surely require 2 planes as departures leave almost simultaneously from different airports?!

All of the info I can see is indicating they will be operating under their own AOC or that of an ACMI operator, looking at the timeline ie first flight in December then their is plenty of time for them to get their house in order, as I'm sure they already have...

I do struggle sometimes why this information has to be so public to satisfy media / spectators needs - being a regular visitor to Sion all of the talk is its a 2 ship operation.

Calm down and stop being so pessimistic....

FlightMode - clearly you must be Swiss driver or crew.... bit of local competition never hurt anyone..

They present somewhere near zero threat to Swiss. I'm sure Swiss will welcome someone else validating the Sion market. :}

poor Sion wont know whats hit them...... 0 to 50,000+ pax in first season.... but its very little new traffic i'd say - just existing traffic that will breathe a sigh of relief at not doing the transfer.... no worries re the market being strong enough and as Swiss are only doing the Saturday from LHR for Jan & Feb currently its not likely to be anything but good news for the region.. blue skies!

Powdair / Sion
 

Powdair is very doubtful:

In the booking matrix POW plus a flight number is shown; but POW belongs to another company. Powdair claims to be an Airline but there is no AOC and no airplanes. You may book flights (and pay...) but you will not find a company address or a phone number or a VAT identifikation number on the whole webpage, no impressum. Where is the money going? Beginning of March they claimed to switch from a F100 to an A319 "due to high demand" and today the possible airplane presented, is an E170? Do you dare to book tickets?

TO53

nothing like a bit of scaremongering is there.... there is no way in the world WorldTicket who are the reservations host would allow powdair to have any of the money from bookings, the airline industry does not work like that.. the acquiring banks or psp would certainly without fail have a retention on any new start up.

As a Sion regular I can assure you there is more than sufficient confidence here in the Valais that the airline is bona-fida and will be launching with E170.

Im intrigued as to how you think airlines start in the beginning... maybe you think all airlines start with a whole fleet from day 1 and that there is a law that says you must declare all business information in advance to anyone and everyone.... to me I think they are being quite clever and ensuring they have a chance of survival especially in such a difficult market. niche airlines only have the advantage until a competitor rocks up!

If Powdair won't get any ticket revenue until flights operate, who is providing the company's working capital ?
It must be someone with rather deep pockets and a willingness to take on some big risks !

To me, the truth lies somewhere between the views expressed by Takeoff53 and Jetscream 32.

I do think though, given the scale of their ambition, they would surely have rock solid ACMI arrangements in place by now. Isn't flying people the core of their business? And is the ACMI operator willing to share the risk in this venture - no need to answer that. So as davidjohnson6 points out they must have access to considerable funds. Perhaps they have.

I don't know that much about the wet lease market, but I hope someone can help give some info.

Powdair presumably have an ACMI operator lined up by now - either with contracts signed or they are close to signing. I'm guessing the contract will have different levels of penalties to be paid by either side in the event that they wish to break - cancel the contract 6 months in advance and the pain is not too bad but cancel a month in advance and the monetary loss is large.

Of course everything is negotiable but at what point would Powdair have to make a go/no-go decision on this venture without losing all the money to charter the aircraft ? I'm wondering whay happens if ticket sales are lousy and whether Powdair can cancel maybe in October without too much financial pain

And there you may have hit a nail squarely on the head. Until they sign contracts what penalties are there?

Some insight into Powdair in todays Indie

Dublin-based Powdair raising €4.5m for its ski season takeoff - Independent.ie

So they haven't actually yet raised the cash they need to run the flights ?

Hmm to be honest it doesn't sound good. And they will need a lot more than 4mn to pull this one off IMHO (assuming they keep their clients funds segregated until such time they would fly).

The more I hear about this venture the more doubts I have... Wish them well but I will definitely not give them my CC anytime soon.

Ok, so I just read the article as well - doing a fund raise for their own AOC is entirely different to being just a virtual / ticket agent on contract for a specific aircraft. And the article is saying just that... they are doing a fund raise... they are not saying they HAVE to do a fund raise in order to achieve anything, they are saying they are fundraising to control their own destiny by the sounds of things.

By all accounts from the rumour mill in Valais is that powdair have been given the run around by a certain Swiss operator who offered to fly for them and by the sounds of things will not have actual aircraft they promised in time... which is a bit naughty! I'm sure they never set out on that basis - but by the sound sof things another operator is already in the breech ready and willing to supply, but I get the impression they are taking matters into their own hands to secure the investment they have already put in in order to be able to operate themselves.

Also to be clear I for one know one of the directors at WT and he assured me, not a penny is released to pw until the ticket has flown, so I really dont thinks is a major worry.

Starting an airline trying to start in this business and being under this much scrutiny is never easy - he says looking a departure board in a terminal with delayed and cancelled all over it for some reason!

I don't think the fund raising is exclusively for the AOC “project” but also to start operations in general. It’s fair to say that any potential investors (and the operator) will want to see some hard demand numbers and not the echo chamber market research PowerPoints. I suspect that’s why the booking system is up and running now to do just that. Some people here may not like it, but it’s SOP for start-ups to sell things they don’t actually have in order to gauge demand and build investor confidence.

atakacs True, but funding will be staggered in rounds, round 1 being the 4 mil.

JS32 Yep, You heard it in the mountains, I heard the same down in the city

4.5 million may make me salivate, but it's peanuts in aviation business terms. If they prove credible people with a sound business plan, and ticket sales are strong, raising that sort of finance should be easy enough.