One aircraft to date and three more in October,November.

Wasn't aware the Mustang was a heavily depreciating asset,quite the opposite at the moment I would have thought with so many on order,or have I misunderstood you Phil.

Highflight,

Let's see in a few years, obviously with it being a new aircraft no-one really knows. But traditionally brand new aircraft depreciate more in the first 5 years than 10 year old aircraft.

Phil

So what's going to happen to the other 42 aircraft on order then?
Sounds to me that there is not much substance to the business plan.

Flynow,

I think the one thing that Blink does have is a plan. It just remains to be seen if the market research reflects what actually happens at the booking stage. The main question most people have is over the volume of the business and the competitiveness(sp) of the Mustang over other aircraft already in the market.

Just because the plan hasn't been splashed all over here doesn't mean there isn't one.

Phil

Disn't suggest that they didn't have a BP, just that it seems to based on a hugely optimistic uptake, and not really in tune with the current economic climate. All the economic indicators have been there for a while, such as the housing market, rising fuel prices, Northern Rock etc...

If they can't make it work with a smaller fleet, with less uptake, then I would suggest they are heading for a fall.

C510s currently making $250k over list, if Blink have deposited these aircraft individually then thats 6 million quid (assuming it carrys on that way) to take the commercial pressure away. Mustang doesn't really have a EU rival price wise so despite northern rock + house prices its still the only business jet to buy for the price that does what it says on the side of the tin. Eclipse I believe has made progress towards being able to fly in clouds buts its still not fully certified and a congressman has apparently taken it on himself to pursue Eclipse and the FAA and the test pilots for FAA certifying it in the first place......:ooh:

The alternative being an out of warranty Bravo or CJ, ultimately more capable and faster but slightly rich people would tend to buy new and put up with its shortcomings and lower running costs.

G-SPOT,

You're talking from an owner perspective, not a charter client perspective. The million dollar question is, would the charter clients rather pay for a CJ at CJ market rate, or a Mustang at Mustang market rate. The answer is obviously some for the CJ, some for the Mustang.

The thing I don't get is how Blink can possibly hope to make money at the rates published on the website. Anyone can sell a tenners worth of fivers, but can you make money doing so....or have I missed the Blink trick on this one.

Sorry Phil should have been clearer

Really trying to make the point about the mustang being good news from a outright sales point of view and far from a depreciating asset. Should Blink decide to scale down the business plan and say take one in 2 and sell the other then we will never know about it on here (if they have any sense), outwardly it will look as though they are experiencing delivery delays or indeed (less likely) delaying takeup. As the whole business plan (DayJet, Blink and other VLJ startups) is based on upbeat bull**** I doubt very much they would admit to scaling back at all.

The point being is that should they decide to scale things back by quietly selling 1/2 their options they have a £3mill cushion with which to see them through the next 2/3 years at least before the city investors start to squirm from cheek to cheek.

If Blink as is, was Blink as was 3 years ago, I think it would have been a resounding success, but I thinks its going to be just too hard for them to reach a sort of critical mass for them to get a foothold on the market they and others are looking to break into.

As you know the market moves fast and I would have given them better odds back in March when this thread started than what I would give them now.

Just means you'll need to keep Barnesy flying on for another three years before laying him out to pasture........

G-SPOT,

I agree that a position is itself an asset, but stops being an asset upon delivery, at that point it becomes an encumbered loss to the balance sheet, as do all aircraft, but more so new aircraft.

I don't get the way the model works, but will happilly copy it if it does, and with the experience I have in my boardroom I think we'd do a pretty good job of playing with other peoples money.

Phil

Phil,

Who knows where the industry will be in another two or three years,however that said the one aircraft is booked up with flights and customer reactions have been positive.

Very reliable so far with nothing having grounded it thus far and three more due for delivery towards the end of the year.

Highflight,

I would be deeply concerned if it wasn't booked up if the prices on the website are any more than marketing puff.

Is the aircraft taking more money than it's ROCE and direct operating costs, obviously one aircraft isn't going to fund the whole operation, but it should make a decent contribution to cover depreciation, crew traing and overheads.

Phil

How is the company that is supposed to change the world doing are they finally start to realise that they are reinventing the wheel? :confused:

"The first three months have been great, the aircraft has been flying around 12h a day with quick turnarounds" says Blink co-founder and managing director Peter Leiman. "

Full article here

Blink expands with three more Cessna Citation Mustangs

It's funny, given the amount of sightings of the aircraft on the ground at base, and the lack of any photo's of it flying anywhere apart from EBACE on any of the "spotters sites", they have done incredibly well to get so many hours utilisation. I assume that a publication such as Flight Global would check that the figures are correct, and not simply marketing spin before they published?:=

Phil:E

Hmmmm, highly unlikely that anyone would achieve that level of utilization on a small jet. If he said 12 hours a week, that would be nearer the truth I would guess. As for Flight Global publishing these quotes ; they are only quoting what they have been told, but I guess it does mean that you can take any "facts" like this with a pinch of salt.

I would also point out that anyone can sell a handful of fivers for a quid which is what seems to be happening. Perhaps their USP is selling below operating cost?

Flynow,

We were privvy to 16 different quotes from Blink that represented a typical week on our CJ's.

By the time we had added on the Landing / Handling fees the total price for the 16 flights was £119,000. The same routes on our CJ's would be £107,000 at normal pricing - less to brokers. Some routes were cheaper, but bizarrely the ones that an operator should want less.

Apart from the small percentage of clients that insist on a New airframe, there is nothing different to the current CJ market apart from excluded landing fees and a smaller cabin, payload.

It's all marketing spin, both the fundraising hype and the client facing stuff. We have had a few clients approached by them and as far as I know not lost one yet.

Phil

Phil,

You really are a miserable old bugger:* aren't you and are obviously not going to be happy until you see this company bite the dust.

Instead of spending so much time on PPRune(in itself rather worrying given the present economic climate)pontificating how Blink are managing to attract business and how it must be all smoke and mirrors, why don't you pick up the phone and give Mr Peter Leiman a ring,having met him several times you will find him a very personable chap. As far as I'm aware the company has no need to go poaching other operators clients,they have enough of their own,certainly enough to keep the one aircraft busy for the time being. I think you will find that the aircraft aren't flying 12 hours a day,more likely 6 occasionally 8 and further afield than you might have thought but that they are flying many days in the month with few positionong sectors.

Am I to believe you have a secret army of aircraft spotters and photographers touring the UK trying to discover whose aircraft are sitting on the ground and whose are flying(funny way to run a business).Why can't you just concentrate on growing your operation and be a liitle graceful to these two young men who have had the courage and determination to start a new company in a notoriously difficult industry and thereby provide employment to 14 pilots. Your ongoing sly digs do you and your company no credit whatsoever.

For what it's worth I've now been fortunate enough to fly both the Mustang and CJ1, cabin wise there isn't a lot to seperate both aircraft after all once your in your seat, you generally remain seated as you would if you were being conveyed around in a car. Cockpit wise the Mustang seems to be a bit roomier because of its lack of centre consul although in truth it must be smaller than the CJ1 cockpit. Having been spoilt by the Mustang I found the CJ1 cockpit an ergonomic nightmare,you can laugh at the Garmin avionics if you choose but they do the job very well with TCAS II soon to be introduced and a software upgrade giving an artificial terrain view on the pilot's PFDs, all very advanced for a simple little aircraft. I know that given the choice the aircraft I would prefer to fly.

PS It's not my company just fed up with all the negative attitude on PPRune. Your not all former bankers or short sellers are you? You really are a joyless bunch,thank god I don't work for you. Go and talk to Mr Brown I hear he is in need of someone to cheer him up,seems he is having a little problem with the economy.

12hrs a day?!

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...To_Believe.jpg

That's completely nuts - even with the mustangs lack of speed that's not a consistantly achieveable figure to achieve. 1.2hrs perhaps?

I'm with Phil in that besides a new aircraft (and even then it's not like there aren't enough young CJ's on the market in Europe) I really can't see any advantage to the mustang. And his own fleet is run off it's feet - can't get a CJ for love nor money out of Bristol ;-).

LOL :ok:

12 hours per day.... even on a training aircraft we would not manage that :\ Must be a typo!

Highflight

Whatever your thoughts on Phils personal outlook on life......

will you YES or NO put your name to the 12hr per day claim made by your company....

A simple answer for a simple question please

The cynic in me smells a cleverly worded press release. 12 hours a day across the whole fleet, not per aircraft?

Highflight.

There are few enough investors in this area of Industry. If they are duped into investing in puff and spin it gives the industry a reputation of high risk. As a pilot you condone this sort of practice in an arena that you should be looking for stability given the number of airlines throwing pilots back in the pool?

Go to Google, put in any aircraft registration and in 1 minute you have a good idea of what it has been doing, you hardly need a team of spotters.

Best of luck to these guys, but lets play with a straight bat shall we and not publish PR figures and grandiose statements that simply are not true in an effort to back up their claims that there is anything new about Blink, it's simply another entry level jet start-up.

Phil

Bfato - to date they only have one aircraft in revenue-making service. If you can call it that...

Correct me if i'm wrong - but the last I heard was that they weren't selling to brokers. By not doing this surely your missing out on a large chunk of market and at least getting your aircraft out there more? Oh wait, 12hrs utilisation a day...obviously don't need it.

Blink are quoting to brokers but interestingly excluding landing fees......unless they are pushed and they lump on an indiscriminate amount.

I can't be bothered to go back through the threads, but I am sure that Blink were planning to have around 20 A/C on line by now......they have one....which DOESN'T operate 12 hours a day and when it does fly has been sold cheaper than a piston twin. And what's this quoting without landing fees? - What is the end user to go the airport office and pay this himself then?

Many of us have been in the business for long enough to know a dead duck when we see one. This one is quacking, has webbed feet, and a bill.....yeap it's a duck, and it won't quack for long.

These rather splendid young men have managed to get rather a lot of other peoples money to fund a business plan that was always destined to fail. It's people like this, and their irresponsible investors that have caused such a financial mess around the globe. It also detracts financial investors from investing in more sound operations within our industry.

Highflight, why do you feel it necessary to gush at their awesome business plan and incredible market vision when in reality they only way they will fly is at a loss. We could all do that without wasting other peoples money. Yes they have employed pilots, who no doubt funded their own training, and will soon be in the queue behind the XL pilots.

At least the economic slump should wash away some of these dreamers.

FNPL

Flynow,

I think the delivery schedule is as planned, their "revolutionary" pricing is a simple future differential model as per Herb Kelleher et al. It's just a dumbed down version of what any decent commercial team do, it needs some tweaking to better reflect the relationship between fixed and variable costs, but at the moment they are too cheap on less desirable flying and too expensive on more desirable routes that afford a greater chance of backhaul opportunities. With the current model think they will be lucky to get more than 450 hours per airframe.

Don't forget they are a startup and therefore have to bed in and find the niche that they want to work in and adjust their pricing policy accordingly. Everything reaches it's equilibrium and Blink's pricing will soon be inline with everyone else as their understanding of the various market sectors grow. The problems will come if they don't adapt to a more market / cost base approach. Given the dynamism and size of the operation I'd be surpised if they don't catch on pretty quickly, it shouldn't take long before they realise that they are mimics as opposed to innovators and stop insulting the already profficient operators with their PR bluff.

Phil

The company paid for the type ratings. New aeroplanes generally come with the cost of these included.

The body of negative comments being thrown around here astounds me, why in this industry nowadays have we become such a bunch of whining guys who like nothing better than to complain about the job market and how nothing is being done to help the pilots out there but at the same time bash a company looking to eventually offer hundreds of jobs. My view is that they have the correct market, with an average of just over 2 pax on a corporate jet and a sector time of between 1 -1.5 hours then the Mustang makes perfect sense, it is a much cheaper airframe to purchase and the running cost are cheaper then the other aircraft available. Just lay off the company, stop trying to shoot them before anything has even gone wrong, I will gladly hold my hands up and say I was wrong if it doesn't work out but until that time (if ever) please stop this bitching and whining which has turned PPrune from a credible source to a forum for tired pilots to moan. This was to nobody in particular, just give the start up a chance, I for one wish Blink all the best in this industry:ok:

Dingbat,

If Blink have the right to publish such rubbish, don't you think we have the right to challenge it?

Phil

That is not the point I was trying to make, that was only included in the last few posts. The point I am trying to make is that ever since this thread started people have been bashing the company, before it even started operating in many cases. A company has to start somewhere remember and it helps nobody's case to bash it straight away before its even had a chance to get it's footing.

Never saw Phil Brockwell doing such a thing.

If so, it will work. Allright by me. Still I have a naggin doubt, WHENEVER I see a company more or less "saying we reinvented the wheel".

There are a lot of outfits fishing in the same sea and unless the amount of passengers wishing to fly airtaxi does not rise significantly, than the hundreds of jobs will be created on one side but also be slashed on the other.

We have seen a great uprise in air charter and fleet, but I predict it wont last.

Altought as a pilot I really want it to last...

Dingbat

Yes quite right we should wish them well and I do. I think Phil has a point though as do you. They have a credibility issue though, they are making wild claims which fly in the face of the current market/financial climate/common sense.

Its difficult to wish them well when they come out with this BS

Just for the record I do wish them all the very best, me - I'm still waiting to see how they pan out, will they start selling undelivered airframes and perhaps more importantly will I get a straightforward answer to the 12 hour utilisation question I politely posed to highflight a few days ago.

12 hour days in a citation... the bloody thing would fall to pieces. :rolleyes:

If cadburys bring out a new chocolate bar, who is the innovator, Cadbury's, the sweet shop or the guy that eats one?

To be fair, I haven't seen anyone questioning JetBirds plans which seem pretty balanced and in comparison target reasonable utilisation with honesty.

There is a difference between wishing someones downfall and simply predicting it. Personally I think that Blink will do OK, but will change it's speed of expansion and price structure as we all do with the ebb and flow of demand, we're all the same really - and that's the bugbear, it's not a new industry, just a new aircraft.

Phil

But the whole business plan and huge front loaded investment is based upon the pile em high and sell em cheap model. They are achieving the latter, but clearly the uptake isn't what was expected, or they wouldn't feel the need to make such inaccurate quotes in the industry press.

Dingbat - it is unlikely that people will come on this forum to congratulate each other. That's what the BACA's for. We are all expressing our opinions. A lot of those opinions are based upon many years in the industry. If I wanted to blindly support something just because it looks good, I'll support Spurs!:ugh:

On the Blink issue though, basically I believe the concept is flawed because they seem to think that the only competition is Net Jets and Air Partner (Gold Air). The fact is that they are effectively going to have to scrap it out with the many independent biz jet and air taxi operators out there, all of whom have their own established customer base, including brokers, who in turn have their customer base.

I just can't see that they will achieve the market share they require, or indeed generate enough extra business, currently not in the charter market to make it work.

With only one type, they cannot offer customer A, (who last week had 2 pax to GVA, but now has 6 to NCE). any option. So customer retention / loyalty will be difficult.

FlyNow,

If I had blindly followed the same business plan I had 5 years ago I would still have a Caravan 1 sitting in my hangar costing me a fortune. Plans change and adapt as buying trends and the company's knowledge base changes.

Do I think that Blink can find profitable business for 35 Mustangs - No. If I'm proved right they can simply roll over the mustang options into a broader fleet and adjust the plans as required. If I'm proved wrong then I've just burnt the job offer Bridge.

No-one can blame anyone for coming up with a business plan and chasing it....but I think the PR machine is working outside ethical levels of spin which is getting peoples backs up.

Phil

flynowpaylater is right:
surely this is a one trick pony; the pony looks cute, and it does the trick just as you expect. The issue we all should debate is whether there are enough clients who are completely satisfied with that one trick.

The lesson from the industry over the longer term is that clients upgrade, migrate, and soon tire of one model. They want to go further, faster, longer, and one wonders whether Blink & co can keep enough of their clients satisfied long enough to reach breakeven (whenever that may be...!) before they tire of it.

If clients were satisfied by a one trick pony, wouldn't NetJets Europe be offering a one-type fleet today? Skyjet/VistaJet, AP, most operators, and all brokers offer clients choice across the range. In the end we all aspire to upgrade our cars, houses, class of travel, whatever, so how long before a new Mustang user today sees a CJ2 and dreams of all that space, then finds out that the price premium is negligible?

And won't the crew do the same...?

Dingbat2407,

Like you I despair of the attitude in this industry, I give up but thank my lucky stars I dont work for companies some of these people on here represent.

FlyNowPayLater,

What a miserable individual you are with a very weak grasp of the present economic situation.Thank god I'm unlikely to end up sitting with you in a cockpit assuming you actually fly for a living.
As regards aircraft deliveries no publication has ever mentioned 20 deliveries in 2008,you just need to be a little bit better read and not rely on dodgy publications for your info.

For my part and especially in light of all the negative comments on this site I wish Blink every success for a bright future.

Phil as I've said before if you spent less time on PPRune and Googling aircraft movements maybe you could be searching out that elusive finance that apparently Blink are extracting from these poor unfortunate investors. Maybe they simply put together an impressive business plan that attracted the necessary finance.

Highflight,

I didn't say we are looking for elusive finance, if we wanted to make the move from Saville Row to Burtons then we would have done so by now, the business plan is already written, we just haven't decided if we have an appetite for it, our current plan is profitable, risk averse and sustainable, plus it is very rewarding to deliver a good product. I'm not sure any of us would be happier if we were much bigger or much more profitable- maybe when the time is right. it's much less PR freindly, but it does keep jobs safe and staff fulfilled and the clients seem to be quite happy too.

Thanks for your business tips on time management....most instructive,

Phil

Highflight, try reading all of my post, and not just the bits that upset you the most!

Like most flight crew, you assume that anyone with an informed opinion in aviation is obviously a pilot.......And we all know that to assume makes an ASS of U and ME. I come at from how good the P&L sheet looks, not how shiny the jet is.

As I said in the previous post, I couldn't be bothered to look back through the myriad of posts on this thread, and therefore by definition the figure of 20 A/C was a guess, and totally unsubstantiated. The fact remains though that the whole thing is very optimistic, and is unlikely to succeed unless, as Phil rightly points out, they adjust their business plan to be more in line with the industry. That may prove difficult given the amount of money and exposure they have already committed to.

I'm a very jovial individual, and have a good grasp on the present economic situation. It's easy to spend other peoples money, not so easy to have to give your investors the return on investment you promised them.

Phil,

Time to call a halt to all my comments on this subject, I realise I'm begining to sound like an American evangelist:O

Suffice to say that I wish anybody and everybody and that includes you and your company Phil( I do know something of your company as I'm friends with one of your more than satisfied pilots), the very best of luck in the present difficult economic situation. Anybody who has had the guts to develop a company and thus provide jobs for the likes of me,a simple line pilot deserves my thanks and continued success.

Here endeth my rantings.

Highflight 420

A graceful bow indeed HighFlight. Been fun bantering. For the record, I hope that Blink do well, just think they won't.

As a pilot you hopefully you will enjoy doing the flying, and getting to play with these rather expensive toys. Good luck to you.