Archive for the ‘AA’ Category:
Share a Private Jet to The Preakness Stakes
The most important series of equestrian events is right around the corner and Social Flights is busy filling seats on private aircraft from several locations in the US.
Private Jet traffic can get pretty busy and prices are at a premium. Commercial airlines cannot get you in and out in the same day and booking a hotel can be a nightmare.
When you share a private jet into this event with people who you know from the same town, you enjoy a first class experience with people with whom you can share a lifelong memory. Let Social Flights be your source of air transportation service for The Preakness Stakes.
via Preakness Stakes – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Preakness Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a Grade I race run over a distance of 9.5 furlongs on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds (57 kg); fillies 121 lb (55 kg). It is the second leg of the US Triple Crown, with the Kentucky Derby preceding it and the Belmont Stakes following it. The horse must win all three races to win the Triple Crown.
The Preakness Stakes has been termed “The Run for the Black-Eyed Susans” because a blanket of Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta, the state flower of Maryland) is traditionally placed around the winner’s neck. The attendance at the Preakness Stakes ranks second in North America and usually surpasses the attendance of all other stakes races including the Belmont Stakes, the Breeders’ Cup and the Kentucky Oaks. The attendance of the Preakness Stakes typically only trails the Kentucky Derby, for more information see American Thoroughbred Racing top Attended Events.
Visit social flights to get an instant quote under “Create a Flight” option. Then we’ll notify you as others join your itinerary. The best time to start is now. Invite your family, friends, and colleagues for an exceptional experience at an most exceptional event.
Is There An Alternative To Commercial Airlines?
In Japan and Europe, high speed rail often competes with air travel for short distance routes. While it may take 3-4 hours door-to-door to travel 300 miles in an aircraft, the high-speed train can cover the same door-to-door distance in more comfort, the same time, and for less money. An automobile may need 6 hours to complete the same journey at a similar cost of ownership.
What many peoples fail to realize is the possibility that a community can operate their own airline. This alternative is being pioneered by Social Flights. The regionalization of air service is a new concept that allows communities to own and operate one or more aircraft maintaining control over the schedules and locations where the aircraft flies.
In the United States, a rift continues to grow between available air service and reasonable alternatives to air service. This creates a substantial burden on families; but it also creates a compound burden on the economy upon which those families depend for their livelihood. If corporate travel is constrained, the economy as a whole is constrained.
From this article in the NY Times:
Consider the new realities of air travel. Competition is decreasing, fares are rising and airlines are adjusting routes (and charging extra fees) in ruthless calculations to extract the greatest possible revenue per mile flown.
Many airlines will continue shrinking overall capacity and trimming domestic routes in 2012, and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, will merely exacerbate the situation. In 2012, American will “ground some planes and resize our network,” the company’s chief executive, Thomas W. Horton, recently told employees.
In addition, John P. Heimlich, the chief economist of the trade group Airlines for America, said, “Capacity reduction is one of the steps the industry is taking to preserve profitability.”
Several articles are now popping up comparing the alternatives that are available. An overnight Amtrak in a cozy sleeper car can cost the same for some routes as the aircraft - unfortunately, Amtrak is not universally connected to very many routes. High speed rail is still on the drawing boards but still many years away with fewer stops and likely connecting major hubs anyway. The other alternative is to simply drive; with the ground travel and delays incurred t hub airports, a commercial flight less than 750 miles can have an door-to-door average speed of around 70 miles per hour.
Michael Boyd, the president of the consulting company Boyd Group International, sums up the phenomenon succinctly. “The cost of flying airplanes across the sky has eclipsed the ability to support it at many communities,” he said in a recent forecast. In 2012, he predicts, airlines will accelerate the mothballing of smaller 50-seat jets, the workhorses for connecting service between many midsize airports, and even some big ones.
Social Flights can provide the knowledge, expertise, personnel, certification, and equipment to maintain and operate an aircraft fleet, as well as the social media backbone that allows people to self-organize around the aircraft asset.
As such, the community can create direct flights bypassing hubs, they can schedule flights for their corporations and shuttle their executives to new business markets for a price that is hugely favorable to any existing alternative; which is often nothing.
Another Travel Tax Clips 4M Wings
Few people take into account the social value of air transportation. There are very few studies that can measure the impact on a community when they are immobilized due to lack of a service that had previously been available. There is no true economic category to describe such loss except as a tax on travel.
A regressive tax is taxation that takes a larger percentage from low-income people than from high-income people. A regressive tax is generally a tax that is applied uniformly. This means that it hits lower-income individuals harder. Social Flights can restore this value with a regionalized public jet charter system.
Now we can add “Travel” to the list
Sales taxes that apply to essentials are generally considered to be regressive as well because expenses for food, clothing and shelter tend to make up a higher percentage of a lower income consumer’s overall budget. In this case, even though the tax may be uniform (such as 7% sales tax), lower income consumers are more affected by it because they are less able to afford it.
<via American Eagle to park planes, reduce service – Dallas Business Journal>
The small city gets the regressive travel tax
American Eagle announced that they would reduce frequency in a few select markets, they would discontinued seasonal service from D/FW to Augusta, Ga. Eagle would also discontinued service from Chicago to Tri-Cities, Tenn as well as discontinued service between Miami and Savanna, Ga., and Miami and Fort Myers, Florida. American Eagle would also hasten the cancellation of Los Angeles-Boise, Chicago-Calgary and D/FW-Fayetteville, N.C., service from Feb. 9 to Jan. 31.
So how many people would these reduction in service decisions impact? If we just add up the populations of the smaller metropolitan area in each city pair, we can estimate economic loss of opportunity under the assumption that the larger city would have alternate options. Fair enough?
Augusta, GA: 556,877
Tri Cities, TN: 500,538
Savanna, GA: 347,611
Ft Meyers, Fl: 618,754
Boise, Id: 616,500
Calgary: 1,230,248
Fayetteville, NC: 366,383
The Creeping Costs
The total is at least 4 million who will lose one more degree of economic freedom. 4 million people will pay a regressive tax denominated in time, money, and dignity in some form or another for the benefit of stockholders in American Eagle. 4 million people will lose the economic benefit of travelers from large cities.
On closer inspection, with the exception of Calgary and Boise, all of these cities are well within 1000 miles of each other. Each of these cities is well within 1000 miles of cities just as large as those that American Eagle is diminishing service.
While a hub and spoke model may break down economically, a regionalization strategy may work quite well. It has been proven that people are willing to pay a premium for direct service (otherwise the airlines would not be dropping less profitable indirect service). It is also obvious that people place a premium on their time and hassle as demonstrated by trends in online shopping, communication, and social organization.
These ingredients simple add up to a regionalization air transportation route structure enabled by online social organization tools such as Social Flights where community airlines can form around community priorities. Social Flights can restore this value with a regionalized public jet charter system.