Neill McNeill's Blog

Last Saturday’s cancelled Skybus flight due to pilot illness brought back some memories for me. Not many things are more frustrating than paying for travel you can’t make due to something you can’t control.

Such was the case last weekend when 52 passengers arrived at the Piedmont-Triad International Airport ready to board a flight to Hartford, Connecticut. (Skybus actually flies into Chicopee, MA about 32 miles or 41 minutes away from Hartford.). After walking up to the Skybus computer terminals, they learned their flight had been cancelled because one of the pilots called in sick.

Skybus offered them a couple of options: fly to the Boston area Saturday night (Skybus flies into Portsmouth, NH about 44 miles or 50 minutes away from Boston.) or wait for another flight to Chicopee on Sunday. At lease four passengers pooled resources, rented a car, and took a Southwest flight out of Raleigh-Durham direct into Hartford. It cost each passenger about $450.00.

Skybus spokesman Bob Tennebaum told us, “it's very unfortunate, a terrible inconvenience for people.” (But)   "There's not much you can do if somebody gets ill."

Welcome to the world and risks of booking flights on startup, low-fare airlines.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, my family and I decided to book three $99.00 tickets to Orlando from PTI aboard a relatively new low-fare, few-thrills airline called AirTran. The trip to Orlando was okay. The Boeing 737, however, must have been 35+ years old. The toilet hardly worked (it also smelled), and several of the seats were broken and taped down with duct tape. But we made it safely.

The trip back was a different story. After arriving at the Orlando airport for the return trip to Greensboro, we learned maintenance problems had grounded two or three of AirTran’s very limited number of planes. Needless to say, our flight was delayed. For the next 15 hours, my family camped out in the Orlando terminal. We got back to Greensboro well after midnight and disgruntled knowing we could have rented a car and driven back to North Carolina in less time.

Passengers need to be aware of the limitations facing a new startup airline. Give Skybus credit—it’s flying brand new aircraft and has a pool of well-qualified pilots. But it doesn’t have any spare aircraft or people to fly them. Because it’s still paying for those new planes, charging customers such low fares, paying high fuel costs, and because it’s a brand new company, it can’t afford them. If a pilot calls in sick or if snow closes one of its airports in the Northeast--- Greensboro passengers are going to feel it.

Skybus CEO Bill Diffenderffer told me during a recent “Newsmaker” interview his airline cancels only about three out of every 1000 flights. That’s an impressive number---especially if you have a staff of backup pilots, a fleet of backup aircraft, agreements with other airlines to put  passengers on other flights, and reservations agents on the other end of a 1-800 number to help the displaced passengers----all of which Skybus doesn’t have right now.

Diffenderffer is determined to make Skybus work in Greensboro and is confident it will. (So are a lot of people in this Piedmont-Triad given the incentives this area promised the company.) But like any brand new company, Skybus  and its passengers will have to face growing pains—especially this time of year when winter weather and the flu are so unpredictable.