Skybus flew its first flight today. From Columbus to Burbank.
I dunno. Maybe I’m just getting too old and set in my ways, or maybe I just know better. But this whole concept does absolutely nothing for me — either from a passenger perspective, or a potential investor perspective. And certainly not from the perspective of what more low fare capacity is going to do for the current domestic RASM situation in the U.S.
Oh, and if you want to become a flight attendant with Skybus, be aware that you will be paid $9/hr. or roughly $16,000 a year, but you will make 10% in commissions off the “products” you sell in the cabin.
Or as Mark Tatge describes the set-up today in Forbes, “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet,,”
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch–especially on Skybus Airlines, a carrier starting service in late May. Sure, you can get a $10 fare to travel one way from Columbus, Ohio to such cities as Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale and Boston.
But you’ll pay in peace and quiet. Skybus flight attendants will be hawking not only food and water but also such sundries as suntan lotion and jewelry to an extremely captive market. And the attendants will have incentives aplenty to tap you on the shoulder. Paid only $9 an hour, or $16,000 a year, they’ll get a 10% commission on any merchandise sold in this flying souk. (Pilots, paid $75,000, don’t get a cut, but we can only imagine the infomercial-like announcements.)
‘If the flight attendants could sell real estate onboard, we would do it,’ jokes Skybus Chief Executive William Diffenderffer, 56, who says the list of items for sale is going to get longer.”
Rah rah. Power on boys.
Think I’ll pass.