Idle Day in Bed

[zorbon]

So I was bed ridden most of yesterday with a nasty cold. Unable to get up I had to spend most of my time on my fairly old laptop, which means I couldn't do any work.

During my 15 hours of meh, I decided to check out how much it'd cost to start up an airline... (much to my surprise it's just a little more money than getting a dairy queen franchise  )

First off the plane, We've got a number of options out there that I could find on the net. Problem with a lot of planes I looked at where D checks were need, VIP mods, or the aircraft were being sold as-is in pretty much non working conditions.

Ilyushin-62m $700,000
3 Yak-40 + 2years of "resources" $600,000 or $90,000 a plane with contract.
BAE-146-300 $1.8 Million
737-200 $1.75 Million
737-200 $500,000 Needs A-D checks though

I"m going to rule out the second boeing, Checks would end up pushing it's price into the multi-millions, beyond my fantasy budget.


Part #2, Routes & Storage Prices coming soon.
I live in Orlando, which is a pretty good tourist destination. We've got beaches near by, 4 or so major parks, and a bunch of other stuff as such. There are two major airports in the area, MCO, and Sanford. MCO has lots of pros, however it's a major airport. That means storage and rent would be expensive. Sanford's has even more major cons being that it's away from tourist areas, unknown, and serves very few flights. However it's pros are pretty good for my budget. (Cheap Storage, Great Maintenance Companies, and Top place for pilot training in FL.) Lets think about routes before we think about hangers slots and budgets.

My main focus for my area would be direct flights to affluent places who would travel to tourist destination such as Florida(in other words cold places coming to a warm place).   Using the cool map we can tell what we ought to do Orlando Sanford

Il-62m: Sadly this is the only Long Range aircraft on the list. (That I could find for under $9Million) Orlando could serve plenty of areas directly, but most are out of reach.

• MCO-Tokyo (Tech, Culture, Business, and Tourism Both ways. In the winter I have hard time finding flights to tokyo for under 1.5K)(Would just be at fuel limit)
• MCO-Madrid (Both heavy in spainish populations, Many Highschool International Trips in FL are to Spain
• MCO-Moscow (Growing Russian Population in Central Florida)
• MCO-Vancover (Only Major Canadian City not directly connected to FL, Lots of Snowbirds from up north.)
• MCO-Buenos Aires (Large Spainish Population, No direct flights)

For the smaller aircraft One would focus on Latin American Routes that are not direct, Caribbean routes.  Caracas, Port of Spain, Kingston, and Bermuda all come to mind. Honduras and Nicaragua are again possible major routes lacking direct service.

If I were to fly out of Sanford, I would focus on airfare to Porto Rico for the smaller aircraft, and forgo the IL-62.

Of course more research would actually be put into this. For $2,000 I can buy 2009 Pax Demand Mark Research from CRISIL Ltd. for $6,000 I can get their global edition.

Part #3 Rent and Regulations

[RushmoreAir]

Funny, I did the same thing a month ago.  I found the Yaks and the Ilyushin.  Don't you hate it how you have to call to get prices on most western airliners?

[zorbon]

Funny, I did the same thing a month ago.  I found the Yaks and the Ilyushin.  Don't you hate it how you have to call to get prices on most western airliners?

I didn't have a voice yesturday, so unless I wanted to sound like Steven Hawking, I couldn't get those prices

[swiftus27]

Downside is that I dont think the 732 can fly in the USA any more.  Is it quiet enough?

[zorbon]

Downside is that I dont think the 732 can fly in the USA any more.  Is it quiet enough?

As far as I know it's still flyable, Even so, they make hush kits for them, so i'm sure they could pass noise regulations

If i'm not mistaken I saw a 732 in MIA two or three years ago.

[RushmoreAir]

As far as I know it's still flyable, Even so, they make hush kits for them, so i'm sure they could pass noise regulations

If i'm not mistaken I saw a 732 in MIA two or three years ago.

Southwest flew them on Florida routes until 2002-2003 or so.

[zorbon]

Southwest flew them on Florida routes until 2002-2003 or so.

I know Airtran was using them uptil 2005, and they leased them out in 2006/2007...

And I'm pretty sure I've seen one in MIA in mid 2008. So i'm sure they're still around.

(I called in and don't have to go into work for another 3 hours, so part 2 coming up )

[zorbon]

Appended to OP