Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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“We’re trying to stimulate the demand for air travel,” Hodge said of Skybus. “We’re trying to get price of air travel so low that people will decide to take trips they otherwise would not have been taken.”
Skybus offers nonstop flights to cities throughout the United States for as little as $10. The CFO told his attentive audience at the 59th Annual Thomasville Area Chamber of Commerce Meeting, held at Thomasville Furniture Industries banquet room, that the discount airline did a variety of things in order to keep its fares low.
“We maximize the utilization of our aircraft,” Hodge said. “Our planes are in the air almost 14 hours out of every single day. That is, by a long shot, the highest aircraft utilization in the industry.”
The airplanes Skybus uses are not cheap — they cost $35 million. But they are new and fuel efficient — a factor that Hodge said will help Skybus keep its costs low.
“Our planes are brand new, and their fuel efficiency gives them the lowest cost to operate in the industry,” Hodge said. “A lot of airlines are using 25-year-old gas guzzlers. With oil at $95 a barrel, this will be very expensive for them.”
Hodge, a graduate of Princeton with an MBA from Harvard, also feels Skybus is saving money by using smaller, secondary airports. For example, the airline flies into Gary, Ind., rather than Chicago and Wilmington, Del., for its Philadelphia flights.
“Other than Piedmont Triad, which happens to be a regional airport, most of our planes fly to smaller airports,” Hodge said. “It’s less expensive to fly out of smaller airports, and it also enables us to turn our planes around faster.”
Being a no-frills airline keeps the basic cost of flying on Skybus down, Hodge pointed out.
“If you want to get from Point A to Point B, you can do so the least expensive way possible,” he said. “If you want other services, we’re not going to impose that cost on the guy sitting next to you.”
That means meals are only served to Skybus passengers who choose to pay for them. Skybus charges $5 for the first two pieces of luggage and more than that for a third piece.
Business and political leaders were excited when Skybus chose to set up a hub at PTIA.
“I think that’s quite an asset to the Piedmont Triad,” Thomasville Mayor Joe Bennett said of the arrival of Skybus. “It’s going to open up the potential of many folks who want to travel in the area and create revenue and commerce for us.”
Stamey Hardin, the chamber’s new chairman, said, “I think it’s fantastic,” of Skybus’s arrival. “It’s going to bring new jobs to the community.”
Hodge expected Skybus to hire an additional 400 employees to work out of PTIA. That’s not counting “partner employees,” such as those fueling the Skybus planes. More importantly, a successful presence of a low-cost airline could increase tourism and even attract industry to the Triad area. Needless to say, the company was heavily recruited with incentives from Triad leaders.
“We see this as a partnership with the region,” said Hodge, who noted that the state of North Carolina granted the company $3.5 million to set up shop at PTIA. “One of the great things about having nonstop service to the region is that it’s going to be a lot easier to get to the region.”
Staff Writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 230, or at reid@tvilletimes.com.