Bad news for Avantair

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Looks like they stood down all aircraft, and furloughed the staff. Thoughts are with you guys, and hoping the furlough doesn't last long.
 
No good, there is a big problem if they decided to do that. Either this is an exit plan of some sort...or there is a really major airframe issue.
 
From what I've heard, they grounded the fleet due to a possible issue with several elevators being installed upside down, and one aircraft lost one in flight. I hope they get everything inspected and back in service soon.
 
jesse said:
No good, there is a big problem if they decided to do that. Either this is an exit plan of some sort...or there is a really major airframe issue.
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The more I've learned about the P-180, the more I've become convinced that it is a terrible design from a number of different viewpoints. Southwest is very successful with the 737 because it is a very good airframe. While a fractional is not a major, there are much, much better options out there.

The P-180 does, however, have a phenomenal interior, and that combined with its relative economy make it attractive on the surface.
 
If you're selling a turboprop with cruise speed that rivals many jets, you're going to get some takers. Although I've never had a client follow through on a purchase of a full or fractional share of a P-180, many have inquired about them and a few have taken demo flights during the dog-and-pony tours that the companies sponsor from time to time.

The high purchase price has been a deterrent to most buyers, and the less-than-envious handling characteristics have resulted in quite a few instances where the grass along the side of the runways has been somewhat erratically mowed.

For a while I had reason to spend time at the regional service/repair center and became acquainted with some of the pilots whose airplanes were being repaired. Their cryptic description of the airplane's characteristics was typically a wry grin and "well, they're a little different."

Ted DuPuis said:
The more I've learned about the P-180, the more I've become convinced that it is a terrible design from a number of different viewpoints. Southwest is very successful with the 737 because it is a very good airframe. While a fractional is not a major, there are much, much better options out there.

The P-180 does, however, have a phenomenal interior, and that combined with its relative economy make it attractive on the surface.
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From what I've seen out online the FAA is on a compliance witch hunt like never before....they are everywhere lately and many certificates have had serious consequences
Those elevators should have required no less than 2 separate maint inspections before return to service plus a pre- flight inspection...talk about an accident chain:confused:
 
wabower said:
If you're selling a turboprop with cruise speed that rivals many jets, you're going to get some takers. Although I've never had a client follow through on a purchase of a full or fractional share of a P-180, many have inquired about them and a few have taken demo flights during the dog-and-pony tours that the companies sponsor from time to time.

The high purchase price has been a deterrent to most buyers, and the less-than-envious handling characteristics have resulted in quite a few instances where the grass along the side of the runways has been somewhat erratically mowed.

For a while I had reason to spend time at the regional service/repair center and became acquainted with some of the pilots whose airplanes were being repaired. Their cryptic description of the airplane's characteristics was typically a wry grin and "well, they're a little different."
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I've heard the same from various Piaggio pilots I met. The outfit I used to fly charters for flew a Catfish on Part 91 operations for an owner (they were working on putting it on the 135 cert). The high purchase price, high maintenance costs, low reliability, and bad design features combined with ridiculously small fuel tanks, difficult maintenance procedures, and handling characteristics that even the pilots who claimed to love the plane had to squint hard to say were decent convinced me that the plane's only redeeming factor is the interior. Of course, that interior is a big redeeming factor for the people in the back who pay the bills, as is the relatively low fuel burn compared to the speed (and compared to the jets they'd be considering instead).

Interesting note: the owner of the Catfish used to have a Commander 1000. The Commander's block time on many of the longer trips ended up being shorter than the Catfish, simply because of the higher fuel load and lower fuel burn, despite the lower cruise speed. The first time the owner realized this, he asked the pilots "WTF did I buy this for?" the pilots siad "We were wondering the same thing."
 
I believe it would be in the best interest of our catfish-flying friend (not to mention be in good taste) to limit public discussion directly related to his employment.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I believe it would be in the best interest of our catfish-flying friend (not to mention be in good taste) to limit public discussion directly related to his employment.
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Agreed...just wondering if he was doing alright. I'm at sea riding out hurricane with limited bandwidth so I have to pick and choose which threads I open/read.
 
CMTowner said:
From what I've heard, they grounded the fleet due to a possible issue with several elevators being installed upside down, and one aircraft lost one in flight. I hope they get everything inspected and back in service soon.
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They found a elevator laying on runway 26 here in Camarillo a few months back, this I know for fact, what is hear say is the plane flew two more flights with passengers before the plane was tracked down then grounded. Again the fact part was the part on the runway and the plane was out of state.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I believe it would be in the best interest of our catfish-flying friend (not to mention be in good taste) to limit public discussion directly related to his employment.
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- - - same as when he was flying for Colgan(re the Buffalo accident).

HR
 
Luvrv8 said:
They found a elevator laying on runway 26 here in Camarillo a few months back, this I know for fact, what is hear say is the plane flew two more flights with passengers before the plane was tracked down then grounded. Again the fact part was the part on the runway and the plane was out of state.
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So much for that cursory "walk around" pre flight....:eek::mad2:
 
My thought for the morning is that it does say something that the darn thing will fly at all, missing control surfaces, et. al.
 
Fracs have never made long-term money operating the business, only from marking up the airplanes they sold to owners. Placing a for-profit enterprise between an owner and his airplane (or part of one) is tricky at best, and slim left town.
 
denverpilot said:
My thought for the morning is that it does say something that the darn thing will fly at all, missing control surfaces, et. al.
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Not knowing a ton about the catfish design, it has what they call "Three lifting surfaces". Basically, the whole plane is an airfoil. The elevator and rudder must not matter much to the plane, as there's no de-ice on those surfaces. The wings use bleed air to make a hot wing (odd on a turboprop), which means the plane also has a "wing overheat" warning.

If a surface is deemed important, it has de-ice on it for FIKI cert.
 
denverpilot said:
My thought for the morning is that it does say something that the darn thing will fly at all, missing control surfaces, et. al.
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:yeahthat:

Not only that but it did a couple takeoffs and landings without anything seeming all that suspicious.
 
I feel badly for those affected...hope there's a resolution soon.

.
 
wabower said:
Fracs have never made long-term money operating the business, only from marking up the airplanes they sold to owners. Placing a for-profit enterprise between an owner and his airplane (or part of one) is tricky at best, and slim left town.
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It' all a tax pass through scheme...if you quit buying new planes it s like musical chairs when the music stops....however some do make this work well
 
When I was told what the buy in is, plus monthly costs I was shocked that anyone did it at all.
 
Actually it's nothing of the sort. The management company must make a true profit to survive. Its only source of revenue is the profit on plane sales plus operations (management fees and hourly fees less expenses) all of which are paid by frac owners or card holders. If their outgo exceeds their income, their upkeep becomes their downfall.
taters said:
It' all a tax pass through scheme...if you quit buying new planes it s like musical chairs when the music stops....however some do make this work well
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wabower said:
Actually it's nothing of the sort. The management company must make a true profit to survive. Its only source of revenue is the profit on plane sales plus operations (management fees and hourly fees less expenses) all of which are paid by frac owners or card holders. If their outgo exceeds their income, their upkeep becomes their downfall.
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I was speaking to the owners ...and I know many and almost all of them jumped out of netjets...the major benefit is the schedule k..that's a huge "sell" when these folks bought in
 
taters said:
I was speaking to the owners ...and I know many and almost all of them jumped out of netjets...the major benefit is the schedule k..that's a huge "sell" when these folks bought in
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Why would anyone jump out of NetJets? I know it's more expensive but from a consumer and outsider perspective they are bar none in customer service and aircraft.
 
Inverted said:
When I was told what the buy in is, plus monthly costs I was shocked that anyone did it at all.
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If you look at the buy-in on 8/8th of a Piaggio or any of the Netjets hardware + the cost to run/manage it, the fractionals suddenly start to make sense.
 
Not when you get 50 hours a year for 400,000, plus 10 grand a month. You can charter for much less. People want to tie money up to prevent being taxed on it. Plus they can write off the depreciation on their shares.
 
The business model for all of the management companies is rapidly changing from frac ownership to prepaid card purchase. Users pay higher hourly fees, but aren't required to buy the plane. They are therefore immune to the wild fluctuations in used aircraft values at the end of their ownership period.

weilke said:
If you look at the buy-in on 8/8th of a Piaggio or any of the Netjets hardware + the cost to run/manage it, the fractionals suddenly start to make sense.
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To me, it seems like the fractionals wanted to position themselves as the best of both worlds between charter and ownership and it ended up being the worst of both worlds.
 
It wasn't their choice. Their customers didn't like the way they ran their businesses and were not renewing when their airplanes were sold at the end of the contract period. Their growth had stalled and in some cases started to decline.

Specific objections centered around short-leg fees, excessive usage of fractionally-owned planes by card purchasers rather than frac purchasers, unavailability of desired planes, fuel surcharges that were disproportionate to increased pump prices, lower-than-projected resale values and high fees associated with the resales. Card holders complained of being treated like second-class citizens due to an increase of black-out dates and response times, and the companies decided that the two-tier system was not a workable model over the long term.

Everskyward said:
To me, it seems like the fractionals wanted to position themselves as the best of both worlds between charter and ownership and it ended up being the worst of both worlds.
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Ted DuPuis said:
Not knowing a ton about the catfish design, it has what they call "Three lifting surfaces". Basically, the whole plane is an airfoil. The elevator and rudder must not matter much to the plane, as there's no de-ice on those surfaces. The wings use bleed air to make a hot wing (odd on a turboprop), which means the plane also has a "wing overheat" warning.

If a surface is deemed important, it has de-ice on it for FIKI cert.
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CL-65 (CRJ-200) has no anti-ice on the tail. Vertical and horizontal...tail has nothing in the way of heat and I'm pretty sure it's required for successful flight.
 
Inverted said:
Not when you get 50 hours a year for 400,000, plus 10 grand a month. You can charter for much less. People want to tie money up to prevent being taxed on it. Plus they can write off the depreciation on their shares.
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That's like saying that using the bus is cheaper than owning a Benz.

Fractional is mostly interesting if you have profits to count accelerated depreciation against. Maybe the large number of non-renewals in the last 2-3 years has something to do with the absence of such profits. As grisly as re-sale prices on newish midsize bizjets have been, the book-depreciation of the shares got overtaken by the real depreciation. I hate when that happens.

The alternative to a fractional may be taking the bus, the other alternative is owning one of the things outright. And 500k/year is spent in a hurry if you dont apply 'air plane owner accounting' (which is called 'delusions' in the psych literature and 'fraud' when applied to criminal law).
 
wabower said:
It wasn't their choice. Their customers didn't like the way they ran their businesses and were not renewing when their airplanes were sold at the end of the contract period. Their growth had stalled and in some cases started to decline.
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Which sector of business that depends on corporate profits and banker bonus checks did not take a dump in the last 4 years ?
 
Dunno. The frac problems started well before the latest crunch. The serious grumbling by owners surfaced after the big disappointments in frac resale prices following 9-11, and continued through 2003-04. I participated in one such discussion group at NBAA 2005.

The specific owner grievances that eventually led to the changes were being widely discussed in 2005-06 and escalated further when the first spike in fuel prices occurred in 2007 at the time when plane sales prices were peaking and when other segments of GA were enjoying good growth.

weilke said:
Which sector of business that depends on corporate profits and banker bonus checks did not take a dump in the last 4 years ?
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weilke said:
That's like saying that using the bus is cheaper than owning a Benz.
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Hardly, a Lear 55 is about 2500 an hour. Do the math. Hell you could find many faster, bigger cabin class aircraft than a a Piaggio for 400,000 a year plus 10 grand a month. Hense why I said the only reason to do it is for the tax write off, it is a completely jacket up business model when it comes to bang for buck.
 
I suggest you bone up on the way taxes impact airplane deals. With today's tax code, you can't invoke enough tax help to turn a bad deal into a good one, for two reasons:

1. Non-recourse debt is no longer allowable as basis for tax deductions.
2. No tax rates are anywhere close to 100%, so the taxpayer will remain on the hook for the reciprocal of whatever bracket in which he finds himself. So if you're in a 40% combined federal-state bracket, Sam picks up only 40% of the losses and the owner picks up the other 60%.


Inverted said:
Hardly, a Lear 55 is about 2500 an hour. Do the math. Hell you could find many faster, bigger cabin class aircraft than a a Piaggio for 400,000 a year plus 10 grand a month. Hense why I said the only reason to do it is for the tax write off, it is a completely jacket up business model when it comes to bang for buck.
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