Despite the Hype and the $10 Fares, Skybus Says Good Bye

Tough times for airlines everywhere. We trumpeted the launch last May of Skybus, a regional carrier that provided air service from Chicopee, MA’s Westover Air Base and featured $10 tickets on a limited schedule including flights to Columbus Ohio and to Florida. Then they excitedly added more Florida cities and everything seemed….well, ducky.

Skybus announced just last week that they were filing bankrupcy and going under. They had an innovative approach, adding fees for just about anything you can think of. They also had planned to sell ads on the sides of the planes and hawked concessions down the aisle. This might have been a model but the fact is, $104 per barrel oil changes everything. You can’t ignore this and despite the buzz that those ten dollar seats generated, it was hopeless.

On the flight down to Australia I was on earlier this week, the pilot announced that it took 170 tons of jet fuel to fly there. Imagine that in gallons, and you see that just one flight is a mighty costly thing.