Air taxi agnostics, and air charter veterans alike will be paying close attention to this company. There are several very important factors offered that air charter people should pay attention to. Firstly, the aircraft - whether or not you think it is wise to use a 'first run' / unproven miniature jet in a high utilization paradigm, these guys are doing it. Secondly, expectations - set 'em low. Perhaps the most difficult thing for air charter veterans to swallow is that we don't need to spend the rest of our lives bending over backwards for psychotic aircraft owners or being abused by irrational charter cusotmers. (Yes, there are some like that.)

This poll from USA Today indicates that the air taxi revolution is coming, whether it enters our world quietly or loudly is up for debate. Even people with real money are now entering the space and the undeniable fact is this: If you can ride in a small jet on a per seat basis, we existing Part 135 jesters had better get our act together. While the uber-wealthy will always enjoy a good fleecing and overpaying with their fractional providers, the real market (consisting of people that do their own laundry and cut their own grass) will undoubtedly start dabbling in the air taxi concept as consumers. Whether the providers hemorrhage money or not, the fact is they will grow through sheer carloads of cash thrown at these projects. Besides, the airlines have proven you can lose money forever, as long as you have the right friends, in the right places.

But two very important tenants have been recognized by DayJet and for that they get an A+ in the cerebellum dept.: Learn how to scale and set the appropriate customer expectation. Though many of you are agonized by my incessant reference to McDonald's and Ray Kroc, it comes back to the hamburger - it doesn't have to be great - just the same.

Also, much like the early Southwest founders they have reset the expectation of their customers, and this dear comrades is something well worth paying attention to:

#1 Have Boundaries: You can only schedule between the hours of 8am to 10pm or so - not a bad idea. They'll take you where you want, but only at civilized hours. After all, pilots have lives too, or at least, they'd like to some day. If you want to abuse them with the impossible duty day and weeks on the road.. well .. you'll pay a premium for that and have to try another company.

#2 Flexicost: Want to schedule at the last minute and be more demanding about your times? No problem..the DayJet folks will probably accomodate you, but at a higher cost. Want to be easy and work with their schedule? You'll get the benefit of a reduced rate.

#3 Computers Think Faster: This crew (DayJet) knows that scheduling automation, predictive modeling and fancy algorithms really do have a place in the neanderthal land of private aviation. The part that we are chortling is the cost - $20MM software builds (according to an excellent article by Chad Trautvetter in Aviation International News) leave us wondering why people spend so much money on on proprietary software that will end up in the dumpster next year anyway, and even more odd when you consider that we (RSVPair we) give away or make available useful tools dirt cheap. (And *yes* we know what an alogorithm is!)

This post was made by Adam Webster who still fantasizes about his own PC-12 parked in his very own back yard one day. First, however, he needs to get the back yard, by selling more subscriptions to RSVPair. If you'd like to help him get started on his path to financial security, or as he calls it "Freedom 35" then please read more a here.