pintom
Junior Member
Posts: 71
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Post by pintom on Jan 28, 2013 1:44:19 GMT -5
My last two flights have operated without any issues--on time, and in a Piaggio. I sent a short e-mail to Steve and Phil Torsello mentioning that, since I also sent several e-mails complaining when things weren't going well. (Full disclosure: Steve replied to my e-mail asking me to mention that on this forum, which I'm happy to do, since it's the truth, and hopefully the start of rebuilding our confidence in them.) Steve, re the wi-fi issue, could you please answer the following questions:
1. Ten days or so ago you mentioned that three more planes were in for more-substantial checks that took a week or so, and that during that time those three planes would have the wi-fi installed. Has that happened, such that now we have fifteen planes with operative wi-fi?
2. What are the tail numbers of each of the planes where the wi-fi is now operative?
3. You said that Avantair had received only half of the wi-fi capital charges from the owners? Why is that, and what was/is the consequence to owners who didn't pay?
Thanks.
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Post by tmcgowan on Jan 28, 2013 17:27:43 GMT -5
To Hardcount who suggested he had given his share to Avantair to sell, I repeat the quote from page 1 of this forum:
"Fractrade.com has at least 27 fractional, P180 interests for sale, all of which are managed by Avantair. Fractional interests in other planes/management companies are substantially fewer."
The bottom line is Avantair isn't selling your share anytime soon. And as many others come due shortly, the bottom will fall further out of the used P-180 market.
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Post by tmcgowan on Jan 28, 2013 17:30:39 GMT -5
To DickBuro, who wants to know how many "free" hours he can expect...there is no such thing as a "free" hour. Additional hours on your plane is like additional miles on your car.
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Post by gonesoaring on Jan 29, 2013 14:22:39 GMT -5
Avantair Names New Chief Operating Officer
CLEARWATER, Fla., January 25, 2013 -- Avantair, Inc. (OTCBB: AAIR) announced it has named David Haslett, a veteran finance and customer service executive, as its new Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Haslett will be responsible for day-to-day performance of the Company, focusing on customer service and satisfaction. He will also focus on the Company’s key financial and performance metrics and be responsible for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the Company’s infrastructure. His appointment is effective immediately. As Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Haslett will report directly to Steven Santo, Chief Executive Officer. At Avantair, flight operations and aviation management are under the direct supervision of CEO Steven Santo, Director of Operations Walter Garner, and Senior Vice President of Safety, Quality and Compliance David Cann. “David brings to our executive team deep experience in customer engagement strategies and strong fiscal leadership which will be central as we invigorate our customer programs,” said Steven Santo, Chief Executive Officer of Avantair. “His arrival is part of our ongoing effort to position Avantair for the future and complements the recent positive organizational changes we made in the safety, compliance and flight operations departments within the company.” Most recently, Mr. Haslett was Managing Director of Sportech Racing, a global leader in the sport and gaming industry. At Sportech, he was responsible for the company’s worldwide P&L and led sales, operations, R&D, engineering and purchasing. Prior to joining Sportech, Mr. Haslett was the Managing Director of the Horserace Totalisator Board in the UK. He served previously as Assistant General Manager of the Totalisator Agency Board in South Africa and is a native of South Africa.
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Post by gonesoaring on Jan 29, 2013 14:29:32 GMT -5
Effective January 22, 2013, the Board of Directors of the Company appointed Steven Santo, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Santo has served as Chief Executive Officer and a director since 2003 and succeeds Robert Lepofsky, who will remain a director of the Company. Mr. Santo will not receive any additional compensation for his role as Chairman of the Board.
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Post by StevenSanto on Jan 29, 2013 15:13:27 GMT -5
Tom- I am sending out an owner update that includes the tail numbers of the wifi airplanes amongst other updates. I did ask you to post it because I wanted people to know about your recent experiences. I would also like to thank Mr. Bonphy for that as well who I did not refer to this forum. These recent experiences are the result of airplane availability increasing substantially over the last week. It is our job to control what we can control and try to anticipate what we can't. There are times when there is no possible way to prevent a delay. When that occurs, we must communicate with the owner and recover that trip as fast as possible. We are going to create our own owner forum so that we can increase the level of communication with our owner group as well.
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Post by wetlander on Jan 30, 2013 20:53:36 GMT -5
As a new member today to the forum and a fractional owner since 2005 and having renewed in 2010, we have recently been concerned that the company will not survive financially. We have treated our hourly expenses as depreciated over ten years so our cost base at the time or contract expiration will be zero, any (if any) residual value that remains will be a plus to our bookkeeping. Although we have listed our unit for sale, we are realistic in knowing the market is small or non existent at this time. We were Netjet fractional owners prior to Avantair, flying an Excel. We left Netjets due to lack of service and consistent delays. The first few years with Avantair were excellent when compared to Netjets, but we believe that Avantair gave in to the same temptation as Netjets did in selling hourly cards and short term programs, overloading the system with too may flyers and not enough owned planes. We still really like the aircraft and virtually every flight crew we have had has been superb, friendly and competent. We also believe the owner services personnel do all they can to placate the owners. It would help if Steve and the board were more forthright in discussing the situations they have encountered with the owners. I'm sure most of us see through his attempt to sugar coat a very serious problem. Hopefully there are some younger owners or other investors willing to take on the long term risk providing working capital for Avantair. Wetlander
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Post by hrofcr on Jan 30, 2013 23:14:10 GMT -5
That is an interesting observation made by wetlander - the first time I noticed a problem with the Avantair program was shortly after they acquired new scheduling software from a defunct charter operation (about 24 to 30 months ago), also in Florida. I have talked with various people (both current and former Avantair staffers) about the new software, also commenting to them that maybe it was not as good as it was touted to be. Without exception, the response from these people has been that the software was an incredible improvement. These people have explained that the software was what enabled Avantair to really start pushing the leasing and card programs.
I follow all Avantair flights on flightaware.com, daily. Since the stand down, two things are obvious: a) All of the planes flying, are flying more legs per day, on average, than before the stand down; and, b) They all appear to be logging more hours per day, on average, than they did before the stand down. And, N149SL, an Avantair-managed aircraft, has been flying, according to flight aware.com, under its tail number, N149SL, rather than under its Avantair designation, VNR149. What's that all about?
Notwithstanding Mr. Santo's new PR letter this afternoon, as of yesterday, there are still at least ten (10) Avantair-managed aircraft that have not flown anywhere since the stand down. So 33 aircraft flew over the weekend - out of a fleet of +/- 57 planes we have:
33 "available" aircraft; 10 non-flying aircraft (and if anyone wants them, I can provide tail numbers - just ask).
At least some of the remaining 14 planes may be undergoing maintenance, but what about the rest?
Mr. Santo needs to be much more than "more forthright" in disclosing details of the situation Avantair and its owners face. He needs to be honest! According to AINOnline.com, Mr. Santo has stated, "all of the company’s approximately 60 Piaggio Avanti I and II turboprops are now back in service and its maintenance facility has ramped up to full capacity."
I thought Mr. Santo just explained (in an emailed update sent out in the last week or so) that Avantair was implementing maintenance agreements with a number (+/- 12?) subcontractors for the maintenance of our aircraft. So what does "its maintenance facility" refer to?
The "Emperor's New Clothes" has been given a whole new meaning by the internet. Mr. Santo needs to get a new tailor!
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Post by StevenSanto on Jan 31, 2013 6:42:25 GMT -5
The piaggio requires maintenance checks every 200 hours as explained some of those checks taked a couple of days and some take as much as a month, sometimes more. There are also unscheduled maintenance events where an airplane requires maintenance and is not available. So not every airplane is available everyday. As I have stated several times we currently have 46 airplanes available and within the next two weeks that number will increase to 48. The additional two were in long term maintenance. So when I stated we had 33 flying this past weekend that refers to airplanes covering flights and not in maintenance.
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Post by paulschwartz1 on Jan 31, 2013 12:18:50 GMT -5
for the record, our last 5 flights, all in january, have been without significant issue ( a 45 minute delay was the worst of it and with a good explanation ). this, for me, is a significant improvement. i hope the management additions/changes will lead to more improvement. i'm hopeful for the first time in a long time. i appreciate the additional information and communication. there can't be enough. remember, we aren't only customers, we own assets managed by the company.
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Post by henry33 on Feb 1, 2013 3:40:11 GMT -5
New to the forum but a fractional owner since 2009 Have been very satisfied with Avantair as most have been but since the stand down have had two 1.5 hr delays Hearing some of the horror stories I don't feel as frustrated Am coming to the end of my contract and have two trips planned in the next few weeks to locations I have been to numerous times over the last few years without a problem Will wait and see what happens before I renew I do believe that the original business model just would not work and the only way the company could make money was to sell the cards this increased thier usage and subsequently the problem we are all in
I for one hope that they can fix this or get a buyer it is still the best plane for my type of use
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pintom
Junior Member
Posts: 71
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Post by pintom on Feb 3, 2013 2:12:05 GMT -5
Alas, my run of (two) non-disrupted flights is over, although hopefully this one doesn't turn out to be that bad. I'm in Bozeman, headed back to Colorado tomorrow/Sunday. This morning I sent an e-mail to Owner Services moving our departure from 4 pm to 3 pm, but I never heard back from them. Then despite Steve's e-mail saying we'd be notified by 9 pm EST the night before, 11:30 pm EST came along and still no tail number. I sent OS an e-mail asking if they had gotten my earlier e-mail, and they said they had, but that due to "high demand" (during the Super Bowl?) tomorrow's flight would be chartered. This will be my third charter out of my last seven flights. I have been told more than once that they are "rotating" the charters so no one had to be on "too many" charters, but if that's true, then they're chartering 3/7 of all their flights, give or take. I suspect/hope that's not happening....
I bought my two fractional interests because I want to fly in the Piaggio, not a smaller chartered jet. I asked OS to see if they could get me on a Piaggio. It's now 2 am EDT, and I still don't have any details about tomorrow's flight.
And to a previous post about the cards, I too share that sentiment. It seems like things started to deteriorate after the cards and other non-fractional programs came into being. I believe in my initial two contracts (before they reached their five-year points) there was a contractual limit on how much each plane could be flown each year (something like 800 hours plus a few enumerated additional specific types of flights), but I think upon my renewal they deleted that provision.
I too hope they can turn this around, because the plane (and generally Owner Services) is awesome. Great concept Steve had, and kudos for bringing it into being, but obviously the execution has been lacking.
UPDATE: The chartered aircraft was a 1982 Citation II that was clearly showing its age of 30+ years (the seats themselves "rocked", and not in a good way). Not remotely comparable to even the oldest Piaggio in the fleet.
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theoe
New Member
Posts: 9
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Post by theoe on Feb 3, 2013 10:39:36 GMT -5
First, I am wondering why N134SL has not flown since January 13, if anyone has some input? Maybe this is a maintenence issues. Tommorow I have two flight scheduled, and while since the stand down where I was left without an option, and used Flight Options, my service has been as expected. That is for my trips in late November and December. So, since I have been an owner since 2005, my bias is for Avantair to get this behind them and return to full, safe service in the Piaggio, I like it much better than the Beechjet. Steve has been pretty up front and honest with me, for sure, and I did ask owner services about my trips tommorow, they say all good, and did notify me via e mail this morning confirming the trips. Owner Services is exceptional, and so it is really what i call great waiters and waitresses with a bad kitchen, during the last couple months. I do wish that they could figure out how to elimitate the card sales, and focus the service on the owners, actually, I would pay more for my management fee if they asked me, then we would be back to the company i invested in origionally, all good.
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Post by paulschwartz1 on Feb 3, 2013 10:55:50 GMT -5
has anyone seen a 2013 schedule for peak travel dates?
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Post by billklipp on Feb 4, 2013 11:13:46 GMT -5
My flight home today has been delayed 7 hours. In spite of avoiding peak travel days and pre scheduling way in advance it just doesn’t seem to matter. At 11pm last night I got an email (not even a phone call) to tell me my 11am flight this morning would be delayed by 7 hours. I spoke to a manager in Customer service last night as well as another this morning, they try to be sympathetic but seem totally incapable to both describe what is really going or to fix things. Last night they said they would send it back to Scheduling as the delay is unacceptable. This morning I found out that all that did is make the delay even longer. Doesn’t seem like advance reservations matter if they don’t really schedule things till the last moment anyway. I asked Customer Service would my experience be any different if I booked this flight a year ago, they said probably not. It seems like they are way overbooking and/ or allowing certain passengers to jump the line. Separately they have not offered any compensation to make this better. PS This happen to us 2 weeks ago. I think I’m running 60-70% cancel / significant delay percentage since Nov. I have prescheduled every flight and avoided all peak periods. At this stage I could never recommend Avantair air to anyone. Steve are you listening at all If so, what is going on and what are your doing about it??
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