Indigo Airlines - Success

Success

Consumer response to Indigo was strong. The company held a perfect safety record and delivered unusually high on-time and flight completion performance. Its passenger repeat rate was nearly 100% and its revenue per passenger mile or yield, over $1.00. The company was actively followed by major media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Financial Times, Fortune, Time, USA Today, CNN, CBS and ABC television and was featured in a 2001 Pulitzer Prize winning article in the Chicago Tribune.

Indigo also became the object of organized lobbying from Congressman Steven Rothman of New Jersey (D-NJ9), who felt that Indigo represented unwelcome expansion at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport.

Other parties including Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) joined in an effort to persuade Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta that Indigo's public charter flights demanded of the Teterboro Airport, part of a group of New York City metro airports operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, certain security services it was not equipped to provide. Additionally, certain so-called multi-airport proprietor rules were invoked to lend additional weight to opponent's arguments.

Congressional lobbying directed to Admiral James Loy, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator and eventually codified in special interest legislation, was signed by President Bush as part of an FAA Reauthorization Bill. Indigo and American Express management, as well as FAA administration, argued that Indigo's use of Teterboro was appropriate and preferable to local alternatives such as LaGuardia Airport or Newark Liberty International Airport which were designed and configured for large airline aircraft and to prohibit the company from accessing the airport was an unfair discrimination under federal airport funding criteria. By September 2003, Indigo halted all flights in and out of Teterboro Airport.

Indigo management also argued that the company helped advance the state of general aviation security and pointed to its advanced security procedures that were unique to the industry.

Indigo employed its own security personnel and was the first jet charter company to operate sterile flights between general aviation, non-airline facilities. Indigo customers, employees and vendors cooperated with comprehensive identity, background and screening procedures that were unprecedented in the private jet industry. Indigo submitted to numerous TSA security audits and was fully approved by relevant U.S. Government agencies. Comprehensive general and private aviation security continues to be an unresolved public policy issues.

By 2004, Indigo had voluntarily idled its operations after challenges in securing additional capitalization. The Indigo concept continues to resonate strongly with the traveling public and in 2005 the Netjets company, backed by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, announced its intention to begin scheduled business jet service between Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Other projects mimicking the Indigo business model include Geneva, Switzerland based Club Airways, started by World Economic Forum founders the Schwab family. Other notable ventures borrowing on the Indigo "per seat" inventory, distribution and pricing strategy include the Dayjet company, Linear Air and various jet membership programs offering "shared per seat charter" services. Several North Atlantic services (sometimes referred to as the "Indigo of the North Atlantic") also directly applied the Indigo concept of a commercial corporate jet but in larger traditional airline aircraft and included MAXjet, Eos and Silverjet. In 2008, a new company called Greenjets began non-scheduled per-seat or shared-ride private jet service between major eastern US metropolitan markets. Greenjets intends to expand to include service to 30 major US markets by 2011. Greenjets, unlike Indigo, does not own or operate aircraft, but utilizes the vast jet charter fleet in the US for lift.