PITTSBURGH Plan to get airline flying by June raises eyebrows

The leader is good at raising money but not running an airline, an expert says.
IMPERIAL, Pa. (AP) -- The chief executive of a proposed low-cost airline expects to raise more than $100 million and get fast-track regulatory approvals that will have its jets flying out of Pittsburgh International Airport by June.
Industry analysts and other experts aren't so sure, including one who says, "I'll believe it when I see it."
Although it generally takes about 18 months for the Federal Aviation Administration to approve a new airline's operating license, executive Travis Tanner said the as-yet-unnamed startup airline -- dubbed "Project Roam" for now -- plans to acquire another airline's operating license.
Tanner said he and chairman Edward Beauvais, an industry veteran and the leader of the effort to create the airline, have already spoken with two airlines he wouldn't name about the license acquisition.
FAA officials said they have heard nothing about those plans since Tanner and Beauvais announced the new airline Oct. 14, leaving themselves about eight months to get the license and raise at least $100 million.
"We're going to raise enough capital that we'll have the staying power," said Tanner, who met with prospective investors this week.
Reactions
Ray Neidl, an airline analyst with Blaylock Partners, New York, said he'll believe Tanner and Beauvais when he sees them raise the money. Other experts weren't as pessimistic.
"Look at Beauvais' involvement in other airlines. I'd hate to say he couldn't raise it," said Dawna Rhodes, associate professor of strategic management and international business at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.
Beauvais co-founded America West Airlines and served as its chairman from 1981 to 1992 -- a year after America West filed for bankruptcy. Beauvais left Western Pacific in 1996 and the airline liquidated in 1998 after filing for bankruptcy.
"Ed Beauvais is always able to talk people out of their money -- and then been perfectly capable of throwing their money down the toilet," said Darryl Jenkins, director of George Washington University's Aviation Institute.
"He has good general concepts, like America West. He just operates badly -- like flying across the Pacific Rim from Phoenix," Jenkins said.
Plans
Beauvais hopes to fly to nine destinations from Pittsburgh by June -- including Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Boston -- and to almost 40 cities within five years. The airline would fly new 126-passenger Boeing 737-700s and offer one-way fares starting at $49.
Tanner said the airline hopes to control costs by using nonunion employees. "We'll give people good work and treat them fairly," he said.
But officials at Syracuse Hancock International Airport in New York said if Tanner and Beauvais fail to deliver a new airline, it won't be the first time. The two tried to launch Northern Airlines in New York for about two years, but couldn't raise the $50 million necessary for that venture.
"We thought they were still considering Syracuse up until they made the announcement in Pittsburgh" last month, said Irwin Davis, president of the Metropolitan Development Association of Syracuse and Central New York.