So Much for Competition

Airline JSX has been providing flights to people by having charters that only have 30 (first class) seats on what are normally 50 seat regional jets.

In so doing, they can board from private gates, allowing passengers to fly anywhere in the United States from Dallas' love field, and they can avoid the time consuming security TSA security checks.

The response of the airlines, particularly American which basically owns the Dallas/Fort Worth market is to run to the TSA to demand a change in regulations to rat-F%$# JSX.

Major U.S. airlines ran to the government to try to quash competition and a better inflight product option for passengers. Their first attempt, with the Department of Transportation, may not be working. But their next play with TSA can be done in secret and stands a better chance.

Dallas-based JSX flies regional jets that usually hold 50 seats with just 30 first class seats. This allows them to:

• operate from private terminals, instead of the main terminal at airports
• hire senior captains, often recently-retired from American Airlines and Southwest, as well as co-pilots with fewer hours in the cockpit

They do this by selling seats (part 380) on public charter flights (part 135), rather than as a regularly scheduled airline. It’s a brilliant business model that benefits from long-standing regulations, and provides a unique product to customers – show up at the airport 20 minutes before your flight, walk out to a shared private jet.

The lower time co-pilots mean that it is easier for a pilot to get flight time to get their type rating while being paid, as opposed to paying for a type rating at a cost of hundreds of dollars an hour, which has the ALPA up in arms, because they want the supply of rated pilots kept as small as possible. 

It also appears that the DoT in general, and the TSA in particular are actually prohibited from taking such actions on charters, but, you know, they are being lobbied by Southwest and American, and how can they secure remunerative post retirement sinecures if they don't do their bidding.

………

Currently, JSX passengers have their bags swabbed, their IDs checked against screening databases, and go through screening. This screening is not conducted by TSA however, and there’s no shoe removal or liquid bag restrictions.

I can't imaging why anyone with enough money would want to fly JSX.  ← (This is snark)