That's the parallel Bob Crandall draws as he describes his vision for Pogo, a new air limousine (don't say taxi) service he hopes to take to the skies in the third quarter of 2006.
"The airplane will go to the passenger," he says.
The former American Airlines CEO is the chairman of Pogo. Its President is his former rival Donald Burr, the founder of People Express. Also on the Pogo board is PrivatAir vice-chairman David Hurley.
Thus far some $8 million has been invested in the venture, which dropped the working handle iFly Air Taxi earlier this year and settled on the name Pogo late in July.
The startup made news behind reports of an order for 75 Adam Aircraft A700 jets. "We have an order position," Crandall confirmed on the eve of NBAA. "We haven't paid anybody anything," he told ShowNews, insisting too that he in no way plans an all-Adam fleet.
What Crandall does expect is for Pogo to eventually operate 400 to 500 aircraft of the new VLJ (very light jet) class, each costing on the order of $1.5 million. Augmenting Adam, in all likelihood, will be the Eclipse 500, with other types possible too.
Even using two pilots, as is planned, Pogo sees costs to the customer coming to approximately half those of conventional charter: about $5 to $6 per mile, per airplane. That translates to no more than $1.50 per mile per passenger with a four-pax load: "a rational and do-able number for a lot more people than are prepared to use charter services today."
Pogo will start service "somewhere in southern New England," Crandall says, noting that the Northeast region has 600 to 800 airports of some 5,000 small, under-utilized fields nationwide. Pogo airplanes will have a maximum operating radius of about 500 miles, suitable for grabbing customers who might now not fly at all.
"A lot of people drive and a lot of people just don't go," Crandall says. Pogo "will displace a lot of driving that happens today, and it will displace a lot of unsatisfactory substitutes like telephone conference calls.
"This air limo service is the kind of service that a lot of people can afford to use," he says. "We're going to make this service as easy to use as it is to use a limousine today."
The key challenge facing Pogo, Crandall says, is the availability of a fleet—a fleet admittedly based on "an entirely new class of airplane.
"Are these airplanes going to get certificated and if so, when?" he asks. "My judgment is that they will. My judgment is that this will happen."
