Introducing...Regional 1

[manwest]

New airline

YQL YLW, YVR YLW , YQF YVR, YQF YLW

www.regional1.ca

[Mitch Cronin]

YA!! That's what this country (continent? world?) needs! A new airline!

[proview]

This is actually quite interesting. Unlike other "new" airline announcements which seem to be just trolling for investor capital, this seems to be a potentailly real company with some real Dash-8 aircraft.

Off the top of my head I would say that service from Lethbridge and Red Deer to B.C. might work. Both those cities have fair sized populations, have no meaningful air service at present, are a hundred miles from the nearest big airport, and have reasonable "friends and families" ties with B.C. If the business is run tightly, I would say that their chances might be 50-50.

Of course, if one works for an existing airline, the news might not seem helpful, but if existing carriers choose not to serve these markets, their complaints will not carry much weight.

[Spinnaker]

I have a friend in training weith them now and he seems to think they are going to do quite well.

[conehead]

Regional 1's management and employee team hails from a variety of aviation backgrounds.

The Board of Directors and Senior Management

Mr. John Binder is the Chairman of the Board and one of Regional 1's founders. Currently John is the President and CEO of Avmax Group Inc., a Calgary based heavy aircraft maintenance and servicing facility. Prior to founding Avmax John was President and owner of Western Avionics of Calgary, Canada's largest aircraft avionics company, now a division of the Avmax Group. John is a licenced aircraft engineer and has an extensive aviation management background.

Mr. Don Parkin is a member of Regional 1's Board of Directors. Don is also a Vice President with the Avmax Group and has an extensive background in aviation and avionics management.

Mr. Peter Scheiwiller is also a Director of Regional 1. Peter is co-founder of North Cariboo Air, a successful charter carrier headquarterd in Fort St. John, B.C. Peter is a commercial pilot and currently holds the position of Vice President, Operations, for Canadian North.

Ms. Tracy Medve is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Regional 1. She comes to the airline with an aviation career which started in 1985. She graduated with a degree in law from the University of Saskatchewan in 1981 and was in-house counsel for Norcanair, a regional air carrier based in Saskatchewan. Tracy also held various management positions at Time Air, Canadian Partner and Canadian Regional Airlines, prior to co-founding C.T. AeroProjects Inc. in 1982. C.T. is an air transport resource management and consulting company located in Calgary which has provided services to a variety of air carriers and other with aviation investments and interest, both in Canada and abroad. Tracy is also currently a member of the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada.

Mr. Bhaskar Dave is Regional 1's Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Dave is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and holds an MBA from Cranfield University in the UK. Prior to joining Regional 1 Mr. Dave was a Management Consultant and prior to that Chief Financial Officer of Alberta Aerospace Corp, an aircraft development company.

Captain Tom Matiushyk is the Operations Manager and brings to Regional 1 over 10,000 hours flying experience with more than 2,500 hours on the Dash 8. Tom's experience includes more than 7 years with Canadian Regional Airlines and Air Canada Jazz where he piloted both the Dash 8 and the Fokker F-28 aircraft. Prior to his career with Canadian Regional Tom spent 9 years in the commercial aircraft charter industry.

Captain Dan Holm is the company's Chief Pilot. Formerly with Air Canada Jazz he came to Regional 1 in January 2003. He has more than 11,000 flying hours, including over 4,000 hours on the Dash 8.

Ms. Rebecca Gutsell is the Flight Attendant Manager and has 18 years experience in the airline industry. She started her career at Time Air as a flight attendant and has since worked for other commercial carriers, including Westjet, Zip and Corporate Express. Her experience includes cabin safety, occupational health and safety, training and development, recruitment and human resources.

Mr. Ed Jackson is the Director of Maintenance. For the seven year period prior to coming to Regional 1, Ed held the position of Program Manager at Avmax Group Inc. Mr. Jackson has been in the aviation industry for the past 19 years in heavy overhaul and also as base engineer for flight operations. During these years he obtained several licences, including M1/M2, CL65, DA21, BA146 and Dash 8. His aircraft experience includes the ATR-42, BA146, CRJ, DHC-5, DHC-6, DHC-7 and DHC-8.

Regional 1 is staffed by a dedicated team of professionals with considerable scheduled airline and commercial charter experience.

[sjsa]

YQF & YQL are interesting as I believe they were in WestJet's plans for when the 600s come on line (with RNP). I think WS was looking at VR to those points.

[AME]

Pretty much sounds like Time Air to me

[proview]

Pretty much sounds like Time Air to me

Yes, there would seem to be similarities with Time Air, at least in the sense that Time Air was founded to exploit the gap in the market left by the major carriers bypassing Lethbridge and Red Deer (among other places!). There is at least one difference, however. This airline seems to be going after longer routes, which means targeting origin-to-destination travellers. Time Air seems to have been more oriented to feeding traffic to someone else (in that case, the system that eventually became Canadian).

Time Air is not a bad model. That company was a success both as an airline and as a business. I believe they sold out at a profit.

One important point has been pointed out by sjsa . A new carrier like this will have much trouble if Westjet descides to go after these markets directly. I suspect they are betting that Westjet will be putting all their new capacity into eastern Canada and the US for the next little while.

[Guest ikfu]

The comment about 'feeding the traffic' has always puzzled me a bit. My feeling over the last years has been that the relationship is symbiotic. Both benefit.

The mainline carriers people to the hub and deliver passengers to be fed to the connector carriers and smaller cities as much as visa versa I figure. What are the stats on that sort of traffic? For example from Torbay, Halifax, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina to Calgary and fed to Red Deer or Lethbridge. Not all the traffic originates in the small centers to the larger, and I'd bet that there is more traffic fed to the connectors from the mainline carriers to the smaller centers.

[buzz]

Pretty much sounds like Time Air to me

Right on the money, Brett;

Peter Scheiwiller, Tracy Medve, Rebecca Gutsell, and (I think, but not certain) Dan Holm are all old Time Air employees.

Good luck, but Red Deer start ups have a 0% track record to date...

buzz

[Canus Chinookus]

i am surprised there are no wj flights out of yxh... a couple flights per week might not be a bad idea.

[Spinnaker]

I know Mr. Peter S gets a love or hate reception from a lot of people but as far I'm concerned he has the ability to turn things like this to gold. If I were working for a start up he'd be my pick for knowing how to get things on track. A very smart man.