October, 2005

Back in the 1950s and maybe into the 1960s, big tail-dragging, radial engine DC-3 aircraft would drop into Marion on a regular basis to pick up and deliver passengers.  I can remember, as a young person, taking one of those planes from Boston’s Logan Field to Laconia, New Hampshire—an airport smaller than Marion’s on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee.  The economics of air travel must have been different then.  Fuel was cheaper, by a long shot.  In those days, air travel was patterned after bus or rail travel.  A DC-3 was, essentially, an airborne bus with scheduled stops in a number of towns that got you to your destination more quickly than ground transportation.  You had a friendly attendant (in those days, only female) whose job was, it seemed, to see to your creature comforts.  For that speed and service, you paid a premium.  Allegheny, Northeast, Eastern—these were the airlines running the milk runs between towns like Marion and Laconia.

They’re all gone now.  The airlines moved into jet service almost exclusively.  Now they could fly three and four times faster than the old piston airplanes and load many more people.  Jets needed longer runways, jet fuel, and bigger passenger loads.  Suddenly, Marion and Laconia were off the map.  With shorter runways and smaller populations, it just wasn’t efficient or possible to serve our size town any longer.  We’d just have to drive to the bigger city if we wanted to fly. 

Then came terrorism.  Higher concentrations of people on bigger planes made inviting targets for zealots looking for attention.  Which led to higher security, longer waits, less convenience, and more frustration.  Pretty soon, the value of faster speed in the air began to be outweighed by longer waits and more hassle on the ground. 

While airline travel got worse, communications got better.  The Internet and high speed digital communication have made it possible to work from these smaller communities with a modem and a laptop--if only it was easier to travel when it’s necessary to meet a client face-to-face.

Enter Ray Morrow.  Ray has a long history in aviation, developing some of the navigation gear that helped revolutionize air travel in the last decade.  Watching the convergence of high speed communications with high-hassle air service, Ray is developing a new concept in air travel—that’s really the old concept updated.  He calls it Sky Taxi.  It is a series of smaller planes (twin engine six seaters) based at airports like Marion’s.  They’re much more efficient to fly than a big jetliner, or even a small corporate jet.  In the Sky Taxi model, filling six seats, rather than a hundred, makes money, even at regular airline fare pricing. 

The new wrinkle, though, is computerized scheduling that allows Sky Taxi to maximize the use of its planes and keep them full.  They don’t fly regular schedules.  The computer allows them to fly when and where passengers want to go, within a reasonable radius.  If you wanted to go from Marion to, say, the county airport in Benton Harbor, Michigan, you could—when you wanted to, avoiding the drive to Columbus, the wait for security, and the drive from the hub airport on the other end to your final destination.  Your company could get you there and back in the same day—at a rate comparable to regular airline rates. 

There is increasing evidence that Americans are rediscovering the advantages of living in communities like Marion:  A sense of community, easy commutes, the friendliness of a town this size.  They’re good places to raise a family.  And now, with air service and the Internet, Marion and other towns like ours are even more attractive.

The good news is, Sky Taxi is here.  You can book a flight now on the service—and within 60 days, we’ll have one of their planes and three crews based here in Marion.  Thanks to some local investors who’ve seen the wisdom in this new/old way of flying, Marion will once again have air service—sized to our kind of community in this particular day and age.  Welcome aboard!