XJT to Launch New Point-to-Point Service Next Week

In announcing the $22.8 million in fourth quarter income and $92.6 million profit in year-end results, ExpressJet is keeping investors and observers on tenterhooks as to the details of its new, point-to-point branded services, scheduled to launch Feb 1 with the 24 cities. The first flight of its band of 50-seat jets it is devoting to this experiment will launch April 2, rolling out the 24 new cities over the following two months. President and CEO Jim Ream said XJT is going back to basics and acting on data showing where people are traveling today. He wants to prove with the right aircraft, the right markets and the right company (XJT) there are opportunities outside of a network.
“We need to acknowledge we’re in the airline business,” he said, adding while contract services are good, “you can get trapped in ontract services and that is a difficult position to be in with an ever changing industry. [The new service] will have a pre-deregulation, point-to-point look to it.”
The schedules for 29 of its aircraft will be uploaded on its website on February 1 with the balance completed by mid February. It expects to ultimately offer 59 individual market pairs at points with traffic enough to support the new service but where there is currently no non-stop service. Despite many investor questions, XJT would only say that the network would make sense once they reviewed the cities served once when are uploaded.
XJT’s business will also devote 205 of its 274 aircraft to its Continental capacity purchase agreement. Another 15 are already in service with its new corporate jet offerings, having flown 205 segments so far which is expected to grow to 300 this month and double that in February. The 44 aircraft it is devoting to the new airline will have a new Express Jet livery and will offer 224 flights per day with 10 departures on average spread across the 24 cities, said Ream.