Iacobucci: Credit Crisis To Blame for DayJet’s Demise

By Jennifer Harrington

November 11, 2008
Charter and Fractional

DayJet’s future is still uncertain and will be a “fundamentally different business” if operations resume, according to DayJet chairman Ed Iacobucci, one of the keynote speakers at the Aviation Week VLJ forum that kicked off today in West Palm Beach, Fla. The company ceased operations on September 19, less than a year after its launch, but is still seeking investors and plans to restructure and modify its goals, Iacobucci said.

In addition, the air-taxi operator has sold part of the company’s technology rights to an unidentified West Coast group to raise capital. Iacobucci asserted, however, that the market for on-demand air taxis still exists.

The business model “was a thing of beauty when it was running,” he said. The problem, Iacobucci explained, was the company’s inability to secure enough capital to fund growth.

At the time the company ceased operations, DayJet was selling 15 tickets per day, not quite enough to break even financially, he said. “If we had gotten 30 to 35 tickets a day, we would have been OK,” he said.

Iacobucci also dismissed suggestions that the Eclipse 500 was to blame for the company’s demise. “It’s not the flippin’ airplane,” he said.

“There were issues and teething pains [with the Eclipse], but we knew what they were and knew how to deal with them.

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