By Kathleen Vereen Dayton, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
May 6--Interstate Jet, an Atlanta-based charter service, wants to be the newest airline in Myrtle Beach, although it has actually flown here before.
The people who operated the defunct Myrtle Beach Jet Express now are running Inter state Jet and hope to put Myrtle Beach on their list of destinations.
Interstate Jet flies to resort destinations under the name Vacation Express and wants to start a route between Myrtle Beach International Airport and Charleston, W.Va.
That proposition excites tour ism officials, even though Jet Express borrowed $790,000 from the city of Myrtle Beach for marketing campaigns and repaid just $20,000 before leav ing town.
'The way the city was looking at it at the time, we basically got what we bargained for, which was the advertising,' said city manager Tom Leath. 'That effort really kick-started additional airlines and air carriers coming into this marketplace. The credit for Spirit Airlines being here and other airlines can be given to Jet Express.' Leath said the contract between Jet Express -- which operated between 1995-99 -- and the city stated that the airline would repay its loan when it became profitable.
'It ended up, they didn't make the money and they finally went out of business,' he said.
Interstate Jet wants to utilize one of its Boeing 737 jets, which brings passengers from New Orleans to Atlanta but is too small to carry them on to Caribbean destinations.
'What they're trying to do is figure out what to do with the plane while it's sitting there,' Leath said.
Cary Evans, vice president of Interstate Jet and a former Jet Express executive, would not comment Monday on the charter's intentions.
'I can't say that we will be announcing anything, or that we won't be,' Evans said.
Leath said Interstate Jet officials recently met with city officials to discuss their proposal.
'As soon as they're ready to come to council, we'll schedule a presentation,' Leath said.
Mickey McCamish, president of the Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday marketing group, said he met with Evans and Kent Elsbree, Interstate Jet's president, last Wednesday. Elsbree also is the former operator of Jet Express.
'The purpose of their visit was really exploratory,' McCamish said. 'I told them Golf Holiday would be cooperative and promote the airlines on our Web site, our planner and the golf shows we go to, as we do with all airlines. We know there are a lot of tourists and golfers that come here from West Virginia. Any time there's the possibility of air service coming here, I'm all for it.' Like Leath, McCamish said the former Jet Express left a lasting benefit on the Grand Strand.
'The reason we have the affordable carriers we have, a lot of that credit goes back to Jet Express days,' McCamish said.
Bob Kemp, director of Myrtle Beach International Airport, said he has not had any conver sations with Interstate Jet officials.
'The fact that they may have been involved with an airline that used to be at the airport doesn't particularly bother me, depending on the type of arrangement they want,' Kemp said. 'We have more stringent requirements today for security deposits and things like that.' Richard Atkinson, director of Yeager Airport in Charleston, W.Va., said he has met with Evans and Ellsbree and will speak with them again later this week.
Atkinson said the Interstate Jet officials are proposing a scheduled charter to operate twice a week between Myrtle Beach and Charleston for a 10-week period between mid-June and August.
'We're still in the discussion stages,' Atkinson said. 'What they're wanting to talk to us about is to make sure the resort operators and some of the golf package people are on board with the advertising commit ment to make it work.' Atkinson said the charter officials have talked about seat guarantees and advertising commitments. Seat guarantee programs are common and require that airlines are paid for any unsold seats.
'That money would not be at much risk, because they would more than fill the seats we would guarantee,' Atkinson said. 'But we're not going to shoulder all the risk.' Mike Boyd, an airline analyst with The Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colo., said Myrtle Beach would benefit more than Charleston from the charter flights, although a couple of flights a week for 10 weeks would not greatly affect the market.
'I wouldn't get too excited about it one way or the other,' Boyd said. 'It's not going to bring massive amounts of low fare service to your market place.'
SIDEBAR:
--Interstate Jet: Charter airline service specializing in tour groups, sports teams and resort destination charters.
--Headquarters: Atlanta
-- Established: 1982 -- New management team formed: 2000
-- Parent Company: Flightserv.com, a subsidiary of eResource Capital Group, Inc.
--Business Partners: Vacation Express, Piedmont Hawthorne Airlines, Pace Airlines, among others Myrtle Beach Jet Express -- Charter airline formerly operating flights between Myrtle Beach, Atlanta and several northeastern cities.
--Former headquarters: Atlanta
-- Established: 1995 -- Ceased operations: June 1999
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(c) 2003, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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