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Penguin Airlines
An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com interviews Chris Stevens, President of Penguin Airlines about his young venture's business model that includes using Linux in all aspects from the ground up -- from desktops to the reservations system! 'Tux' is more than just a name for this new air taxi service which brings convenient, economical, time-saving air travel via the shortest route between home and destination." They wrote an essay about their business plans, and their heavily computerized jets look nifty as well. CD:Those interested in the aviation side of things should check out James Fallows book "Free Flight" as well.
that's hardly a business model, now is it?
But Penguins don't fly....
I hope they have better luck than the real birds.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Upside: An airline that never crashes. Downside: Who wants uptimes that last for months?
Let me design your website. www.navalswebdesigns.webhop.biz
Look, somebody had to say something like that ....
I guess this means no crashes no matter how hard people try.
You know what that means: All of the Customer Service Agents will have to be able to type 160 words per minute to keep up!
The airlines like to use majestic bird names like Eagle and Falcon that convey a powerful animal soaring gracefully through the air. Since one of our fundamental missions is to make private jet travel affordable for all travelers, we needed something that most people could relate to.
So, instead of a large bird majestically soaring through the air, the chose a name of a... dumpy, flightless bird that spends most of its time in the water. Hmm...
To the non-linux savvy, the choice of imagery to represent the company is perhaps less than ideal. I mean, how's about starting with a bird that actually flies through the air?
Will it be possible to get a seat by the window ? Or will they offer economy command line flights... the jets being much faster and streamlined after all ;)
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."- Friedrich Nietzsche
Could you imagine what Nimda would do airborn? Restarting everything on the plane from memory leaks would have to suck too. But then again, if they were using windows some buffer error may change the in flight movie into pr0n!
So if a Pengiun Airlines jet does a fly over of a fleet of parked Penguin Airlines planes, will the planes all fall backwards in unison??
BBC link - old news
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Why is using one platform, regardless of it's appropriateness, just for the sake of using it, a good idea? Shouldn't a company or group look into all options and decide on tools that are the best fit for what needs to be done?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I choose to fly based on destinations, safety, quality, and comfort, not in that order. No where on that list is the computer operating system used by the reservation clerks.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
"Welcome to Penguin Airlines. This is a non-stop swim to NY. In the event of an emergency, a snorkle will be released from above..."
Linux is great and all, but I'd feel a little more comfortable knowing that the people behind the scenes are experts in something else, like, I don't know . . . FUCKING AIRPLANES?!
Lol!
"What's the command to change this guy's reservation?"
"It's 'chgres -x -p#30240 -usrname=John Doe -t12:00 -tx13:35 -fn usa412."
"Oh... Didn't realize that command had a vowel in it."
"Derp de derp."
Gee, I'm ashamed of you idiots! Look at you! You act like you didn't even read the interview (you probably didn't). You sound like you didn't look at the airplane. And you obviously didn't think about the fact that this is *general aviation*. No fricking security checks. No X-raying. No pat-downs. No opening up your laptop and turning it on just to prove that you didn't replace your hard drive and cdrom with explosives (which duh you could have anyway).
What they're selling is freedom, and it's freedom at a reasonable price. I'm definitely going to check these guys out next time I fly. Yeah, I won't be flying to Texas any time too soon, but still, I'll encourage them to expand as rapidly as they can.
Not only that, but they're flying from small town to small town. So intead of having to go to an "airport", you can go to your town's airport, e.g. Potsdam's. This jet can land, pick you up, and take off again in less than ten minutes. And that airport is only ten minutes from my house.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I don't mean to be pedantic, but you probably ought to quote the username. The shell will think it's another arg otherwise. So you'd change his reservation like so:
Yes, I realize you were joking.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Right here.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
All flights are temporarily grounded due to a severe slashdotting. You may move about the cabin until the disturbance subsides, but please refrain from smoking. Thank you.
too bad the general public won't fly them due to fears of being hacked while in flight
Seriously, come on!?!? It might be news if their business ever gets really started and if using Linux really provides them with some other competitive edge than the one - marketing edge - which was already used.
The server's /.'ed, I think I'll start Beastie Airlines or maybe Daemon Air. Plus Beasties can fly.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
In the news today, Penguin Airlines lost half their fleet today as Slashdotters overloaded their plane's computer systems.
On a lighter note, future passengers will not have to use a Passport (get it...Microsoft) because of conflicts with the OS of their planes and general hatred of Microsoft.
. . . and understand that you meant to say "flying airplanes."
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
I agree. A country-western bar? Who does he think he is, John Travolta?
How long before RMS is going to start whining^H^H^H^H^H^H^H asking to have it called GNU/Tux to help spread his commie^H^H^H^H^H^H GPL, free software movement?
HAHA YAH!!!!!!!!!!!
CUZ EVERY1 KN0Wz THAT LINXU DUN HAEV ANY G00D GRAFICAL INTERFRA....INTEFER....THINGHIEZ!!!!
get real man, seriously
the majority of people who use the unix command line functions do so because they _can_ type 160wpm and get work done faster like that. the rest, who can't, use the friggin gui tools like everyone else.
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
Does this mean we can fly for free now ?
I'm trying to imagine a Beowulf cluster of these but the bowtie is cutting the flow of blood to my brain.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
... the airlines is going south, and you should fly it, because Horace Greely said "Go west, young man, go west."
Well, pretty lame, but what the heck, it's only karmakarmakarma.
Infuriate left and right
Welcome aboard! Where do you want to go today?
As we all know, right now is the best time to be in the airline business...
Seriously though, I wish them intelligence. I'd wish them luck, but intelligence seems to be so much more scarce.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
It should be "It's Funny...Laugh".
Ever seen an agent use the old SABRE reservation system? It wasn't nearly as friendly as a typical UNIX shell - the commands were even more terse and cryptic. A well trained agent could get information faster than with any fancy point and click UI.
I think the one at the end of Meet The Parents is up to the task.
Linux Air
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, "You had to do what with the seat?"
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Hmmm. They only sell one-way tickets *out* of Redmond WA.
Table-ized A.I.
One important point about the airplanes only seating a handful of people is that they probably wouldn't be subject to the new airline security standards. At least, this is what I'm guessing; does anyone know for sure? It doesn't really seem like hijacking a 5-person flight would be that attractive to terrorists.
"A good conspiracy is an unprovable one." -Conspiracy Theory
In reference to the Eclipse 500 aeroplane they are going to be using, Penguin Airlines states in the interview :
An aviation analyst recently compared the level of electronics integration on this aircraft to the Boeing 777 or V-22 Osprey.
This is about the worst aeroplane one could possibly compare your fleet to. They have a horid track record especially in the software implementation side of things...what were they thinking?!?!
They can spin off a taxi company called "Tuxi Cabs" or "Tuxi's Taxis".
Table-ized A.I.
I wonder if they'll offer inflight email?
Hopefully they'll use Tenzing's inflight system, since it uses Linux in the air to manage all the air-based proxying for email.
I've used the system, it's really user-friendly and works very well.
... stuff that matters.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Well the airlines is certainly a tough business to be operating in. Airlines go out of business in Canada faster than fashions go out of style. Maybe cutting costs in this area would be enough to help their bottom line and bring down costs. It would be incredibly damaging to Linux's reputation though if some systems failed, and chaos or bankrupcy resulted.
An airline where I don't have to wear my tinfoil hat!
Do you people have ANY IDEA of the shit I've had to put up with gettin that thing onboard normal airlines?
Ali [the dark side]
Ph33r m3!!!
First off, I live in the dfw/dallas/denton area, and I can see a service like this working out. Southwest is king of business travel (and pretty much all the domestic travel for me), especially here in Texas. But SW is pretty uncomfortable compared to the smack they are talking about this Eclipse jet, so there is a valid business to be had, there.
Secondly, Linux makes things cheap. We use it almost exclusively here for servers (except for some legacy windows stuff we have to run) and the push for Linux on the staffs desktops has started rolling. It would make my job infinitely easier.
That said, this guy seems to worry more about Tux crap and using open source software at every level, than creating a useful and solid system for management of their business. PostNuke? PHPGroupware? I didnt think anyone really used that stuff for REAL business, I know I wouldnt. We have craploads of solid programmers in North Dallas that can write these applications from ground up with features that count and without all that bullshit those other programs have already included. They can hire 2-3 programmers to write their system from ground up in Python/Zope/WebWare or Perl/Mason w/ SapDB/PostgreSQL and be better off than molding PHPGroupware and Postnuke into a different app.
Linux and free software packages are great when used properly, but software should be molded for a business not a business molded around software.
Best of luck, though.
This guy is trying to break into the CEO lear jet world. They're offering general aviation flights (which means they can pick you up and drop you off practically anywhere there's 200 yards of pavement) that are high-class. Now that's generally an expensive proposition, and they have a tough market to break into. A lear jet costs about $8000 (according to the article) for a flight. These guys are trying to do the same thing for much much less and linux is really helping them do it. Linux is allowing the little guys to break into the market and offer an affordable solution. That's supposed to be the beauty of it all, right?
I couldn't get up to stretch and shmooze because the overhead "No Trolling" light was on the entire fricken time!
Next time I'll take Blue Skies of D (BSOD) Airways, a subsidiary of MS. (They wouldn't tell me what the 'D' stood for.)
Table-ized A.I.
phpgroupware and postnuke?
Yes, both have made progress, but it's STILL a bit much to say that you're basing an entire airline's support on those projects. I loved the line about 'phpgroupware is rumored to potentially support VoIP in the future'. Great reason to use things now - something in the future *might* support something that other packages already *do* support today.
My company supports PHP wholeheartedly - phphelpdesk.com and PHP training courses are two services we offer. But trying to run a whole airline (even if it's small) off postnuke and phpgroupware - they're going to spend quite a lot on inhouse staff writing custom modules. They *might* be better off financially using *some* third party stuff.
The focus here is as much on open source stuff as Linux (phpgroupware could be run on Windows, for example) so instead of 'right tool for the job' you've got 'open source at any cost', which is, imo, just as bad as 'closed source at any cost'.
creation science book
Yeesh, somebody cracks a joke and suddenly the preach wars start.
Sounds like the AC touched on a sore spot there. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
You got it all wrong: "Penguin" in the name has nothing to do with Linux, but what they serve for meals. I learned that after taking "Dogways Airlines".
Table-ized A.I.
I hate flying - everybit about it. I'm backseat mechanic. Any noise - thumb - jigger - I apply my pathetically poor analysis of airplane maintence that I learned off the internet and start examining the problem. Of course, every analysis ends with the plane exploding into bits and myself clutching the seat in front of me shouting a four letter word while doing it at the same time.
I don't need to know this info. I somewhat know about Linux and tanked a lot of servers. I know how to crash a box and this knowledge will only contribute to my paranoia. I like to think that airplanes are running some superior sophisticated NASA alien technology not an off the shelf distro, or even worse Lindows. Can you imagine if a pilot inadvertently wiped out the drivers for the engines because he didn't know the plane defaulted him as root?
Is it running Linux?!?
Oh suck it up. Linux people crack jokes about Windows all the time. Jokes like that aren't so funny when you know the truth, aren't they? Now you know how a Windows 2000 user feels about BSOD jokes.
... as long as the passenger rate is as low as their earnings, it's fine... but...
;) Sure, you can port the Tux to the zSeries of big blue but with that you won't get the realtime OS behaviour which TPF is providing.
if they grow and I assume they want to, you can suck Linux or any other Unix compared to the good old TPF, IBMs Transaction Processing Family, scalable like hell, fast like a rocket and secure as you could hardly imagine. And I've recently saw a nice article about SMTP beeing ported to the TPF as well and POP3 is already their, carrying 250 Mio POP Boxes without being slashdotted all the time.... Tux, you better wach your ass in the Rerservation Systems Area of the Airlines around the globe... at least EDS and their client/whatever Sabre and many others are still using it and they won't stop for now
how long will it take for the mount jokes to get old (assuming they keep a simple structures)?
Ok, mount the pilots...
(snicker)
Now the passengers...
(giggle)
Now mount the stewardesses!!!
(uh-huh-huh-huuhhh...heh, he said "mount").
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
jokes are one thing...i dig on linux jokes as much as any other os' jokes, it's the bold "i do animation in lightwave so you can't tell me shit" statement i was responding to :)
and the point that i was making is that there are plenty of gui tools in linux so you don't have to use the command line if you don't like it. how, exactly, does a windows user get around bsod's that (s)he doesn't like?
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
The pilots' display looks more impressive than the passengers tv-screen (or lack of). I can imagine them saying "hey, we dont need those stupid engine guages, put Starwars on the center screen." or, if it was my plane "Sir, we're being hailed" - "On screen!"
i think the whole plane needs to be bigger before you can use it for an airline. Maybe say.. big enough for a toilet and more than 3 seats...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I, for one, am terribly interested in the aviation side of this. Using Linux all the way through is very cool and all of that, and I suppose it's groundbreaking for an airline, but it's more an adaptation of existing technology (OS, desktop software, database, web server, scripting software) to a new problem (an airline). Where these guys are really breaking new ground is on the airplane side of things. I read the interview, and somehow I've managed to miss these guys, but I've heard references to this concept before, and as soon as this takes off, I hope to be using it as much as possible.
What these guys are proposing is using the Eclipse 500 to fly people all over the place. It's a six-seat airplane, 355 knot cruise (ca 410 mph), and according to the specs page, it has an accelerate-stop takeoff distance of 2,595 feet. This means it can accelerate to just under the speed it needs to fly on one engine, lose an engine, and still stop safely without running off the end of the runway. This will increase the number of airports Penguin can fly to versus, say, Northwest Airlines, by at least a factor of five. Most municipal airports have at least a 3,000 foot runway. Now, their page is slashdotted, so I'm not sure exactly how they'll handle this, but theoretically that means they could fly me (on a typical trip) from Springfield, MO to New Richmond, WI in a total time of about two hours, including drive time to and from the airport. Currently, it takes about six hours, including nintey minutes for checkin/security and an excursus through St. Louis, Memphis, or (heaven forbid) O'Hare, and then an hour driving from the Minneapolis airport to New Richmond. It's about twelve hours to drive, so it's almost not even worth it to fly, but with these guys, it would be so much nicer. This has the potential to be a serious boon for travellers. Depending on how they do this, it could eliminate hubs, and eliminate having to fly into one of the larger airports, followed by up to three hours of driving.
The Eclipse isn't yet certified, but it looks like it has a really good chance. These guys have been working on it for a while, and they seem to know what they're doing. They're using the Williams EJ22 engine, which is similar to their FJ44 engine that has been very successful on the Cessna CitationJet series. What really amazes me, though, is the price of these things. They're only asking about $850,000, which is barely enough to buy a twin-engine pison (instead of jet) Beech Baron these days.
All of which is to say, I'm really, really excited to hear about these guys, and I hope their business does well. I'll be flying them as soon as I can. They've got cool technology all the way around, and it has the potential to make life much better.
Here's a mirror of the essay, because penguin airlines' own site is kinda DOS'd for a while
1 6. html
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT80154847
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
That Penguin Airlines is touting its employment of Linux in its business and aircraft sounds novel for the free software movement, but should anything ever go wrong on one of their "heavily computerized jets," their problems just might become one of the most infamous software engineering mistakes of all time--and a dark stain on the reputation of open source software.
A malfunctioning aircraft could be more disasterous than either the Therac-25 accidents or the Patriot Missile failure in Dhahran.
"and the point that i was making is that there are plenty of gui tools in linux so you don't have to use the command line if you don't like it"
I know, I've used it. heh.
" how, exactly, does a windows user get around bsod's that (s)he doesn't like?"
Win9X (95, 98, Me...) are awful and BS all the time. Win2k almost never Bsod's. When it does, it's a driver making a bad call.
Let me put it to you this way: I've never had an overnight or over the weekend process interrupted because of Windows stability or lack of. It's been quite reliable. Lotsa places that use Win2k for LW rendering farms will tell you a similar story. That's why I find BSOD jokes about as interesting as 'Dan Quayle is stupid!' jokes.
"We started off unofficially using TexasJet Direct and I liked it because we're all very proud of our state down here."
Sorry bub, you lost all credibility when you said your proud of the ugliest redneck state in the union.
Interesting mix of an airline who run Linux as their O/S of choice, yet the planes themselves are manufactured (in part) by BG.
Maybe someone has finally worked out how to have the two peacefully co-exist?!? :-)
There are 10 kinds of people; those who know ternary, those who don't, and those now hunting for a dictionary.
And running a buggy version of Apache as well!
telnet www.penguinairlines.com 80
Trying 216.143.162.33...
Connected to irix.penguinairlines.com.
Apache/1.3.23 Server at www.penguinairlines.com Port 80
"A well trained agent could get information faster than with any fancy point and click UI."
'Fancy point and click UI's have advantages that keyboards don't have, and vice versa. I know DOS really well, and I'm able to take advantage of that to fly around Windows. But, not everything can be done easily from a keyboard. Don't forget that not every agent is 'well trained'. There's still the matter of giving the user clues as to what he/she needs to do in order to make the computer do what they want.
Microsoft and Apple both understand this and give you very helpful pointers. You can click on File and hit Open, or you can Alt+F then O. If you click on File, you'll see that the O in Open has an underscore in it, thus familiarizing yourself with productivity enhancements of the app you're using.
The short version of what I'm saying is that one isn't 100% superior to the other, so don't treat them that way. The mouse and the keyboard (as well as text and graphics) compliment each other, they don't compete with each other.
My comment that started this thread was not a 'Linux doesnt have a UI so nobody can do any work' joke, it was a "Linux doesn't give enough visual clues to the user" joke. The 'I didnt see that command had a vowel' joke made after my post was funny as hell because even in the text side of Linux this is true. Linux has a wonderful helpfile system, but the command to call it is a little cryptic. 'Man'. It's not 'manual', it's 'man'. So the mapping is a bit broken here. You have to remember the short form of manual, as opposed to just remembering manual. That's a huge UI problem with Linux, it isn't very helpful if you don't have the commands you need to use memorized. That's a bit different from a graphical UI that shows you what options you have available for you to use at any given time.
I think this is a legitimate criticism of Linux. I really hope more attention is paid to this aspect of it in the near future. The OS is very sophisticated and extremely flexible, but it needs a lot of evolution in the user-experience department in order to win a larger market share. Is this important to the Linux Community? Oh I dunno. What could it possibly hurt, though?
"I've never had an overnight or over the weekend process interrupted because of Windows stability or lack of. It's been quite reliable. "
Bullshit.
And BTW, Lightwave blows goats.
Heh yeah. "Im a ChickenHawk, and I only eat Chickens."
How long have you been wearing your 'troll trainee' button?
"Derp de derp."
Because this Penguin flys very well.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
"Why is using one platform, regardless of it's appropriateness, just for the sake of using it, a good idea?"
I don't know. Why don't you ask all the windows only shops out there?
----
No one was ever fired for buying IBM.
Can I take one of their flights, remake the flight plan and have it deliver me elsewhere? Or still better, can I take one of their planes and just fly it myself wherever I want? What about the ticket source? Can I print my own ticket? Can I print tickets to anyyone who wants it? Do they give away free beer during th flight?
If the answer to these questions is a Yes, then I can believe "Tux' is more than just a name for this new air taxi service which brings convenient, economical, time-saving air travel via the shortest route between home and destination.".
I refer you to RFC1925 titled "The Twelve Networking Truths", truth #3:
(3) With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1925.html
-ft
Just as long as they don't use Linux for the avionics!
Sad thing is, airline reservation systems are nearly as cryptic.
An entire new way of looking at Linux overhead!
to fly this airline.
QANTAS (no U) have a kangaroo as their mascot. Have you ever tried to catch a roo? I'd hardly call them sluggish.
Or she could say:
RTFM: Read the fucking magazine!
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
reminded of that episode of "The Critic"?
"Wait a minute... penguins can't fly. PENGUINS CAN'T FLY!!" (plane spirals into ocean)
Karma: Chameleon (mostly affected when you come and go, you come and go)
Linux will save all your problems.
how, exactly, does a windows user get around bsod's that (s)he doesn't like?
By installing a gnu system, of course.
> What's the difference between Windows and Linux? 1000's of games...
I always regarded DOS/Windos to be toy systems.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
It has a bunch of ice-walled canyons where you can build up a lot of speed and make huge jumps.
You standardize the things that are not worth being different.
As a ridiculous example, a sentence is composed of words. Pick each word from the language that best characterizes the exact shade of your meaning. Each word is the best choice, but the sentence is a mess.
With a name like Penguin Airlines, there are some natural image effects with the Linux mascot. As long as it's not a horrible choice for the particular job, methinks they'll do just fine.
Ha ha ha ha. They need to run FreeBSD instead. Linux is way too unstable to run an airline on. To quote Andrew Hume at the last Usenix, "Is Linux ready for prime time? Of course not."
I want BSD airlines! Who besides me thinks it'd be cool to fly in a plane shaped like a daemon? Woosh!
The superman people will have our ass for this.
And the pitchfork thingy would solve all the problems of birds (plus maybe skewer you your inflight meal...)
The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life- the terror of art. -Franz Kafka
Make sure to check out the details of the EJ-22 turbofan. It contains technology which will forever change the face of civilian (and military) aviation.
Among its innovations, this engine uses foil air bearings with PS-304 high-temperature lubricant developed by NASA.
If he's drinking, he must have used up all of his weed.
They play both kinds of music: country AND western (Blues Bros. reference, for those who don't know).
Hmmm, by combining several /. stories, a new one evolves.
Penguin Airlines
Sea Gliders for Other Worlds
Big Black Delta Mystery Solved?
Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition
Gravity and thermal powered transoceanic submarine service.
Gravity and thermal powered transglobal air service.
Imagine if the craft all looked like Tux.
Operating a fleet of "Big Black Tuxs" would be pretty wild.
Maybe I should start this project on SourceForge.
It is now time to flip off your computer.
echo 'right' > /dev/rudder