Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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
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?"
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."
"Linux controlling our skies? Might as well stop all airborne travel."
I wouldn't go that far, but you would need to know Bernoulli's Law to board the plane.
"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.
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) + (&)
. . . and understand that you meant to say "flying airplanes."
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
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
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
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.
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
They can spin off a taxi company called "Tuxi Cabs" or "Tuxi's Taxis".
Table-ized A.I.
(* Does this mean we can fly for free now ? *)
If you market to hackers, that is probably what will end up happening. Very few will end up buying real tickets. The rest will have have "magic coupons" that cannot be traced to any revunue.
Table-ized A.I.
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!!!
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
Jets for nerds...stuff that matters
Can you buy tickets with Karma?
Are trolls kept off, or have to sit in back?
Table-ized A.I.
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.
That's "Where do you want to go tomorrow?"
"Where do you want to go today?" is Microsoft's.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
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
"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.
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?
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.".
Or she could say:
RTFM: Read the fucking magazine!
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Will we see "first flight" posts?
Just don't make me sit next to Goatse.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
I feel the same way about Linux. "Oo, if I do this, this, this, this, this, that, and this, I can make it as useful as Windows! I wonder what else I can do to make it do stuff that Windows has done for ages?"
"Derp de derp."