Hooters Air goes buh-bye - plus the triumph of hope over experience

After a week of hemming and hawing, they came out and said it. Sorta. The official announcement is no more Hooters Air reservations past April 17. But since that's also the date of the last flight out of Myrtle Beach, SC, that's probably the end.

Hooters is the second high-profile airline shutdown this year; Independence Air quit flying Jan. 5. Some of Independence was bought by the bankrupt Northwest Airlines, which plans to use it to launch a regional carrier called Compass Airlines. That is, if the pilots union and a bankruptcy judge approve.

As a note to all the Amtrak-bankruptcy fans out there, here are 2 unpleasant facts of life in bankruptcy:

1. Judges rule. You have to get a permission slip from the bankruptcy judge to do much of anything beyond continuing operations.
2. Getting all those permission slips costs big money.
   
   • United paid its bankruptcy lawyers $335 million in its 38 months under Chapter 11.
   • Delta's lawyer bills are running about $10 million a month.
   • Northwest's are running just under $5 million a month.
     

Meanwhile, airfans investors in Columbus plan to start their own airline. They even have a fun little name for it: Skybus. But of course naming is the easy part. As a skeptical Tom Parsons, founder of bestfares.com, told the Dispatch, "There is no such thing as the friendly skies anymore."

More great observations about the extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of startup airlines appear in this IAGblog entry.

Once again, your conductor must ask: Is it possible that it's just a wee bit more difficult to make money carrying passengers than critics and railfans would have us believe?