Kathleen Gustafson and Gerry Cooney, customer service agents, welcome passengers to Dulles. Photo by Natasha Whitling

When start–up Southwest started to show the big national airlines how to run an efficient carrier with rapid turnarounds, low fares, grocery store check–out ticketing, and knockout flight attendants, all for enviable profits and fast company growth schedules, it pulled it off with Boeing 737s. The cost for flying a seat a mile was about the lowest in the industry.

Air South, much to its credit, began with the same 737s, and it failed for reasons well removed from the selection of its fleet’s aircraft.

Dulles–based Independence Air, however, went where no airline had gone before with a fleet of regional jets, 50–seat jobs that cost 30% higher per seat/mile than the unit costs of the competing discount carriers. But where they were flying the Independence fleet of regional jets and their discounts forced other players at the same airports to drop their prices.

Columbia consumers, for instance, were tickled pink with price reductions across the board.

However, Independence Air parent’s income statement and financial health were never in the pink. Most airline industry analysts interviewed by The Wall Street Journal cited the unit costs of the regional jets as a deal killer from the get-go, even before there was a first annual income statement at FLYi. By last June, flying for just about one year, FLYi had reportedly run through more than $240 million of its start–up cash of $300 million. Worse, regardless of aircraft, no airline model can be expected to work in a time of $60 a barrel oil.

Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, FLYi is hoping for a federal judge to oversee a 60–day auction to attract outside investors with interests in keeping the company flying. If that doesn’t work out, FLYi should shut down.

For Columbia, all is not bleak. US Airways, climbing out of its own bankruptcy with a new merger partner America West, is expected to operate as a discount airline on the Southwest model. Charlotte should still be a major US Airways hub, and Columbia should still get adequate US Airways connections, maybe even at a discount.