Today is the Day

NOTICE

As you know, the Webmaster and Commercial Aviation moderators decided to ban discussion of Alpha One and/or its founder until such time as the airline actually began operations.

Since the “inaugural flight” of Alpha One now appears to have been little more than a media event and this latest thread is now simply repeating history, the Webmaster has decided to reimpose the ban on discussion of this subject.

Accordingly, this thread is now closed and no postings on the subject of Alpha One and/or its founder will be permitted on these Forums until further notice.

Complaints and comments to the Webmaster, please.

Thank you

GA

Soon he’ll be on the panel of a reality TV show about business start-ups

I was thinking more like soon he might be on Watchdog!!! :p

Andy

Believing your own publicity is one of the later stages of commercial madness. MH may also have been playing too long on FS for his own good – all those hours in front of the PC have been translated into real hours in his all too vivid imagination, so he now thinks he was actually flying fare-paying SLF all that time.

The write-ups in the Telegraph etc. confirm what he already hoped, that he is a truly successfull business person whose bag of commercial fairy dust is full to bursting. He will in time realise that the airline business is too small for him, and will launch Alpha One car hire, Alpha One Mobile, Alpha One Bank, Alpha One cruises and perhaps even Alpha One ladies underwear.

Soon he’ll be on the panel of a reality TV show about business start-ups, and then we will know that he has finally disappeared up his own fundament.

A “lie” is a deliberate deception. Although you can reasonably doubt his ability to deliver anything credible from this endevour, based on the evidence to date, you cannot prove that it was / is his intent to deliberately decieve people about his intentions viz AlphaOne.

Anyone who says he is going to fly for an airline WITHOUT an ATPL and WITHOUT an instrument rating, and will continue his training to gain these qualifications in between flying for the airline, is either totally niave (far too niave in fact for someone who’s already invested much in getting a CPL and would thus need to understand the rules surrounding various professional licences and the limitations on them to pass the exams), or is doing only one other thing…

Andy

It is really amazing that despite a track record of outright lies from its founder, there are people out there prepared to believe that Alpha One is anything other than a publicity generating machine.

“I’m an airline pilot” – founder of Alpha One, 8th January 2005.

A “lie” is a deliberate deception. Although you can reasonably doubt his ability to deliver anything credible from this endevour, based on the evidence to date, you cannot prove that it was / is his intent to deliberately decieve people about his intentions viz AlphaOne.

Un-reliable, Un-credible, even un-believable ( in terms of A1)

But not a Liar – unless you can prove specifically that he set out to deceive.

Lets give the boy the benefit of the doubt and just say that based on what we have seen to date, his ability for personal publicity far outweighs his ability to deliver on his promises 🙂

An dont be so vituperous about everything, Damien.

£58 One way excluding taxes CWL-IOM! Can’t see this lasting to be honest

Why not? Have you seen the Eastern Airways fares to the Isle of Man. A return flight including taxes from Birmingham is more than £222.

Mind you, I’m not following AlphaOne anymore. I’m finding it too hard to keep on top of all the route changes and date changes.

… but there’s still a long way to go to convince some of us that AlphaOne is anything other than a grand scam.
Andy

To what end?

Moggy

£58 One way excluding taxes CWL-IOM! Can’t see this lasting to be honest

Sorry to disappoint you cloud_9, bmused56 (strange user name that!), Pembo330, and any other “spotters, artists and wanabees who comprise AlphaOne’s only supporters” (PPRuNe quote I think) but there’s still a long way to go to convince some of us that AlphaOne is anything other than a grand scam.

Eh, you’re not disappointing me Andy, you’re entitled to your opinion.

We all knock airlines and their service when things go wrong, so why should Alpha One be any different right? 😉 I just believe in this case, we could be knocking a person who is just doing his very best and following a dream, and its not nice when people get knocked for trying and giving 100%.

But its a free speaking forum and time will be the judge. Martin hasn’t delivered yet, but that’s not to say he won’t soon and I’m a big fan of enthusiasm and determination which we seem to have evidence of here; lets hope that transpires to results some time soon.

Huh? Who’s eating humble pie? As yet, AlphaOne have dismally failed to deliver on any promise or commitment they’ve made, and its still several weeks away from when they do if we even believe that they will meet the promises they’re currently making.

Sorry to disappoint you cloud_9, bmused56 (strange user name that!), Pembo330, and any other “spotters, artists and wanabees who comprise AlphaOne’s only supporters” (PPRuNe quote I think) but there’s still a long way to go to convince some of us that AlphaOne is anything other than a grand scam.

Andy

Whose complaining ? I think we’re here to eat humble pie for doubting Martin what’s his name.

Though he still has to prove us wrong by flying the first operational flight on November 21st. But as things go today, good luck to the youngman.

Oh and to meet his expectations of carrying 75,000 passengers in his first year, his two aircraft will have to do 6 fully loaded flights a day for 365 days a year. I fear this maybe a bit of an optimistic target.

I am glad you are all eating humble pie, shows just how you can be so wrong and how little faith you have in people with ambtion!

CONGRATS TO MARTIN – well done mate…I will look forward to flying with you soon, however, I do agree with EN830 about his passenger figure estimates – the do seem to be a bit high for a brand new start-up!

I find everyone’s interest in this subject fascinating.

For me, the fact a young lad is persuing his dream and already achieving something way beyond his years is fantastic and I continue to wish him and Alpha One all the best.

There may be broken promises, delays and an apparent string of mishaps for us all to comment on, but such is life and such is business. Whether it works or not, who knows, but he’s come along way to get this far, if it were me I’d sure be fighting to make sure I don’t die on my backside now.

As for the term ‘baby branson’ – well maybe it is premature, but one thing is for certain daddy branson loves publicity, and Martin, in some shape or form, keeps tongues wagging and keyboards drumming on this site and many others. Maybe the two aren’t that dis-similar. :rolleyes:

Come on Martin – you can do it!!! 🙂

Quite…..the only thing that beggars belief is the degree of indignation amongst people who should probably know better and teenage reggie spotters who know nothing.

I suspect the term “ego w**k” is getting pretty close to slander/libel.

Don’t suppose any of the juvenile “experts” would have the courage to address their comments to Martin’s face.

Very well said sir. 😎

You clearly havent been following this thread properly Andrew :rolleyes:

Tomorrow is D Day! Ill be watching BAA website in the morning!

I suspect the term “ego w**k” is getting pretty close to slander/libel.

Don’t suppose any of the juvenile “experts” would have the courage to address their comments to Martin’s face.

I think it is fair to say that many of the posters here (including myself) have always acknowleged that starting an airline is a mammoth task and would have considerable sympathy if an individual was struggling in this.

However, you would reasonably expect that someone in the situation Mr H now finds himself in would be seeking to distance themselves from the “Baby Branson” tag in the midst of such repeated failure to deliver on the many, many public promises made.

You would think that they would stand back from the limelight until they had delivered credible achievements

Not so – The most visible achievement of A1, to date, is the PR drive of which a large percentage is personal publicity about Mr H’s ambitions!

To set aside a large space for information about himself as “Baby Branson”, on his own yet un-finished website, is frankly laughable and slightly pathetic.

I still think “ego w**k” is a fair summation, in my opinion, based on the visibibly huge and ongoing drive for personal publicity, which is all the more ridiculous when this airline has made so many false starts.

Were it not for that, and the myriad changes of publically announced plans,then i would be far more sympathetic to anyone starting out in an undoubtably difficult industry.

If you look back in history, then i think i am correct in saying that the only time you really see Sir Richard Branson is at the lauch proper of something real which he has been quietly working on in secret to ensure it happens properley.

I dont recall any false dawns for him.

Elgan.

Living in Penmachno has left you behind somewhat….. 😉

Mondays IOM-SOU flights are now to be operated sometime in January, with AlphaOne’s first revenue earning flights taking place on the 14th December. IIRC the route is IOM-GLA? (could be EDI, can’t access his website at the moment).

Do keep up……

Regards,

kev35

Kev its the Beer at uni that’s to blame, but thanks for the recap

Elgan.

Living in Penmachno has left you behind somewhat….. 😉

Mondays IOM-SOU flights are now to be operated sometime in January, with AlphaOne’s first revenue earning flights taking place on the 14th December. IIRC the route is IOM-GLA? (could be EDI, can’t access his website at the moment).

Do keep up……

Regards,

kev35

I have to agree with Andy here.

I was very supportive of Martin when he 1st announced AlphaOne here on this very forum. I believed at the time, he had a product that could and should be sucsessful.

But promises are promises, and if you break them, then that reputation that you have built, is deteriorating very rapidly. Martin publicly announced his airline to the world, via the Media, i.e BBC News, Radio, TV, Magazines. He had….and hopefully STILL has a reputation, but delaying something you had announced that would be up in the air months ago, and it STILL not airbourne, doesn’t look good on your part.

Just like Kev, i’d be happy to go up to him and ask. What would have happened if you had paid £100 odd to be on that 1st flight back in April….August….sorry November?
Personally i’d be fuming. And i’d like to ask him a few questions also about the operations.

If those 1st pax do go up on Monday, i won’t eat humble pie, i have better things to do

:EDIT: And just realized there will be no Pax on Monday, due the revised date! AGAIN!

Moondance,

I think you do some of us a great dis-service. Some of us have only started to be critical of AlphaOne because EVERYTHING that they have said has failed to be delivered, or has been vaguely rediculous (in the latter category – owner saying he will be flying scheduled services as pilot without an ATPL or IR, for example). Such dis-information deserves to be exposed and discussed if only to explain why, to the more gullible who might otherwise lap it all up. Although some of the more recent comments have decended into ridicule of AlphaOne, original comments made by a number of us have been backed up by explanations of why we are sceptical, and thus our views are based on reason (and in some cases industry-experience) to back up our position.

Some of us still remember Caledonian Wings, 20 Delta TriStars to be based at Prestwick and The Guvnor on PPRuNe – if you don’t, go look it all up. I am not suggesting that anyone at AlphaOne is in the same category as the originator of the CW story, but at times the dis-information coming out of AlphaOne has verged on appearing as if its all a great scam, as CW was.

Andy