In this episode of The Fight Pod, hosted by Michael Arron, the guest is Alex Wilcox, the CEO and co-founder of JSX, a semi-private airline revolutionising regional flying in the US. Alex shares his extensive journey in the aviation industry, starting from his early influences, working at airports during college, to his roles at Virgin Atlantic, JetBlue, and Kingfisher Airlines. He describes JSX's unique approach to offering a superior customer experience compared to traditional airlines, emphasising convenience, efficiency, and service. The conversation also delves into JSX's future plans, including the introduction of ATR aircraft and potential for hybrid electric airplanes. Alex highlights the importance of listening to customer feedback and maintaining a focus on quality service.
In this episode of The Flight Pod, host Michael Arron interviews Alex Wilcox, the CEO and co-founder of JSX, an innovative semi-private airline redefining regional travel in the US. Alex discusses his lifelong passion for aviation, shaped by his father's career in transportation, and his journey from working at Virgin Atlantic and launching JetBlue and Kingfisher Airlines in India, to founding JSX. He shares insights on JSX's unique customer-centric approach, the challenges and opportunities in the aviation industry, and his belief in balancing growth while maintaining a niche, premium service. The conversation highlights Alex's vision for the future of air travel, including the introduction of ATR aircraft to expand routes and the potential of hybrid electric planes.
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The Flight Pod Website www.theflightpod.com
Alex Wilcox Twitter/X www.x.com/alexwilcox
JSX Twitter/X www.x.com/flyjsx
JSK Instagram www.instagram.com/flyjsx
00:00 Introduction to The Flight Pod
00:40 Alex Wilcox's Early Aviation Journey
04:26 From Virgin Atlantic to JetBlue
13:08 The Birth of JSX
17:10 JSX: A New Era in Air Travel
23:04 Challenges in the Airline Industry
25:22 JSX's Unique Approach
27:45 Customer-Centric Innovations
32:00 Expansion and Future Plans
33:48 Why Dallas?
36:27 Global Aspirations and Technological Advancements
39:43 Personal Reflections and Advice
41:46 Quickfire Questions and Closing Remarks
Alex Wilcox - Revolutionising air travel with JSX
[00:00:03] Michael: Welcome to The Flight Pod, exploring the lives and journeys of the most influential people in aviation and travel. I'm your host, Michael Arron, and on this episode I speak with Alex Wilcox, the CEO and co-founder of JSXA trailblazer in the world of air travel. JSX is redefining regional flying in the US with its unique semi-private experience.
[00:00:24] Michael: Alex's aviation journey is as impressive as it is inspiring. From his early days at Virgin Atlantic to helping launch both JetBlue and India's Kingfish Airlines. He's played a key role in reshaping modern air travel. Now with Jsx is doing it all over again. I asked Alex where his story in aviation took off.
[00:00:44] Michael: I.
[00:00:44] Alex: Well, I've been in transportation my whole life. My father was in the shipping business.
[00:00:48] Alex: He worked for a company called United States Lines, which ultimately, I think Pan Am put out business. They were the preeminent United States, um, passenger and cargo carrier, and he was involved in [00:01:00] containerization. In Europe. And um, so I got a bit of the love for travel, you know, from him and my mother, who's Swiss, my dad's an American from New York.
[00:01:09] Alex: My mom was Swiss and, um, spent a lot of my childhood traveling around in between those two places. And so going to visit my grandparents was always a treat. Um, I got to play at Swiss Air from JFK, you know, we lived in Brooklyn, uh, JFK, over to Europe every summer. And uh, for me that was part of the highlight of the summer.
[00:01:28] Alex: I was getting to get on that big red white and red 7 47 to uh, land at Geneva. It was nonstop, even as it is today from JF to Geneva. They're doing a smaller plane now, and I just got the bug both for travel and for aviation, I think very early on in those days, and I always wanted to be involved in the business.
[00:01:49] Alex: I actually worked, uh, summers and during college, uh, at the Burlington Vermont airport, which was just a few miles from University of Vermont's main campus.
[00:01:57] Alex: Uh, where I, where I went for four years. As the job [00:02:00] in the summertime was, you know, fueling airplanes, uh, line service. Uh, I worked for two airlines and a and a fixed based operator. When I was there in Burlington and kind of got a feel for the very ground level of the business, I knew a lot of pilots who were up and coming at the time as well.
[00:02:14] Alex: I also had already gotten my, uh, private pilot license when I was 17, I think in 1987. I started taking lessons when I was 16. I actually got the certificate in this summer of 87, I think when I was 17. I was very proud of that. So, uh, I also was referred to as auto by the people at Valley Air Services, which was the FBO that I worked at.
[00:02:36] Alex: We had a small fleet of beach barons and caravans, um, of, no, excuse me, the caravan didn't exist yet. Beach barons and Piper Navajos. That we'd fly around and I would be the, the autopilot. They'd let me come on in the right seat. And if it was an a TP, uh, or A-C-F-W-I flying, then I could, I could actually log the time.
[00:02:56] Alex: And so I built a fair amount of time flying in the cold, Vermont [00:03:00] and Northeast winters, uh, learning how to really fly a piston airplane in icing conditions. Wow. Quite a challenging endeavor. Uh, from there, I. Went on into the aviation, uh, world. I joined an airline. It was Piedmont Commuter, also known as was the former Rockway Rockaway Air people who had founded it.
[00:03:20] Alex: Uh, we flew beach 19 hundreds and saw three forties. Uh, that was also during college. And then once I graduated, I made the logical step of, uh, quitting further work in aviation, enjoying rock and roll bands. Which I managed for a couple years. I like you
[00:03:36] Michael: do.
[00:03:37] Alex: Yep. I have no musical talent, but I was the manager of the band for a couple years and it was a, a amazing time with really close friends and we got signed to it, a label, a, b, a entertainment.
[00:03:49] Alex: Peter Sly was the producer of what I like about You, thought we had it made and then, uh, almost inevitably demand split up right on the cusp of success. So, [00:04:00] uh, they carried on as a three piece band for a little while, but, uh, I got off the bus in Miami, took a job with um, Johnny Rockets in Coconut Grove, waited tables, for the Brazilian tourists in Miami.
[00:04:13] Alex: And then, uh, wound up getting a job at the Miami International Airport. I thought I'd better go back to aviation if I wanna do something that I like. I liked Miami. It was wintertime. I didn't wanna go to Vermont. And, uh. Found a job with Virgin Atlantic Station manager, Daniel Corned hired me, very good guy, um, who, uh, Argentinian and he was, uh, extremely, uh, helpful to my career.
[00:04:39] Alex: Got me my first kind of real large airline job at the time. Virgin Atlantic was changing their headquarters locations from lower Manhattan to Connecticut and that created a number of opportunities and I wound up working for. A guy named David Tate. Uh, David was the one of the co-founders of Virgin Atlantic and [00:05:00] was, uh, the in charge of the US operation.
[00:05:03] Alex: And I was started off as a secretary to one of his lieutenants McKenzie Grant. Uh, McKenzie was in charge of properties, you know, all real estate and airport services in North America. Learned a lot about that part of the business. There did some work for David looking, evaluating different businesses that wanted to be affiliated with Virgin.
[00:05:21] Alex: Then came up with a concept called Beat the Concord, um, where we were gonna fly from Westchester County Airport to London City Airport in a Gulf Stream or, uh, a Global Express. And with, you know, maybe 19 live flatbeds in it, especially configured. And if you were, you know, in the Connecticut area, the Gold Coast as we called it.
[00:05:45] Alex: And you were on your way to London and your appointment was in Docklands or nearby, uh, you would actually be able to be the Concord, 'cause you didn't have to fight the van. Wait to go the JFK, go through the big airport, the lounge, you see the theme here? Yeah. You didn't have to, uh, you know, fight on the, [00:06:00] on the motorway getting into London either.
[00:06:02] Alex: So you could literally, you know, leave your office at the same time as your colleague who was flying Concord and he would be in London before they would, uh, amazing. So that was, that was the basic idea. We ultimately didn't, didn't do that, but I got it. I got to pitch it to Richard. Um, and then along the way, a couple years later, I, uh, after pitching a couple other crazy ideas that I bore you with, uh, met a guy named David Neman.
[00:06:25] Alex: David was starting, uh, he had, you know, had started Morris Air or he had helped grow Morris Air, started his own airline reservations company, uh, helped start WestJet and he wanted to do a deal to license the Virgin brand for what would turn out to be JetBlue. Uh, and then David, uh. I got along well. I met him uh, at the Westchester County Airport.
[00:06:50] Alex: We spent the next day driving between LaGuardia and JFK 'cause a lot of his potential investors told him that no one would ever drive out from Manhattan to JFK to take [00:07:00] a domestic flight, convinced ourselves that it was really only 15, 20 minutes farther away, which it really is. Um, unless you're having really bad luck with traffic.
[00:07:08] Alex: Uh, then LaGuardia for Midtown. And ultimately, you know, Jeff Lu was going to be launched, uh, uh, from Trenton, New Jersey, but we convinced ourselves that JFK was a better spot. Port Authority agreed with us, um, through some visionaries there as well, and we raised the money. Um, at one point I was gonna have to, the, the deal with the Virgin obviously did not come to fruition, and I think that was a missed opportunity for Virgin Atlantic when that deal fell apart.
[00:07:37] Alex: David called me up at home and said, uh. We don't have Richard, we don't have Virgin, but I think we can raise the money and I'll personally guarantee your salary for a year, um, if you wanna come join. And so at that point, I became what I think is the first actual employee of J of JetBlue. Uh, we had, you know, he had a lawyer, Tom Kelly, the late Tom Kelly, great man.
[00:07:59] Alex: And David, [00:08:00] you know, had put the plan together themselves, but I think I was the first full-time employee, uh, of the company at that point in time. I had, you know, no family, no kids, no obligations. Uh, so I gleefully signed up. Uh, he said If we don't raise the money, we'll just tour museums for a year. That sounded good to me too.
[00:08:17] Alex: Um, and obviously we managed to raise the money and, uh, the rest became history with JetBlue. So from there. Yeah. Yeah. I'll let you, I'll let you ask a question. Yeah,
[00:08:28] Michael: no, no at all. So then you, uh, you, you, you with JetBlue, and then if I'm right, your next, uh, venture, you go to India with, uh, Kingfisher. Is that straight after JetBlue?
[00:08:40] Michael: Right?
[00:08:41] Alex: Yeah. Yeah. So during my time at JetBlue at one point I moved out to California. Uh, very happy moment for me as well. It turned out it was the week before nine 11 that I moved out there and, uh, I was in la. On nine 11, JetBlue was getting ready to go public. You know, it's been covered elsewhere. Uh, that was delayed obviously by the, by the attacks.[00:09:00]
[00:09:00] Alex: And, uh, a couple years later, JetBlue did go public very successfully. And so I was in a position that I hadn't been in before and I was in, in recruited, uh, to go to India, uh, by a guy named DJ Mario. There's a little episode on, uh, Netflix. Netflix about this.
[00:09:18] Michael: I told, I told Stuart earlier. Yeah. I don't remember you being in it.
[00:09:21] Michael: I hope I, I'm surprised you didn't get I'm, you are in it. Um, oh, I'm
[00:09:26] Alex: in it. Oh, yes. No, if you watch Bad Boy Billionaires episode one. Yeah. Uh, on Netflix, you'll, you'll see me. Uh, and it's pretty well documented. Little deal there. And so I spent almost two years living in Bombay, uh, as the locals still call it, uh, they call it Mumbai now.
[00:09:40] Alex: Yeah. But they, but in Bombay, they still call it Bombay, uh, near Ontario Station. And helped BJ start Kingfisher Airlines and Kingfisher, uh, became the largest privately held airline, uh, of its time in India. We were competing at the time with Sahara and with, um, [00:10:00] with Jet Aviation or, uh, just Jet Airlines.
[00:10:04] Alex: Um, but, uh, India wasn't exactly my cup of tea. And after two years I decided to move back to the States. Um, we had a great thing going at Kingfisher. It was the highest rated and certainly the most popular, um, and successful Indian airline of its time. We had this huge market to ourselves. Um, hundreds of millions of people coming into the middle class looking for that.
[00:10:30] Alex: Um, and, you know, some strategic decisions were made that I didn't necessarily agree with to go into international flying and wide body airplanes, and I didn't know how to do that. So I. Thought that the appropriate thing to do would be to resign and which is what I did, uh, came back to the States and moved back to California and decided to, uh, start something new in aviation again.
[00:10:52] Alex: Uh, so I was raising money for a, what was called Lola, LOLA, which was sort for [00:11:00] Long Beach to, uh, Las Vegas, um, with a little icon of a, a woman atrics, you know, with the leather hat and the goggles and the. Um, scarf, uh, which I liked a lot, and we, we were gonna fly Q4 hundreds or some kind of turbo prop we thought from sort of secondary, tertiary cities in California to Las Vegas.
[00:11:22] Alex: And along the way, I met a guy who worked for National Bank of Canada and the National Bank of Canada at the time had gone long. And by the way, this is oh eight. Okay? It's 2008, the Great Finish Crisis, just starting National Bank of Canada head. Purchased, uh, options for 50, uh, phenom 100 aircraft. And they thought they'd bought into the story that, uh, the very light jets were going to revolutionize aviation, but soon there'd be a jet in every garage.
[00:11:51] Alex: And this was gonna be an easy flip. Well, it was 2008. Nobody was interested in buying private jets all of a sudden. And they were up, you know, they [00:12:00] had a lot of millions of dollars down against these airplanes. So long story short, they hired me to negotiate a deal with Embr Air, where we converted our deposits on this large order into firm deliveries for a much smaller order.
[00:12:12] Alex: We did turn up and take those airplanes and they were financed, um, by Prat Whitney Canada. And the planes were fully paid off by the end of the 10 year term. Um, it turned into a success from the standpoint of embryo and prat and Whitney, but it wasn't really commercial success, you know, for, uh, for the investors and the business directly.
[00:12:33] Alex: Very, very difficult industry in which to make a money. Very difficult industry in which to differentiate yourself. You know, private jets have a problem because lots of the capacity in the market is owned by individuals who are already have a sunk cost in the airplane, sunk cost on the crew, and they'll just go price, you know, on the operating margin to go fly their airplanes, you know, to anybody that wants to tar them.
[00:12:56] Alex: So that kind of sets a very low bar for pricing and so it's hard, [00:13:00] hard to differentiate yourself and if you are. Long on the airplanes and long on the cruise and long on the training. Uh, it's very hard to get a return. However, getting to your last question, you know, how did we start JSX? We did notice, um, it was very obvious and very apparent that people who could afford it would do anything to avoid the major airlines and people would pay us 5, 6, 7, 8, $10,000 for one hour flight in, uh, in a small jet.
[00:13:30] Alex: Just to avoid flying on the major carriers who would often have service in those very same markets. So, you know, from Orange County to Oakland, people would say, you know, I want to charter your jet. I said, well, why would you just fly on Southwest Airlines? And they're like, because I can afford not to and I don't wanna do that.
[00:13:43] Alex: And I don't wanna show up to the airport, you know, an hour early for a 45 minute flight. Um, and I don't want to take my shoes off and I don't have to walk through a zombie mall to get into the airplane. I don't want, wanna wait for 160 other people to get on and off the airplane before me and after me.
[00:13:57] Alex: And, you know, all the indignities that we put up with when [00:14:00] we, when we travel by plane. Um, and yeah, it's great for the short period of time that you're in the air going 500 miles an hour, but somehow we've made it so difficult to get from your car to that seat and get that seat into the air flying that we've made a business.
[00:14:15] Alex: Uh, now just offering people what they actually want, which is time savings and, and convenience. And I think small is beautiful when it comes to service industries. A lot easier to please 30 people at a time than it is 180, maybe 230 people. Now you can get a 3 21. I mean, it's insane. Um, that's not service, right?
[00:14:33] Alex: That's is processing. You're just processing people. That's why they call them passengers. They don't even call them customers. They call 'em passengers. A passenger is somebody you process, um, a customer, someone you serve. And so at JSX, we don't have passengers. We have customers and we serve them and we give them what they want, which is the fastest point A to point B experience that they can have.
[00:14:52] Alex: Um, and that was basically born out of our two things. One was our total frustration with how [00:15:00] aviation was being perceived by its customers appropriately. So, by the way, and the other was we knew how good it could be 'cause we were flying a private jet company. And so basically the mandate was to find, okay, for the level of convenience that we provide in the private jet business.
[00:15:18] Alex: Uh, what is the largest that I can scale to under these operating rules? There has to be a bright line and it turns out there is a bright line and the difference between part 1 35 or charter operations. Um, and part 1 21 commercial airline operations is 30. The number is 30. Um, you can fly up to 30 seats under part 1 35.
[00:15:38] Alex: And if you have 31 seats, you're an airline and now you're part 1 21. And there's a lot of differences between how those are regulated. I'm not gonna say one is safer or less safer than the other. They each appropriately regulated for the size of operations that they are. There are many things that I think are arguably safer in a smaller operation.
[00:15:56] Alex: Um. Again, from a security standpoint, 30 [00:16:00] people are much easier to screen than 230 people, especially two 30 people that are coming than going to a shopping mall. And also we've got all the other people.
[00:16:08] Michael: Absolutely.
[00:16:08] Alex: Yeah. And, and all the other sort parties that are servicing the airplanes and cleaning the airplanes and doing the catering.
[00:16:13] Alex: All the other things like the, the, the, the threat vectors are much, much greater for, you know, the larger the operation. Uh, but whether it's service, whether it's security, whether it's safety, you know, small is beautiful and, and I believe our performance has proven that, uh, to date. So, um, yeah, it was really born outta frustration with the airline experience and knowing it could be better because of our private jet experience and then trying to marry the two as best we could.
[00:16:34] Alex: So we found out that it's 30 seats. We found out all the other rules. Um, you know, we read the rules very carefully of, I'd say that people work at JSX probably know that, right? The pertinent regulations better than, certainly better than competitors who don't seem to bother reading them. Um, and, um. And probably better than maybe even some of the regulators, you know, who don't necessarily understand the history behind why they're made, but the market is working as intended.
[00:16:58] Alex: The Deregulation Act was [00:17:00] designed to encourage new modes of, um, service, new modes of aviation, new kinds of aviation. You know, innovation is what they try to do, and that's what we represent. So now, flash forward over eight years into the existence of JSX, including, you know, and during the pandemic and surviving that.
[00:17:19] Alex: And we've got, you know, I think the world's top rated air carrier in terms of customer satisfaction, in terms of on time performance, in terms of completion factor, in terms of all the things that people actually, uh, expect when they buy a ticket, um, to apply somewhere. And so, uh, we couldn't be prouder, but, uh, we're extremely proud of our results.
[00:17:37] Alex: Uh, but we also know we're just at the very beginning of a, of what's gonna be an amazing journey.
[00:17:41] Michael: It's awesome. I, I, I feel, I feel everything that you just said, because I've kind of gone through this myself. Um, everything that kind of like brought me to this point, uh, was born out the same frustrations, the same thing through, uh, you know, I, I, I kind of through my PP I've got a share in a plane.
[00:17:57] Michael: So I fly in and out of FBOs. [00:18:00] I see these private terminals, most of them in the uk. Um, it's not like the us the utilization's minimal. I mean, apart from say Luten or Farmborough, but even say Manchester. Um, you know, which is, we, we have a lot of private planes flying in and out, but you get somebody come in four o'clock in the afternoon and then there's nobody else until 10 o'clock at night, and yet they have this full service for everything they're provided.
[00:18:24] Michael: Um, and I'd noticed this, I I, I get my, uh, class one medical done at, it's actually in the same building as signature. So I would go in and out and I'd see this and I'd talk to the staff and. Kinda look at it. And then on the other side of it, um, just going through the main airports myself, flying to Europe and yeah, a boron I refer to.
[00:18:43] Michael: And you, you sort of say the thing about customers and passengers, I sort of also say, you know, where they say boarding, I don't feel it's boarding. I be, I feel it's herding. So it is kind of, um, yeah, everything you just said, I, I, that's kind of where, where I kind of am. But you are in the US and I'm here.
[00:18:59] Michael: So, [00:19:00] um, JSX Phil feels like a total rethink of air travel. Did you always believe it would work?
[00:19:08] Alex: Yes. You have to believe it was gonna work, otherwise you're not gonna put up with the frustrations, you know? Uh, and, and the, uh, challenges of a startup, I mean, any startup company I think is difficult.
[00:19:18] Alex: Our industry is notoriously difficult. And so, you know, the frustrations, challenges that any leader has, any entrepreneur has, I think are even magnified potentially in our business. And not only are you up against, you know, a business that's really resistant to change, also highly structured, highly, highly regulated.
[00:19:38] Alex: And even when you comply with all the rules exactly as they're written, um, you know, you're still gonna get challenged for your, your basic legitimacy. So other industries, I think, you know, technology for example, have. Sort of incubated places where supporters are founded. If you go to Silicon Valley, you know there's many, many, many entrepreneurs that have started many different companies, often tried and failed [00:20:00] and often tried and succeeded, where there's an infrastructure that supports that experimentation.
[00:20:05] Alex: That is not the case in aviation. Now, obviously, we're not in industry. Things have to work every single day here. We we're not in a, uh, move fast and break things kind of industry. It's a very unforgiving industry. We don't do things exactly the way it's supposed to be done, and so we're very cognizant of that as well.
[00:20:19] Alex: Uh, but our, luckily there are some, still some visionaries left. You know, most of the people that are operating business, uh, businesses in, in my industry are not entrepreneurs. They're not the people that start up those businesses. They're basically hired guns and they're in it, you know, for themselves as much as for their customers.
[00:20:35] Alex: Um, so that makes it a little bit easier for us because we are, we're still focused on our customers. Um, I don't think you can say that about many airlines, so there are some that get it, you know, uh, JetBlue, United Q Guitar Airwaves. Very, very focused on our customers. Very, um. Focus on doing the right thing for people.
[00:20:51] Alex: But then there are other companies that are, uh, have seem to have forgotten their, uh, their roots and forgotten their origin story and are trying [00:21:00] to basically just rente and keep competition out by changing the rules as opposed to competing, you know, in the market through customer service. And we all know who those people are, and we all can see the results.
[00:21:10] Alex: They're the absolute worst in terms of customer reading. Absolute worst in terms of completion factor, absolute worst in terms of on time performance. You look at just the last three months and, uh, it's, uh, the, the top of the DOT rankings in every single category is JSX. In the bottom of the DOT rankings in every single, single category are these two Dallas based airlines that make a lot of noise about others, but don't seem to know how to manage their own businesses.
[00:21:34] Alex: So that's probably all say about that.
[00:21:36] Michael: Who would, who would wanna be fired in that? Battle to the end. I kind of describe it. That's why I love the idea of, you know, what you are doing.
[00:21:44] Michael: But, uh, you're often described as an industry disruptor. Do you see yourself that way?
[00:21:49] Alex: Not particularly, you know, I see myself as someone who loves the industry and who wants it to be loved. I think, uh, we have the tools, we have the airplanes, we have the airports, as you say.
[00:21:58] Alex: We have the infrastructure. We have [00:22:00] all the ingredients that it requires to make, you know, easy travel and easy connectivity, you know, within our country. But we've completely defaulted to this hub and spoke model for the most part, uh, which makes, which forces you to, to drive through one of, you know, seven or eight mega hubs.
[00:22:15] Alex: Check get from any point to any point in the country. With few exceptions, if you live in those hub cities, it's great because you can go anywhere nonstop. It's great until you are waiting for your bag at home, because the last bags, they care about the bags that are being delivered to the local customers.
[00:22:28] Alex: They care about all the transfer bags first. So even, even if you live in the hub city, if you're checking a bag, it's a bad deal. But, uh. To the extent I'm disrupting it on behalf of the consumer to make it better for the consumer, then if that's disruptive, if customer service is considered to be disruptive, if on time performance is considered to be disruptive, if listen to your customers and giving what they want is disruptive, then sure I'm disruptive.
[00:22:50] Alex: Uh, but if just running a business that is trying to please its customers, uh, that, that's to me is not particularly revolutionary. That's the way it's supposed to be in, uh, a capitalist, [00:23:00] you know, society that, that, uh, thrives on competition. In a country that was built on the concept of, you know, people making the best mousetraps should, should get the rewards.
[00:23:09] Alex: And that's where we are. But, uh, there are many, many forces against, against that apparently.
[00:23:13] Michael: Yeah. I mean, I, I find it as, you know, for yourselves, uh, kind of going into it, you weren't, um, there was nobody really servicing that, you know, it's, uh, this is the interesting, I find, I find it amazing how every other, every other year, every, you know, there's, there's somebody else going into the ul, you know, ultra low cost, low, you know.
[00:23:31] Michael: It doesn't seem to be an end to that. And yet when you look at the, what you've done with JSX, it's just, it's a great big void. And, you know, I, I felt the same way, um, looking at things, certainly in the uk, UK and Europe. You know, you want to go anywhere in Europe, you are stuck going with the, it's. It's the same, same group of companies, and it, and it does become a fight to the who's the cheapest because you haven't really got an alternative.
[00:23:57] Michael: So it's like, well, I'm gonna book a easy [00:24:00] jet, Ryanair jet to who's, who's got the best time flight and who's the cheapest. Yep. And, and that's all the, uh, you know, for, I mean, I,
[00:24:08] Alex: I don't know if this is in their defense or if this is just a statement of the obvious, but these organizations are flying basically the same airplanes from two manufacturers.
[00:24:19] Alex: To basically the same airports, uh, which are run by basically the same people, um, into the same kinds of terminals with the same, um, crews who were represented by the same unions. You know, there's, it's, there's not much left to differentiate. 'cause the airlines, you know, they've given up everything.
[00:24:37] Alex: They've just, they've seated the. Running of the terminals. They've seated the security, they've seated, um, the design of the, of the, of the airports, you know, they're not involved in, in where you spend so much of your experience, you know, getting out of the car into the airplane that's controlled by typically, you know, quasi-government entities that aren't necessarily known for customer service.
[00:24:54] Alex: And then you look at the incentives. How are those people compensated? They're compensated on volume, so they want bigger [00:25:00] airplanes and they're compensated on how much the airport can make on a retail basis. So what is their real incentive? Their real incentive is to get as many people in the building as possible and keep 'em there for as long as they can.
[00:25:10] Alex: That's how they make money?
[00:25:11] Stewart: Correct.
[00:25:11] Alex: And if you were to design it, you know, a building that was designed to be inefficient to get through. And attract large crowds and keeping their per as long as possible, it would look a lot like an airport.
[00:25:22] Michael: Yeah.
[00:25:22] Alex: Um, and then the airlines, you know, because of this race for cost, because they can't differentiate on service, uh, you outside of their schedule really, um, they're stuck having to compete on, on, on the ticket price.
[00:25:37] Alex: And so what is that for? What's their incentive is to get as many, you know, tickets in the airplane as they can, as many seats as they can. So, you know, you've got the great shrinking seat and um, and these super high density plans. And so the problem that they, the structural problem they have is that if they want to sell a premium product to a premium customer, they gotta put 'em to that same infrastructure.
[00:25:57] Alex: And, you know, that's obviously our biggest differentiation. So, [00:26:00] you know, you can buy the suite at the Holiday Inn, but you're still at the Holiday Inn. Right. You can buy first class on, on a major airline, but you're still on that airline. You know, you're still going through the same basic terminal. They're doing everything they can.
[00:26:13] Alex: They're buying these cars, fancy cars, fancy, separate, you know, checking areas. 'cause they know that that's the problem they've got. But that's something that's super expensive. Whereas meanwhile, we have 5,000 airports in the United States, lying fallow for the most part. 10% of them have airline service and 90% of 'em do not.
[00:26:30] Alex: And they're just out there. All that infrastructure is out there waiting and the airways are out there, and the fa a's completely capable of, of handling more volume. And we, and the networks themselves, because of the hub structure, um, exacerbate the problems because anytime there's a storm in over any hub, you know, if you picking the summer now thunderstorms are actually harder to deal with than snow.
[00:26:51] Alex: People think that snow winter's hard, it's actually summer's harder.
[00:26:54] Michael: Depends, depends where, if you're in the uk, well, yeah, it depends where, but kills us.
[00:26:59] Alex: Yeah, yeah, [00:27:00] yeah, sure. But, but if you're prepared for it, it snows much easier. You, it's more easy to forecast. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't pop up outta nowhere.
[00:27:06] Alex: But if there's a storm, you know, I live in Texas, we have storms pop up all the time. It's very disruptive as the network guys, if you're a point to point carrier, you'll have one or two lines of flying disrupted. But if you're a hub carrier, every single flight you've got, you know, for the next 10 hours.
[00:27:20] Alex: Is gonna be affected by that. And so that's, you know, very hard to manage. So it's a, it's a fragile system. It's a very, uh, interdependent system, and it's a system whose, you know, main points of entry and exit. The airports are not even run by the people that run the air carriers. So it's, uh, it, the, the deck is stacked against them, but, uh, but that's why we have innovation and that's why we, uh, you know, that's why JSX exists.
[00:27:45] Michael: So what details about the JSX experience do you. Obsess over or things most customers might not even notice.
[00:27:53] Alex: Yeah. I've got pretty thin skin and I hate criticism. So, um, I do think I react to our customer complaints, you know, and [00:28:00] when they were complaining about not having wifi, I thought, you know, how are we gonna have, how are we gonna solve that?
[00:28:03] Alex: And so we, we resolve that, the best wifi in the sky. And through connections and luck, you know, we met SpaceX at the precise time. They were getting into aviation, uh, with starlink. We wound up being the launch customer for, for, uh, SpaceX on the, uh, inflight, you know, commercial wifi. So we're the first air carrier to have that on board.
[00:28:23] Alex: We're the first ones to do a fleet wide, and we've had on every, every single flight for the last, uh, three years now, almost three years. So, um, the next complaint, you know, was about seat pitch. And so we redesigned our, our, our LOPA laid up passenger amenities to create more pitch and more comfort.
[00:28:42] Alex: Upgraded from the 1 35, the number 1 35 to the, to the 1 45, which is 16, 16 feet longer. So now people don't have to sit next to anybody, uh, 'cause people are complaining about sitting next to somebody they didn't know, uh, which is not something you typically get on private jet. Um, whatever it is my customer's complaining about for a little while I was on high performance.[00:29:00]
[00:29:00] Alex: We've, uh, really fixed that as well. We've gone from kind of middle of the pack, uh, to absolute number one. Um. So we, you know, we, we, we, we respond, we react, we care. I think that's the bottom line is that we, we care, um, about everything. About everything. We care about what our customers care about. We don't imagine for ourselves what they're gonna want.
[00:29:18] Alex: We listen to them and we do obviously imagine, uh, where they want to go, but we also wanna go where the market wants to go. So I'd say we we're very responsive to the market and we're very, very sensitive to our customers. And I think that sets us apart. And by the way, we also apologize. You know, I like when our flights are delayed, which is inevitable, like we have.
[00:29:36] Alex: Human beings and machines and weather all combined, and it's not gonna be perfect every day, but when it doesn't go according to plan, we don't just say, oh, it's the weather. You don't get anything. Or, or, oh, it's a mechanical, so it's not our fault. Or, you know, um, we actually, we tell our people, pretend it's your mother staying in front of you when you're announcing a delay.
[00:29:52] Alex: And what, how would you tell your mom that the fight's, something's not gonna happen, right. That your mom wants to see happen. And so if you treat a customer [00:30:00] the way you would treat your mother. When things aren't going the way they, uh, the way that we, you hoped and expected and planned for, then I think you'll have a lot more success than if you just don't even bother apologizing and just kind of post a delay.
[00:30:13] Alex: Or even worse, actively lie. You know, I was on a flight yesterday, I won't even the airline, but it was from Jackson Hole to Dallas, and they posted boarding starts, you know, at four 15 and you go on flight aware and you see that the incoming flights not gonna land until four 30. They're just, they're blatantly lying to thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people every single day.
[00:30:35] Alex: And they know they're lying and they expect you to think that they have integrity. I mean, it's, it's appalling what, how little respect these organizations have for their customers.
[00:30:45] Michael: Yeah, I mean it's the, the scale in the US as well is, is very, I, I, I felt that when, you know, when I've traveled, Stuart's been, uh, you know, over the US a lot, so we're kind of, you kind of get used to it, but you're right, it's.
[00:30:57] Michael: It's, uh, and it, it's so easy. [00:31:00] It's so easy to just be honest with people. People prefer it.
[00:31:02] Alex: Yeah. So, exactly. I mean, you can, you can apologize and you can tell what's really going on. You know, it's like the information's all out there. So I don't know who, who they think they're fooling.
[00:31:11] Michael: I listened to, uh, was, I think it was a YouTube show the other day, and it was about, um, a guy, just two ways, um, of how you can sell a, you know, customer rings up, um, they've got a problem, they missed the flight.
[00:31:23] Michael: Can they get on the next flight or the early, can they get on a, an earlier flight, Betty Chance and. The person who speaks on the phone just two different ways. One saying, you know, your ticket, uh, whatever grade it is, it just can't, it can't be done. And then, you know, just, and basically just fobbing 'em off.
[00:31:38] Michael: And then another version of it where someone at this, it's the same outcome, but they try, you know, they try everything they possibly can do, and one loses the customer and one wins the customer. So it's kind of like, yeah. And it is, it is so easy to do, but you know, you've, that's the whole thing with yourselves with scale.
[00:31:56] Michael: It kind of, um, also leads me onto my next [00:32:00] question as well. So like, how do you balance staying niche and unique with the pressure to grow as well?
[00:32:06] Alex: Look, we're gonna grow as fast as we responsibly can. We are flying one airplane's not production anymore. We just, which is part of why we just announced, uh, a tentative order with a TR.
[00:32:16] Alex: We're gonna start flying some ATRs this fall. I like it for two reasons. One, they're still making them so there's no limit to how many we can acquire over time. And the other is that it complied to a lot of airports that, um, the embryo, uh, 1 45 cannot, uh, fly to just because it's too hot or too high or too, or they're always too short.
[00:32:34] Alex: So I'm very excited about that. Um, so there, you know, we have very, very sophisticated and smart investors. Uh, they include. Three airlines, Qatari Airways, uh, United Airlines, JetBlue, and they include two family offices and, and my 20, uh, seed round investors. And this, the investors in JSX, they're all gonna expect a return and they, they will get a very handsome point if things continue going the way they're going.
[00:32:59] Alex: [00:33:00] And I think they will, and they'll do everything by power to make sure they do. Uh, but they are, um, they're, they've invested in this because they think it should exist, not necessarily for a quick buck. You know, this is not a. Splash in the pan six month, you know, in and out sort of investment. They, they recognize this as an industrial investment.
[00:33:18] Alex: It's gonna take some time to create the infrastructure and, uh, build and deepen the moat around the business. And I think we're doing a very successful job of that. And when the return comes, it's gonna be, it's gonna be tremendous. So, um, I wouldn't call it. External pressure whatsoever. But, but, uh, do I want to provide the JSX level of service to as many customers as possible?
[00:33:39] Alex: Do I want us to fly more stations so I can stop flying these other airlines based nearby me? Um, yes. Uh, that's, that's where I feel the pressure.
[00:33:48] Michael: Do you mind me asking, how do, how come you end up in Dallas?
[00:33:51] Alex: It is a bit of the Silicon Valley of aviation. It's not, uh, you know, the, the world's, when we moved here, the world's two biggest airlines were based here.[00:34:00]
[00:34:00] Alex: One, in terms of how many customers they board every day, and one in terms of, uh, how many ASMs they produce. I'm not sure that's true anymore for rather them, but, um, but there's a massive amount of, uh, infrastructure here in Dallas. Geographically, it's great. You could be on either coast in three hours, you know, basically any major city in the US you can reach in three or four hours.
[00:34:19] Alex: You can make a day trip to any, to either coast as well. Um, so it's, it's very, you know, if you're, when we were living in California, you had to go to New York for a meeting, you basically lost two to three days and even if you took a red eye, you'd still be kind of pretty mopey the next day. So getting round the country is much easier from here.
[00:34:36] Alex: Um, and then lastly, everything they say about Texas is true in terms of being pro business. You know, we were in an environment before where. We'd start service in a new airport, and the first question they'd ask is, who's your law firm? 'cause we're gonna sue you because you got the te to bring, uh, the teer, excuse me, to, to bring a, an airplane to an airport.
[00:34:54] Alex: You know, they like, what are you thinking? Whereas here in Texas, um, they, they, they ask, uh, [00:35:00] they, they say, welcome to Texas, how can we help you? And that's literally true. It is literally true. So, you know, for all the reasons that many other kinds of businesses are moving here to Texas, uh, we moved our business here, but then we had the added.
[00:35:13] Alex: Value. We could have gone to Austin or Houston or somewhere else, but we chose Dallas because there are thousands and thousands of people, tens of thousands of people that do the things that we need done. You know, we have aircraft technicians, we have dispatchers, we've got, um, every category, uh, of pilots obviously, uh, of people that are required to make this industry move.
[00:35:31] Alex: And this is a very labor intensive industry, uh, live here. And when we were on the coast for a while, we would recruit a lot of people from Texas. They spent a year or two out there. Realized they couldn't afford a home and move back to Texas anyway, so, so we decided to, uh, to move here and we've, we've never looked back.
[00:35:47] Alex: We love it here.
[00:35:48] Michael: I've got a, I need an excuse to come over anyway, so I dunno. Maybe may following, following this and we'll talk more, but my, one of the, one of the guys that, when I did my a PL exams, I'm, I'm on the other side of it. I was, uh, I was in my forties [00:36:00] when I was up against a load of 20 year olds.
[00:36:02] Michael: Uh, but I got friendly with a guy, uh, that I've remained in touch with, and he's, uh, he's flying commercially now, but he's based in Dallas, so we've been meaning to go over. He is just had a, he just had a, his first child, so. Yeah. So, um, I'd love to show you around. Yes, I would love to. That's which, uh, which again, I mean, again, depend this, this question depending on, uh, yourselves or even just, um, sort of like me, me giving you a little bit more info what we've done.
[00:36:27] Michael: But could, uh, could we see GSX in Europe or the UK one day? Or is it a uniquely American solution to an American problem?
[00:36:36] Alex: Hard to say right now, I think, um.
[00:36:38] Alex: You know, the United States is sort of the cradle of commercial, commercial aviation. It's by far the largest market in the world. So we probably could start similar operations in other geographies, Europe and, and, and beyond. We certainly requested, you know, to do that from time to time. But right now, you know, I think focus is important to success and we're, we're very [00:37:00]focused on the US domestic market.
[00:37:01] Alex: We do some international flying, but you know, predominantly for US customers, for our existing customers. So I think there may be opportunities to do that in the future, but the regulatory situation here is a little bit different. And while I appreciate that Europe has lots of, um, um, favorable rules around pilot training and things that, you know, restrictions that don't exist in the us, I think, uh, I'm just not sure that the, uh, the market is worth the, um, is worth the attention now given the amount of green space that we have, uh, in front of us here in the us.
[00:37:32] Michael: Yeah. Well, I mean, especially like the ATRs open up, is it something like nearly 2000 additional possible routes that you can do that you couldn't do with a 1 45? So, yep. You should have, uh, plenty, plenty of work to, uh, cut out, but So what, what excites you most about the future of JS X or even the future of our trouble?
[00:37:52] Alex: Wow. Uh, it's just so, there's so many possibilities in front of us. You know, the, the opportunity is just huge and it's, it's, um, [00:38:00] I think. On kind of the short to medium term, you know, months and years just continuing to, to do more of what we do today. I'm very excited about the ATRs coming online this fall.
[00:38:11] Alex: And then beyond that, in longer term, I'm very interested to see what hybrid electric airplanes actually get built and certified. I'm not sure you know, EV Toll, I, I'm not sure the size of the VTO market. There's certainly a market there. I just dunno how big it is. When it comes to hybrid electric, um, fixed wing airplanes, I think that there is a very substantial opportunity and I want JSX to be the biggest brand and the carrier of choice when it comes to deploying those kinds of airplanes.
[00:38:38] Alex: And so, um, we know how to fly to, uh, airports that don't have other air carriers operating at them. We know how to market the customers that are looking for something different. Um, we have technology and infrastructure that, you know, the big guys just can't compete with. And we're not fettered by any sort of third party rules and regulations that would prohibit us from doing [00:39:00]things either.
[00:39:01] Alex: So we have, I think, all the flexibility and all the opportunity in the world to be the, the first, the best and the biggest operator, these EOL aircraft, when they come online,
[00:39:12] Michael: especially with a TR, I think they're quite ahead of, uh, ahead of things. So watch this space, I guess.
[00:39:18] Alex: It's interesting. That's a 40-year-old platform that's kind of come into its own.
[00:39:21] Alex: It's, it's sort of outlasted the regional jets. When the ATS basically left the country, all the turboprops left the United States when the regional jets came in and now they've gone through their entire life cycle and guess what? No one's building a new regional jet and at r is still building ATRs. And so, um, you know, it's, it's, it actually, it literally outlasted the entire regional jet, uh, era.
[00:39:42] Michael: Amazing. , Uh, if you could fly anywhere on any plane with anyone, where are you going and who's sitting next to you?
[00:39:50] Alex: You know, I wouldn't mind taking a flight with some of my old bosses. Um, some of them I have departed now, so that would, if it could really be anybody, if I could bring back from, from the beyond, you know, [00:40:00] um, I've had the opportunity to work. For some of the legends, the real entrepreneurs in our business.
[00:40:08] Alex: Even just last year, I got to know Fred Smith from FedEx, um, who's obviously legendary in our industry. When I first came to Dallas, was the summer of 1992. I worked in the PR department, but I got some exposure to Herb Kelleher. Uh, I got to drive him around. Talked to him a few times, uh, and I met him subsequent to that after we started JSX, uh, went to his funeral not too long after we moved here.
[00:40:33] Alex: Um, you know, David Neman, my good friend, who you also have on the show, uh, you know, a flight with, uh, and maybe bring Branson on as well, you know, a flight with those four guys. Um, it's a pretty cool flight. Doesn't matter where we're going. Huh? Pretty cool flight. Yeah, that'd be, that'd be a helpful a flight and it wouldn't really matter where we're going 'cause we, we just have a great time talking herbs time.
[00:40:53] Alex: But those, they, they've all been big inspirations for me and so I, uh, opportunity to see them again would, would be, uh, would be something.
[00:40:59] Michael: [00:41:00] Yeah, Herb's, uh, interview with, uh, guy Raz, um, is still one of my favorites and I think it's one of Guy RA's favorite interviews.
[00:41:09] Alex: Any interview Herb Kelleher did is a great interview.
[00:41:11] Alex: Like the guy was, he, he was one of a kind. It's unbelievable.
[00:41:15] Michael: Great story. What, what advice would you give your younger self?
[00:41:20] Michael: Um. Don't do interviews with English people.
[00:41:23] Alex: Uh, don't let the bas get you down. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna succeed in the end anyway. So if you ever, ever moment, a doubt don't because, um, it's not the critic who counts it, really. I do, I'm a big believer in Teddy Roosevelt's quote, it's not the critic who counts. World is full of critics.
[00:41:40] Alex: People should just. Mind their business. Let their, let the results, uh, speak for themselves.
[00:41:46] Michael: Yeah. , Uh, just some very quick questions, um, just whatever pops in your head. So your favorite aircraft.
[00:41:53] Alex: Amber, 1 45. Ah,
[00:41:55] Michael: good. It is crazy that they're, like, they're, they're, they're not building anything like it. [00:42:00] I mean, I've even looked into some of the, you know, the, um, the business jets and sort of like, you know, surely they could just take the seat. You can do it. Uh, and, but it, you know, it's gotta go through a whole recertification.
[00:42:12] Michael: But you think there's these planes just loaded with tables and che and unnecessary, and why couldn't they just be used to move 20, 25 people? But yeah, nothing really left. What's the most underrated airport?
[00:42:24] Alex: Underrated airport. There's a lot of overrated airports, I can tell you that. I couldn't agree with
[00:42:30] Michael: you on that one.
[00:42:31] Alex: Um.
[00:42:32] Alex: It's any airport that you live next to that doesn't have JSX service,
[00:42:36] Michael: one airline you admire apart from JSX.
[00:42:40] Alex: Well, there's at least three Qatar and JetBlue.
[00:42:45] Michael: Is there a flight or a moment that stands out?
[00:42:48] Alex: Yeah, I was, uh, probably 13 years old on the flight deck back when the kids were allowed to visit the flight deck of an Air Canada, L 10 11, uh, flying [00:43:00] from Montreal to, I think, I wanna say it was London. And, um, got to watch the sunrise and the l the L 10 11 at the time had huge windows on the sides. You know, I was probably taller than I was.
[00:43:15] Alex: So basically a floor to ceiling window from a child's perspective. And, um, just watching the sunrise over the North Atlantic and the majesty of the earth. And, um, I was probably delirious too 'cause I was up way past my bedtime on a jet in the flight deck. Um, and just to see the beauty of God's earth and this creation that, you know, was gifted to us.
[00:43:40] Alex: Uh, was was overwhelming. It was a magic moment. . Whenever I think about, whenever I'm not feeling happy or unlucky, you know, I just think how lucky we are all to be here.
[00:43:50] Michael: That was J-S-X-C-E-O, Alex Wilcox Original Music by Mood mode. This episode was produced and edited by [00:44:00] Stewart Anthony. I'm Michael Arron and you've been listening to The Flight Pod.
[00:44:04] Michael: If you've enjoyed this episode of The Flight Pod, please be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. It really helps us reach more listeners. You can follow Alex on Twitter X at Alex Wilcox and check out jsx on Instagram at Fly jsx. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at the Flight pod uk where you can send us a DM with your questions, comments or feedback.
[00:44:27] Michael: We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on the Flight Pod.