Intel grounds employee air shuttle to save costs

[M. Y. Zuo]

If what blueone says is true, and I would tend to believe him because of his track record on this forum, then this seems like a short sighted decision by Intel leadership, the board, Pat, or some combination.

Penny wise, pound foolish. I can't imagine increasing the daily frustrations of the majority of employees will lead to any positive outcome.

 

[blueone]

If what blueone says is true, and I would tend to believe him because of his track record on this forum, then this seems like a short sighted decision by Intel leadership, the board, Pat, or some combination.

Penny wise, pound foolish. I can't imagine increasing the daily frustrations of the majority of employees will lead to any positive outcome.

Thank you for the kind words.

We don't know enough to really judge the decision. Are some of the aircraft due for "heavy maintenance", like engine overhauls? That is very expensive. How much have the salaries for pilots gone up? There's a serious pilot shortage in the US, especially among regional airlines which fly planes in the class of the shuttle aircraft. Or perhaps the other travel restrictions Intel has implemented for the time being has lowered the load factor on the shuttles (which used to almost always fly completely full) to the point where the actual costs per flyer has gone up that way too. We just don't have enough facts.

 

[hist78]

Your posts are usually pretty good, but you're obsessed with a few jets in this case. The expense is so small it doesn't even show as a line item on the annual report. You're focusing on the fuzz and not the peach. Strikes me as weird.

As for Amazon and Google doing their own chips (Microsoft hasn't deployed anything but FPGA designs yet), I've been posting that cloud company designs fab'd at foundries are on an increasing trend line. That's why I'm agreement with Intel's IFS initiative, though all of the cloud companies still buy a lot of merchant chips.

"Your posts are usually pretty good, but you're obsessed with a few jets in this case. "

I really enjoy to be on this board but can we focus on the issues and Intel itself instead of making judgement on how good or how bad I am or you are?

"The expense is so small it doesn't even show as a line item on the annual report. "

Most financial details, even if they are very important, are not disclosed in the annual report.

 

[hist78]

This is how I assumed it worked. So it's a "virtual private airline" rather than a real one. I heard that some big multinationals (like oil companies) used in the past to run their own worldwide telecoms - including all the physical infrastructure ! No one would do that now - you can just lease the capacity and have a virtual corporate network.

For variety of reasons, most airlines and many corporates don't really own airplanes anymore. They sign long term lease for the airplanes from leasing companies and contract out to other companies to operate the planes.

In the Intel's case, Intel probably leased 6 Embraer ERJ-145 jets from JP Morgan Chase and contracted out to GMJ Air Shuttle/XOJET Aviation to operate and maintain the airplanes under the "name" (not sure what should be called) of Intel Air Shuttle. Each airplane is painted and fit to the same intel's specifications. Intel also rented/paid facilities/terminals at different airports for this operations

This lease term may be around 10 years and 2023 may be a good time for Intel to complete its contract obligation and to stop offering Intel Air Shuttle to save money.

Intel Air Shuttle Aircraft

Intel Air Shuttle Aircraft information.

www.planespotters.net

 

[tooLongInEDA]

For variety of reasons, most airlines and many corporates don't really own airplanes anymore. They sign long term lease for the airplanes from leasing companies and contract out to other companies to operate the planes.

In the Intel's case, Intel probably leased 6 Embraer ERJ-145 jets from JP Morgan Chase and contracted out to GMJ Air Shuttle/XOJET Aviation to operate and maintain the airplanes under the "name" (not sure what should be called) of Intel Air Shuttle. Each airplane is painted and fit to the same intel's specifications. Intel also rented/paid facilities/terminals at different airports for this operations

This lease term may be around 10 years and 2023 may be a good time for Intel to complete its contract obligation and to stop offering Intel Air Shuttle to save money.

Intel Air Shuttle Aircraft

Intel Air Shuttle Aircraft information.

www.planespotters.net

I'd forgotten that - even the major airlines may be "planeless" (perhaps an airline analogy to a fabless model ?). The Russian airlines certainly did a lot of this. For some reason a huge amount of the leasing business is actually based in Ireland.