Winging It

The price of oil has dealt another hard and perhaps fatal blow to another small airline that was trying to be a niche player. Silverjet, the all business-class airline that flew between Newark and London Luton Airport and Dubai and Luton, shut down its operations after it was unable to find additional financing to overcome skyrocketing fuel costs Silverjet founder and CEO Lawrence Hunt, who I met last year at his facilities at Newark, is a chairming serial entrepreneur who will probably rise again from this grounding. Less fortunate will be employees, customers and investors, like those at Eos, Max Jet and other all-business startups that have failed in recent months. I took more notice of Silverjet than the others because, with Newark flights, I figured Philadelphia-travelers would gravitate toward it more than to those flying out of JFK in New York. A market for the service clearly exists, or British Airways and Lufthansa wouldn't be investing resources in it as well. We can only hope other independents will be able to try again -- if fuel costs moderate, or investors and customers just adjust to them. Silverjet's message to customers can be found here.