19-Year-Old Martin Halstead Starts His Own Airline

If he’s going to be successful, he’s going to need more than eye candy flight attendants. How about a call center that’s up and running and something more than a temporary web site for starters?

hidden europe (http://www.hiddeneurope.co.uk) reports: Until recently, AlphaOne was no more than a rather rare illness occasioned by a protein deficiency. But now we hear there’s an airline of the same name in England.

On 21 March this year, AlphaOne announced the launch of its Oxford to Cambridge air service. Teenage entrepreneur and airline boss Martin Halstead courted media publicity and his new air operation received more than its fair share of coverage. Dubbed ‘the baby Branson’, Halstead argued the case for this new regional link between two august university cities. Sadly, no aircraft ever took to the skies, and Oxford and Cambridge airports still have no scheduled air services.

A few months later, and Halstead is back in the news, this time receiving even more press coverage for AlphaOne’s much vaunted Southampton to Isle of Man service, which was due to start on Monday 21 November. That too has come to nothing, though AlphaOne still claim that services from Southampton could well start early in 2006. AlphaOne (IATA Code K9) is also advertising start-ups on the Isle of Man to Edinburgh and Blackpool routes.  The airline’s website (http://www.flyalpha1.com) is still rather thin on real information, but it suggests that AlphaOne should still take to the air this year with the Edinburgh-IOM route kicking off on 14 December.  Even in Britain’s crowded skies, there always seem to be space for yet one more small carrier serving minor region airports, as Air SouthWest, Air Wales and Eastern Airways have demonstrated. So Martin Halstead’s AlphaOne may well yet be a new start-up worth watching. Those left standing on the tarmac at Oxford and Cambridge – and, most recently, Southampton – may not take such a charitable view.

Contributed by Nicky Gardner of hidden europe magazine.

You can follow this saga at AirNews (see URL)

Dec 16 Baby Space Cadet (Alpha One)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right now we have at IOM

Departures: PYN103 Edinburgh PYN ALPHA ONE 18:15
Arrivals:  PYN104 Edinburgh PYN ALPHA ONE 20:25

PYN103 shows on Edinburgh arrivals board as K9105 19.00 and
PYN104 shows on Edinburgh departures as   K9106 19.30

PYN102 came in at 10.15 this morning but if might have been aircraft positioning as no flight appears to have left at 08.15

Gone is the K9 of two days ago and it is now PYN *

Edinburgh started on Dec 14 as promised at £36 one way excluding taxes/fees and is supposed to fly at 08.15 and 18.15 daily to EDI

However, I dropped in at the airport last night behind a would be passenger trying to get back to EDI as nothing flew Dec 15 (too few passengers or call centre fall out or maintenance problems or website problems - Take your pick for excuses!).

This really IS the airline for an adrenalin rush from the tension of whether it will fly or not and if you will get back or not.  For a tener inclusive it would be a fun bet!

Alpha’a Cardiff (£58 ow excl) is scheduled to commence on 16th Jan and Southampton (£92 ow excl) on 23rd Jan

Website is http://www.flyalpha1.com/ but the tabs still don’t work

*
K9 2 users. 1) Krylo Airlines Callsign: Krilo Russia. 2) Skyward Aviation Skyward Aviation Ltd. Canada. former user:. Itapemirim Transportes Aereos (personal.zahav.net.il/personalsite/du/dubygutt/K.htm) and Aerospaceweb lists K9 as Bavaria Flug

Anyone know how to find PYN?  It looks like the registration code of an Australian VH-PYN and not an airline code.  Would appreciate help

Cheers
Gari
Airnuts AirNews via http://travel.holidays.com

Dec 15 “Baby Space Cadets” - Following the Alpha One saga
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
According to Isle of Man airport, the Alpha One did not fly to Edinburgh again today (choose you own reason from insufficient bookings through maintenance or website problems) but it is hoped to fly again tomorrow.  It would be nice to have a reliable service or at least to offer a really cheap once per day stand by service.  Customers book when they feel they can rely on a company!

Dec 14 Rockhopper applies to fly Jersey to Isle of Man.  Alpha One really does fly to Edinburgh or hoax?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BBC Ceefax TXT reports that Rockhopper of the Channel Isles has applied to start a service from Jersey to the Isle
of Man.  The company is to add 2 Jetstream 19-seater planes to its fleet.

Regarding Alpha One, the 08.15 Isle of Man to Edinburgh this morning didn’t fly but it looks as if “we have take off Houston” this evening.and the Isle of Man Airport departures board read Wed at 18.39:

  K9105   Edinburgh     K9   alpha one   18:15   Departed

Arrivals board for Wed showed:  K9106   Edinburgh   K9   alpha one   20:25 ETA

Alpha One begins otherwise to resemble Space Cadets on Channel 4 TV where a bunch of young boys and girls have been made to believe that they are in Russia training to fly as the “first televized space tourists” and 3 of them plus a “mole” actor have actually flown - well it is all a big cheat with a big machine at a SE England disused American Air Force base and nobody has flown anywhere. Tonight or tomorrow the participants will find out - just as we find out if K9 (Alpha One) flew!  The only difference is that the participants each get £5’000 and a real trip to Russia to learn how to fly in weightless room.

The original article above says:
“between the south of England and the Isle of Man, a tax haven off the southeast coast. “I’m very pleased with the uniforms.” “

Firstly, it is the Isle of Wight that is off the South coast of England.  The Isle of Man is in the middle of the Irish Sea way up by Scotland, N. Ireland and North West England.  We have the world’s oldest continuously democratic parliament (The Tynwald since 975AD) and are in no way UK or GB.  We are a country of our own originating from Norsemen but of Celtic origin with monuments of 5’000yrs old littered about the island country of 75’000 people and 50x13 kms in size (like Madeira).  If you want to see the island then try http://ask.dad.com or http://travel.holidays.com and follow the options and links
Cheers/Slane lhiats
Gari

I think the current situation is that Alpha One really has not got off the ground. But they are chartering a small plane, what’s known I think in the trade as a ‘wet lease’, to get another person to fly the plnes for them. The flights are being flown by Haverfordwest Air Charter Services (HACS), which uses the trading name ‘Fly Wales’.  I have heard that most of Alpha One’s scheduled flights have not actually flown, but the one or two that have have been flown by HACS on their behalf.

The bottomline is that this young enterpreneur has tried it.
Valuable lessons learned-at a price- and the next steps will be characterized by tough decisions.
But so is Aviation.

Well done!

hey was wondering if i could get an update on the situation of alpha one. just saw his tv programme on channel 5 and was wondering how he got on.

any reply would be great cheers

Looks like an airline that has flopped. They seem to have had about 40 passengers in total since they started eight weeks back. Though they’ve not flown a flight themselves, but just arranged for other airlines to carry their passengers. If you check out their website, you’ll see that it seems out of date. Nor does it work.