The Islander

The company managers are encouraged to have monthly or bimonthly meetings with the employees in their station or department to not only impart information but to receive it. For his part, Wolf, in alternating years, will meet with the entire company and give a presentation or he will go to every department and station throughout a year and meet with small groups of ten to 100 employees, depending on the department.

Wolf says that "in a more traditional management style the employees are not going to understand or feel a part of the company even though they may own part of it. In this case, the employees already felt a part of it before they owned any of it.

"...{b}ecause of the atmosphere people feel pretty free to question, throw open, ask, which is great. We also have an internal newsletter that's published, on average, every six weeks to two months. That's another vehicle to communicate with everybody and get the word out on certain issues. One of the challenges as we grow is facilitating internal communication so that everybody not only feels that they own some of it, but they can know what the heck's going on."

Route Expansion Possibilities
One thing the employee/owners will be hearing about is the company's possible expansion into longer routes which will necessitate the purchase of bigger, faster aircraft like the 19-place Beechcraft 1900 or the 36-place Shorts 360.

"We want to continue to expand into niches that from our own experience are served well by moderate fare, short haul, high frequency service. We're also looking at options to expand into larger, faster equipment that would expand our service parameter. We don't like flying more than 140 miles with a 402, about an hour's flight. If we get into bigger and faster equipment we will look at expanding the service parameter to 200 to 250 miles, which opens a lot of similar niches."

Wolf adds that Cape Air will be investigating routes that are underserved and some "monopoly routes where the service could be better, quite frankly."

COORDINATING WITH MAJORS
Although Cape Air/Nantucket maintains its independence, Wolf says that a large measure of the company's success is due to the "tremendous coordination" with major airlines.

"We have interline agreements with all of them. That includes baggage, tickets, transfers. We're on the Sabre system so that we can make reservations and ticket passengers on any of the majors; we can sell their tickets and they can sell ours. There is complete integration.

"When we look at our schedule, we look at making a schedule that will be convenient for connections at our connect points, which are Boston, Providence (RI), Norfolk (VA), Ft. Myers (FL), Ft. Lauderdale (FL), and San Juan (U.S. Virgin Islands). We look at feeding them and having outbound schedules that are complementary."

Cape Air/Nantucket has several joint fare arrangements with major airlines. But while they work well when they're used, Wolf says that because, in today's highly competitive market, they are an oddity, travel agents and other airline agents don't seem to know how to pull them up on the computer.

"We have these great joint fares that we sell," Wolf says, "and we encourage our partners to sell, but they're not sold as much as they could be. I think joint fares might very well come back as sort of a mid-step alternative to code sharing. It's good for the public because it offers them a reduced fare capability and it's good for the airlines because they can get into bed together without completely surrendering their identities."

SELLING AIRCRAFT
When Cape Air first began operating, the investors set up Hyannis Air Leasing "as a vehicle to buy the airplanes and then lease them to the airline, because at the beginning the airline didn't have any financial strength," Wolf explains. However, as the company grew stronger, it began to buy its own aircraft rather than lease them. Currently, Hyannis Air Leasing owns five of the airline's aircraft.

While Hyannis Air Leasing operates as a separate company, Cape Air/Nantucket is a Cessna service center, parts distributorship, and aircraft dealership under the same corporate banner. The company has been a licensed FAA aircraft dealership primarily for the purpose of buying and selling the airline's aircraft. But when Cessna approached the company about becoming a dealership in 1997 for its new line of single-engine aircraft, it agreed.