Ozone Park visionary launches airline

Shortly after 1 p.m. on Thursday, July 19 a Boeing 757 touched down at JFK. The landing was smooth, preceded and succeeded by a number of other nondescript arrivals. The airplane in question, however, was greeted by a water canon salute and a gaggle of reporters and executives watched its descent from the airport roof.
The landing marked the culmination of the inaugural flight of OpenSkies, a new subsidiary of British Airways and the first airline created as a result of the March 2008 OpenSkies agreement, which allows carriers to fly between any point in the U.S. and the European Union.
Initially, OpenSkies will operate one 82-passenger aircraft on a daily route between Paris-Orly and JFK, expanding the fleet to six planes by 2009. The airline is considering Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan among its future European destinations.
OpenSkies Managing Director and CEO Dale Moss, feeling “fit and fresh” from the first flight, acknowledged that now is not the most opportune time to launch an airline.
“Frankly, if anybody could have picked oil prices 15 or 16 months ago where they are today, we wouldn’t be in this business, we could make a lot of money doing something else, you know - selling crystal balls to a lot of other people who could use that information,” Moss said with a smile.
“But we didn’t do it for the short period,” he added. “This is not for the summer season or it’s not just for the year 2008. This is a long term play, this is a serious commitment on behalf of British Airways.”
At a time when big name carriers are charging for checked bags and the once ubiquitous airplane peanut has vanished from the horizon for reasons as economic as they are allergenic, OpenSkies will attempt to carve out its niche as a premium and personalized transatlantic airline.
Its BIZ class features seats that convert into true “lie-flat” beds;
PREM+ boasts 52-inch leather seats; and
ECONOMY is limited to just 30 leather seats, giving it a “small jet” feel according to Moss.
Ticket prices in each of the separate cabins range from $3,200 for BIZ, to $1,500-1,700 for PREM+, to $500-800 for ECONOMY, with over 50 hours of entertainment programming at each seat. Concierge service begins the moment an OpenSkies trip is booked in order to assist passengers with hotel and sightseeing accommodations, language translations and other services.
“While we will never be big, we intend to be fierce, we intend to be good, we intend to be the brand by which people swear by and not swear at,” Moss said, explaining that the small size of his airline allows for optimal customer satisfaction and maneuverability.
“That’s a strategic advantage that we intend to use time after time,” Moss said. “It’s getting to that pivot point, moving to where the customer is, and moving again,” he added, highlighting the ability to conform to the needs and wishes of his clientele but also to react to the ever-evolving aviation industry.
Moss, who has worked in the industry for 30 years, traveling the Atlantic upwards of 1,000 times by his estimate, underscored his local roots. He traces the “kerosene in his veins” back to his youth in Ozone Park when his grandparents used to take him on trips to JFK, then known as Idlewild Airport.
It is Moss’s hope that by offering supreme comfort and personalized service with OpenSkies, more overseas travelers will disembark, wide-eyed and well-rested, at JFK, the hub of his childhood nostalgia. Mayor Bloomberg, for one, took note of the airline’s potential, declaring July 19, 2008 OpenSkies Day. In his proclamation, Bloomberg praised OpenSkies for promoting job opportunities and economic growth in destination cities across the U.S. and noted that a record 46 million visitors came to New York City in 2007—due in large part, he said, to the airline industry—and spent $28 billion in the city.
“We worked very hard with this,” Moss said, “and this…is a place from which we have other great dreams.”
“If I can do it anybody can do it,” he said, standing in front of a plate glass window overlooking the tarmac, the Idlewild Airport of his youth bustling behind him.