Forbes: It's time for a revolution in business travel. The commercial airline business is going through another round of bankruptcies, route shakeouts and confrontations with unions. Having fewer airlines will exacerbate the already lousy service that makes so many people hate to fly these days--the long waits, the delays, the cancelations, the lost bags. Short flights aren't worth the hassle anymore. Since 2000, reports the Air Transport Association of America, there's been a 21% drop in passenger volume for flights of 500 miles or less.

Crandall and Burr are calling their air taxi service Pogo--after the stick that bounces, not Walt Kelly's cartoon possum. At this point it's little more than a grand plan, $8 million in capital and a small fleet of new-generation lightweight jets on order. The idea is to introduce air travel on demand, using Web-based software to route small aircraft as needed. "The planes will go wherever the customers go," says Burr, 63. "If you're in Syracuse and want to go to Portland, Me., we will probably be over in Rochester and have to fly over and get you. You might say I want to go at 4 p.m., and we'll say, ‘Yeah, we can't go at 4, but we can pick up at 4:30.'"

Pogo will begin service next year with a new class of six-seat minijets flying from North Carolina to Maine. The jets will fly point-to-point among the nation's largely underused 5,400 smaller airports, situated within a half hour's drive of 93% of Americans. These airports are free of the aggravating congestion of the 50 largest domestic hubs, through which 90% of travelers pass. "There're no ticket counters, no terminals and no baggage handlers," says Crandall, 68, who still chain-smokes his cigarettes down to the filter. "You drive up to the airport minutes before your flight, the pilot loads your bag and away you go."

Sky King [Forbes]