Florida has long been ill-served by the major airlines. If you live in the cities of Boca Raton, Gainesville, Lakeland, Pensacola and Tallahassee, you'll be more than aware that the business climate is thriving but the transportation links leave a lot to be desired. Fortunately, the airtaxi service DayJet is poised to solve this difficulty. After five years of detailed preparation in all areas of the new business of air taxis, they are prepared to put their first taxi flight into the air in the second quarter of 2007.

As an air taxi service, DayJet has no set routes or schedules. From their "Dayports" in the cities referenced above - they will fly their passengers to any regional airport in Florida, and once the traveler accomplishes his or her business in that particular city, will fly them back to their starting point. The passengers will be served by a fleet of some 300 Eclipse 500s, the new Very Light Jet which is revolutionizing the air travel industry.

The Eclipse 500 as customized for DayJet will seat 2 pilots and 3 passengers comfortably. It has a 370-knot maximum cruise speed, a 3,314-feet-per-minute rate of climb, and a maximum altitude of 41,000 ft, which allows the jet to avoid most severe weather . Its takeoff distance is 2,297ft, and its landing distance (assuming a 4,600 lb landing weight), is 2,155 ft, which will allow it to take advantage of the hundreds of the shorter runways of the various regional airports around the country.

And that is the key to the airtaxi. No longer will the business traveler haveto arrive early at a major airport and wait around for hours. No longer will the traveler have to get off the plane at a connecting airport and wait a few hours for another plane to take him or her to the final destination. With the Eclipse 500, DayJet can take advantage of the many underused regional airports located around the state. Time and money is saved. Business trips canbe finished in one day - no more overnight stays.

How much will a ticket cost in a plane that seats only 4 passengers? DayJet's prices will be competitive with those of the major airlines - that can only serve major airports. All of DayJet's flights will be "short hauls," within 600 nautical miles of their starting point.

They call their service "Per-Seat, On-Demand," (Per-Seat: you pay only for the seat you reserve. On-Demand: you fly where and when it is convenient for you. The technology that is going to make thiskind of service affordable for you is DayJet's Advanced System Technology for Real-Time Operations (ASTRO) which will allow them to have their fleet of planes ready to go the second a passenger calls up and makes a reservation.

Their prices, then, are slightly higher than full-fare coach. Now think about that. Many business travelers don't have the luxury of being able to make advance reservations for discount fares anyway, so they do pay full-fare for coach, or for business class. For slightly over that cost, you'll get a quiet and comfortable trip in an air taxi, and won't have to bother with overnight travel - so the cost of the hotel you might have needed to stay in, for example, is eliminated. Over all, you'll find DayJet's rates competitive.

DayJet was founded in January, 2002 by Ed and Nancy Iacobucci. Until 2000, Ed was the chairman of Citrix Enterprises. When they were first starting to put everything together they used the codename Jetson Systems, in honor of the popular cartoon in which George Jetson commuted to and from work in his own private flying car, as did everyone else in that city of the future. For the last four years a team of flight operations experts, mathematicians, statisticians, demographers, market researchers, complexity scientists, and software engineers have been busy studying emerging trends in commercial on-demand aviation - from alternative markets, various business models and technology-centric operations management.