Civic leaders such as Palmer insist Colorado Springs isn't getting in over its head in the rush to accommodate Western Pacific. "We won't overbuild," he says. "We'll constrain them a little bit, as much as we'd like to build on right away. The conservative nature of the people here will mean we won't move as rapidly as Western Pacific would like."
Beauvais has insisted in interviews that he learned from his experience at America West and won't make the same mistakes at Western Pacific. So far, however, the new airline is a veritable corporate flashback to America West's early days. Beauvais has brought dozens of former America West employees to work for him in Colorado Springs, including the new airline's vice presidents for operations, sales and information systems. Nearly half of the people on Western Pacific's board of directors are acquaintances of Beauvais's from Phoenix. And sources say Beauvais has made some familiar pledges to Colorado Springs business leaders: that Western Pacific will always be a one-hub carrier and will fly only one type of plane.
"He's better educated on prudent growth of an airline than he was," says Rocky Scott. "He's a very smart guy and brings the experience of those difficulties to this table. It's a different model and an improved model. Most entrepreneurs who've failed are more likely to succeed the next time. If you haven't had a failure behind you, you haven't learned those lessons."
Scott says he believes that Colorado Springs was underserved by airlines for years and that even if Western Pacific does fail, another carrier will appear to take its place. City airport director Green is even more adamant, insisting that America West was a net benefit to Arizona in spite of the bankruptcy.
"If Western Pacific is as successful as America West, we could sustain that kind of pain," he says. "They did make some mistakes, but it's a great company. We hope Western Pacific is as successful as America West."
The documents companies file with the Securities and Exchange Commission are often full of surprises. Disclosure requirements force a level of honesty seldom seen in the corporate world, as carefully constructed public-relations facades give way to blunt assessments. Western Pacific's prospectus for its stock sale is no exception.
A half-page entry in the prospectus talks about the mistakes America West made, including taking on vast amounts of debt and leasing a huge fleet of planes. The carrier's war of attrition with archrival Southwest is mentioned, as well as the disastrous impact of the Gulf War and the 1990 recession.
But the real eye-catcher is a fleeting reference to the new company's CEO, the same man now asking investors to trust him with $50 million. "The circumstances attending America West's bankruptcy may be viewed as reflecting adversely on Mr. Beauvais's ability as a senior executive," the document says.
Everyone who has dealt with Beauvais credits him for his friendliness and sunny optimism. Even his harshest critics say he has the best of intentions, always sure that his latest venture will be a win-win situation for investors, employees and customers.
"As a person, he's a great guy, he's a visionary," says pilot Crawford of his former boss. "But we feel his ego took over where common sense was left behind. I don't wish Ed Beauvais ill, but investors beware. I don't know if Beauvais is in it for the long term. He might bail out after three or four years."
The country's most successful airlines are sustained by business travelers, who value consistent service and prefer a carrier to offer several daily departures to each destination. Western Pacific is geared to the leisure market and offers only a handful of flights to its thirteen destination cities. The aviation world has seen dozens of low-cost carriers with limited service go down in flames, and Crawford, who lost more than $3,000 when America West's employee-owned stock became next to worthless, predicts a similar fate for Western Pacific.
"These airlines that just go in there once or twice a day don't do much good," he says. "Southwest Airline's philosophy is to hit a city seven or eight times a day. That's what the businessmen like."
America West came out of bankruptcy in August 1994 and is now profitable. The airline has pared down its flight structure from the glory days and is once again focusing on serving the Southwest. The carrier's employees have also been unionized, and America West's flight attendants are negotiating their first contract.
"I pray Western Pacific doesn't make the same mistakes," says Deborah Volpe, president of the America West Association of Flight Attendants. "I wouldn't want anybody else to go through what we've been through the last four years. It was the line employees who saved this company, from the flight attendants to the reservation clerks. They didn't bail out."
Asked if she'd want to invest in Western Pacific, Volpe replies crisply, "Been there, done that and got a T-shirt."
Seymour Licht isn't planning on buying any Western Pacific stock, either. He predicts Western Pacific will soon be hosting investment lunches in Colorado Springs like the one he attended all those years ago in Phoenix. Licht isn't asking for an invitation.
"It's deja vu," he says of the new airline. "It's exactly the same thing happening all over again.
