I am currently looking at the possibility of replacing the Bombardier aircraft with all Embraer equipment.  This decision is basically due to the lack of quality payware aircraft on the current airframes, WILCO and Feelthere are hard at work on the new ERJ’s.  One of the goals I have at GLE is to not have every type of aircraft on the planet in the fleet, rather the finest of freeware and payware aircraft.  In talking with the other staff members at Great Lakes Express we all seem to be in agreement.  The CRJ-200 seats 50, the E145 seats 50, the CRJ-700 seats 70, the E120 seats 70, so there you go.  The E145, E170 and the E135 have excellent payware where the CRJ’s have been overlooked for some reason.  I am a big supporter of Feelthere on many of their projects, mainly the Classic 737’s and the Embraer fleet.

Great Lakes Express will continue to offer the CRJ’s for those who love to fly them, they will be offered as part of the alternative fleet which currently includes the PMDG J4100 (alternative to the E120 and Dash 8 Q200) and soon the PMDG 737-60NG (alternative to the B737-500).  We are trying hard to give you as much variety as possible and I think we are doing a pretty darn good job at that.  Hope to see you all in the air a lot this month.

Blue Skies,

Paul

Great Lakes Express has begun a fairly extensive service from Omaha Nebraska.  This is a pretty big gamble for Great Lakes Express as there is not a lot of clambering for Omaha service.  If you look at our “business plan” though, Omaha fits in perfectly, small aircraft and short flights that serve into larger airports (Milwaukee).  We are not looking for huge numbers out of Omaha but at lease 5-8 flights flown per month per aircraft is reasonable.

I am looking into painting up the PMDG 737-600 as another alternative to the Wilco 737-500 aircraft.  The Wilco models do not work under the 64bit operating systems and that is the direction the world is heading so we are going to be prepared.

I am also looking into the possibility of getting another 737-500 in the system yet this year, we have a fairly good route set up for it, Chicago Midway to Detroit to Buffalo to Boston to Washington DC.  There are more destinations we are working on but this will give you a nice opportunity to fly the 737-500 on flights right around 40 minutes.