Frequent flyers can have 145;air taxi146; to avoid traffic

Jam-packed planes. Endless delays. Long security lines. Sprints through an airport to make a connecting flight.

Jam-packed planes. Endless delays. Long security lines. Sprints through an airport to make a connecting flight. It is enough to make someone, particularly a business traveller, yearn for another option.

Enter the air taxi, an idea whose time has come. At least that is the hope of the entrepreneurs placing big bets on a new niche they plan to create in aviation. Their idea is to offer faster, more convenient air travel at a price that falls somewhere between private jets and commercial airlines.

For years, questions about the size of an air taxi market have been largely theoretical. But that will change this year, as Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque begins building the Eclipse 500, a six-seat plane.

With the Eclipse, two start-up airlines, Linear Air and DayJet, say they can ferry business travelers to hard-to-reach outposts, and get them home in time for dinner with their families.

8216;8216;One of the first things they teach you in sales is to look for the pain,8217;8217; said William E. Herp, chief executive of Linear Air, an air charter company that has ordered 30 Eclipse planes at a total cost of 50 million. 8216;8216;And there is a lot of pain out there among business travelers who are flying on commercial jets.8217;8217;

How much pain remains to be seen. Some industry analysts question whether air taxi services will be cheap enough for average consumers, or comfortable enough for business travelers, to gain a wide following.

Air taxi operators say they can offer customers seats ranging from 1 to 3 a mile, compared with 9 to 13 a mile on charter jets, or up to 15 a mile on slightly larger private jets. Regional commercial airlines like SkyWest, by contrast, average less than 16 cents a mile flying 50-seat planes, but as much as five times that on less-traveled routes where air taxis plan to compete, industry executives say.

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The 33-foot Eclipse plane, which will cost 1.5 million, can carry two pilots and four passengers and fly at speeds of over 400 miles an hour. By comparison, a twin-engine Cessna CJ-1, a jet that also carries four passengers, costs about 4.3 million and can fly 448 miles an hour.

Categorised as a very light jet at less than 10,000 pounds, the Eclipse offers comfort more akin to flying in a leather-appointed sport utility vehicle than a bigger corporate jet with a wet bar. There is also no bathroom8212;a fact that has caused some aviation industry veterans to pass up the plane for an air taxi service.

Nevertheless, Eclipse, which has received more than 500 million in investment, including an undisclosed sum from Microsoft8217;s founder, Bill Gates, has received contracts to build 2,500 aircraft for a total of 3.5 billion in sales, an order book big enough to keep the company busy through late 2008, said Vern Raburn, Eclipse8217;s CEO.

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