Chartering a plane for NE FIRST teams to St. Louis

[SeanFitz]

Hi guys,

So in our efforts to find the cheapest way to get to St. Louis, we stumbled upon a plane chartering company that can get us to St. Louis both cheaper and faster than any other way. The only hitch is that we need 150 people in order for it to work. We currently have around 40 people from our team interested, but we need more.

The more people who join us, the less it costs per person.

If your team from New England heading to St. Louis is interested in joining us in this endeavor, please contact me through CD with your contact information and an estimate for how many people would be in your group.

We hope to see you in St. Louis, or on the plane.

[Louis_]

Out of curiosity, what would be the final cost of the plane? We're not going I'm just very interested. Could you please also PM me the information of the company? Thanks!

[BethMo]

I'm very curious about this too. Kevin Ross told us that PNW First looked into chartering a plane from Seattle and found that it would be much more expensive than purchasing full-price tickets.

[pipsqueaker]

You sure about the charter plane being cheap?

I think that our team is pretty much set on taking a red eye bus to worlds, but I'll float this out to our mentors if you give a few more details...

Congrats on the chairman's award you guys got yesterday btw!

[BrendanB]

Chartered flights might be more expensive but with the quick turnaround for teams its almost impossible to find flights for 20-40 people.

[bastiaansem]

Sean,

Can you please send team 3146 the price details. WE have about 20 team members and 10 adult mentors.

Can you give us a ball park price and time, location of the flights?

Margaret

[SeanFitz]

Hi guys,

So the number I've been hearing from my mentors is about $300 per person each way, but that number can certainly go down as we get more confirmations. The company we are going through is closed for the weekend, but we are calling them first thing tomorrow morning and will send out more information as soon as possible.

-Sean

[Lisa Munoz]

I'm interested as well. We only need space for 3. A Dean's list finalist, a mentor and a parent.

Thanks in advance!

Lisa

[denisemcomeau]

We'd like to get more info on potential cost. We would be ~12 Team members, 3 Mentor/Coaches. As a second year team, we're scrambling to see if we can afford the trip.

[cbf]

Boston area teams -- it looks like the plane charter is not to be. Apparently, while Southwest would in theory do this charter, they don't actually have a plane available for the dates we need.

Ligerbots are now looking into a bus. We might have some extra space available to share with another Boston area team -- but not nearly the numbers we were talking about for the airplane.

I'll try to post more information when the situation becomes clearer.

[protoserge]

$300 each way doesn't sound cheaper than a charter bus from a reputable company. Did you consider this option as well?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by stinglikeabee

$300 each way doesn't sound cheaper than a charter bus from a reputable company. Did you consider this option as well?

Yes and no. From our findings this year and last year a bus is cheaper but St. Louis falls during a school week in New Hampshire so its an extra day or two out of school and makes the trip much longer which some teams find is worth the extra cost/convenience of keeping the kids in school longer and not having to take a 24 hour+ bus ride.

New England also struggles with the Boston Marathon and school trips to Washington, DC and elsewhere during the month of April really puts a limit on the available buses for teams. Last year there was nothing available and somewhere between 20-30 teams traveled to St. Louis. This year we have 51 teams qualified from New England.

[TD78]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

New England also struggles with the Boston Marathon and school trips to Washington, DC and elsewhere during the month of April really puts a limit on the available buses for teams. Last year there was nothing available and somewhere between 20-30 teams traveled to St. Louis. This year we have 51 teams qualified from New England.

This is a huge part of the problem. We started looking at buses a few months ago. We had a decent quote, but couldn't pull the trigger fast enough to get a deposit down (i.e. in about a day from when we got the quote to when it was no longer available). We ended up deciding to fly and ship our pit stuff. The Boston Marathon just sucks up buses all over New England. There are probably teams who are able to secure buses, but either they got lucky or are really good at planning ahead. In the future, it seems to me that either NEFIRST needs to reserve a handful of buses in early fall (September/October) for the following year (if it's possible), or teams need to assume they are going to WCMP and start planning early. That might even mean trying to reserve a bus in the fall. Even if they don't use it, there will probably be a team nearby that could take it off their hands.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by TD78

That might even mean trying to reserve a bus in the fall. Even if they don't use it, there will probably be a team nearby that could take it off their hands.

This is something our team has done the past two years: plan early and if we don't qualify we pass it along to a team who does and I'm sure for reasons like this are why teams who qualified a few weeks ago had a hard time finding any reservations because they couldn't find vacant hotel rooms.

Both years we have been able to use our reservations and tried to share our bus with 4925 from last year but at the last second it broke down with no replacement.

This year 3467 is planning to drive out in vans like did last year at the last second and I believe a few other teams in our area are as well.