I grew up in a small town called Humboldt, Tennessee, which is about
an hour and a half outside of Memphis. Basically, back then it was
a small farming community, but it was the epitome of an American childhood.
So I have wonderful memories from Humboldt, Tennessee and still have family there.
I then went to undergrad at the University of Tennessee, transferred to the University
of Mississippi Old Miss, and then graduated Old Miss Law School, and sir,
because of those two schools, because I'm a sports guy, you've had
some pretty good football over the years. Let me tell you we've had We've
had two Mannings at Old Miss and one at Tennessee. So sure, and
I knew the third brother when I was at Old Miss. So Mannings all
around in the football round. By the way, I hear when you go
to a game at Tennessee, it's an extraordinary experience, it really is.
There. There is nothing like especially the opening, you know, the opening
of football at Tennessee in Nengland Stadium, and now it's over one hundred thousand,
you know. And then I got so Miss and we sat thirty nine
thousand when I first got there, and now it's almost at seventy So it's
a great football experience, it sure is, it, sure is. Well,
Listen, we are here to talk about surf air mobility and you being
the CEO. And there's a merger that we have to talk about too,
because two smart companies came together and now you're the CEO of them. That
happened in twenty thirteen. But I want to give our listeners context before twenty
thirteen, because I know you did a lot of really cool things before that.
So out of school and before twenty thirteen, what did you do you
know for I wasn't associated with the airline business at all. Back then,
I practiced law for fifteen years in Mississippi, and if you go back eleven
years ago from now, I was a lawyer, probably handling a case at
the courthouse, and I saw a need when it looked like Delta was going
to shut down their hub at Memphis International, which was our our hometown airport.
There, I saw a need for people being able to get back and
forth on short haul trips, specifically down to the Gulf Coast. So kind
of out of the blue, I called a college buddy of mine one night
and said, come on over to my house and let's talk about something.
And he got there and I said, you and I need to start an
airline. And of course he thought that was a complete joke. And let
me tell you, six months later we had our first flight sold out Memphis
down to destin On in the Florida Panhandle, and the rest is history.
Well that's fantastic. So let's take us all the way up to twenty thirteen.
You've got a company, there's another company, there's a merger. Tell
us about how it all came together. You know, we really didn't have
a whole lot of association, really, not any with Surfair. Surfair started
the same year that we did. I think, actually we're the last two
startup airlines in the country. You just don't see new airlines getting started anymore.
But that group started on the West coast, based side of La flying
a lot to San Francisco and to Blake Tahoe, places like that. We
were in the South, hence the name Southern, and both going on our
separate paths until COVID hit. And about a week after COVID hit, I
got a call. I didn't recognize the number and I thought, you know,
it's COVID. I don't have a whole lot else going on right now.
So I answered it, and it was Sudan Shahani, the CEO of
Surfair, and he said, I've been reading that you want to be the
first person, the first airline to put paying passengers on an electric airplane.
And he said, that's also exactly what we want to do at Surfair.
You and I should talk. He said, so when COVID's over, come
out here to the West Coast and let's spend a little time together. And
I said, you know, I'm in the airline business. I don't get
to say we're not going to fly until COVID's over. We fly every day.
So I hopped on a plane the next week, and within a matter
of a few short weeks, he and I had signed a letter of intent
to put the companies together and jointly be the first airline to put a paying
passenger on an electric airplane. Well, it's a great story, it's a
great origin story, and I want everybody to buckle in literally because now if
you move forward ten years, a full decade, the growth has been incredible.
What you do is incredible and The business model is really neat too,
and we're going to talk all about that, but I first want to ask
you just about mission statement. What is that when it comes to surf air?
You know, it's just what I said a moment ago. It's to
put paying passengers on an electric or hybrid electric aircraft. Our goal in everything
we do is green energy and moving green energy and green transportation forward faster than
most people think is possible. All right, So I'm fascinated by this because
I'm in the ev everything, and I'm always on board with the latest tech
windmills, solar power, electricity, and it's the future and we're gonna have
to do it. We don't have to get into a climate change conversation,
but I like what you and your company are doing. Can you tell me,
though, why you came up with this idea and why it makes sense
for you and your customers? Well, Number one, it's a better for
the customer. It's a better experience. Think about how quiet an airplane would
be if you didn't have engine noise. It just makes think about how much
quieter your Tesla, if you drive a Tesla or any electric vehicle is than
an old school traditional combustion engine much better passenger experience. But from the airline
perspective, it's one place where we can control costs and where we can actually
reduce costs. We all know that the cost of labor is going up and
there's a scarcity of labor. You look at where crude oil is and I
find myself checking the cost of crude on my phone three or four times a
day because that's so affecting the price of operating an airline. The cost of
operating an airline, so to be able to do it with electricity instead of
being beholden to the price of oil is a major issue for us, and
that's what's going to allow us to open up these new markets. So think
back Dennis to twenty thirty, even forty years ago. How many more airports
had scheduled commercial service that don't now. It is a continually shrinking universe,
and that's because the costs continue to go up and you just can't afford an
airline, can't afford to put service into an airport that's not going to supply
it with hundreds of thousands of passengers per year. We want to be able
to go back to that old model of point to point travel. You don't
have to change planes at a hub. You can use your smaller local airport.
That's more convenient, and you can do it for the same cost or
less than what you would pay to go have a connecting flight through Dallas or
Denver or Chicago. All right, Stan, I know that you're LABA.
So what flight patterns and cities do you do now and what's in the future.
You know, we're all over the place right now. We're we're the
largest carrier enter island Care. You're by departures in the state of Hawaii.
We fly about one hundred and fifty departures a day out there. We also
have daily service between Santa Barbara and San Francisco, LA. And San Francisco.
We fly into the small airport at Truckee, California, which is just
outside It's on Lake Tahoe, And in fact, my family and I were
there for vacation a couple of weeks ago, and I can't tell you how
much more convenient it is to pull your car up to a small airport,
going to a small terminal there were probably eight or nine people in the whole
building, and then walk straight out to your plane. And fly home.
We're also throughout the Rocky Mountains. We are at Denver and several small cities
around Denver. Same for Chicago, Dallas, Washington, Dulles. We're looking
to expand soon into Atlanta, which I think is going to be a great
market for us in the next couple of years. And then we've got projects
going on internationally, So don't be surprised if you see some surf airplanes down
in the Caribbean doing some island hopping in the next few months. Outstanding.
And what about the size of plane. How many people do you have different
kinds of planes, different sizes for people. We do have different kinds of
planes. We have five different aircraft types in our fleet. But the backbone
of the fleet and the one that will be the first to be electrified,
is the Sesna Grand Caravan. It's made by Textron, the largest general aviation
aircraft manufacturer in the world. It's been made since nineteen eighty six, so
there are about three thousand of them in existence around the globe. This is
a workhorse aircraft. It's designed, as I said, for nine passengers,
which is where electrification is first. As you can imagine going to be possible.
You can't electrify I owing seven thirty seven yet, so we're going to
make sure that on a regional basis, don't get in your car and drive
three or four or five hours. An airplane and for essentially the cost of
an uber will get you there, and will get you there with half the
carbon footprint. I'm super curious how long does it take to charge one of
the airplanes that it depends on. It depends on which type you're on.
We're making two types. One is fully electric, so it's nothing but battery
power. The other is hybrid electric, so there is actually a turbogenerator which
is charging the battery throughout the flight. The hybrid electric can go NonStop for
pretty much the same range as a traditional combustion engine powered aircraft. The electric
will have a shorter range until battery technology develops to the point where it can
go longer, and we don't know yet where that's going to go. Right
now, you're looking at about one hundred mile range on fully electric, and
then it will have to charge for a while before it can turn around and
make the return trip. All of that is still in the testing phases,
so I can't give you a good answer on that right now. But I
can tell you that every route we fly in Hawaii is under one hundred miles,
so that's going to be a great place to test this new propulsion system.
Understood, and thank you for that. I did want to circle back
on something that caught my attention, and as you probably know in this CEO
series that a lot of current leaders and future leaders listen to this and what
you have to say leadership, how you run a company. But I'm fascinated
on your merger. You two had the same idea at almost the same time,
and yet somebody reached out to you and said let's be partners. That
doesn't always happen, so that's unusual one itself. But just tell me about
it for all the people that are listening that are that business acumen, want
to start a company, or maybe looking to partner up with somebody. I
understand it was only in your perspective in your situation, but tell us about
how a merger works and the dues, the don'ts, and the challenges.
But the good thing about it too, how did it all go down?
You know, it's interesting that you bring that up because Southern Airways, even
before we merged with surf Air was really the product of five different airlines.
So my college friend and I started Southern Airways, as you mentioned in twenty
thirteen, and along the way we purchased or merged with five other commuter airlines
around the country. And one thing that I'm really proud of is we selected
our targets based on what they could bring to the table, not just from
the geographic footprint they occupied or the aircraft that were in their fleet, but
the human resources that were available at those companies, and we brought them on
board. So I truly believe that the leadership team we have today is the
best and brightest of five other companies that were out there that said, yes,
we can make something better and bigger by doing it together than if we
did it the part, and that really has paid off off. And the
same thing happened with Surfair. In our merger with Surfair, there was not
one layoff that occurred. There was not one job that was eliminated or one
person that was fired, because you know what, we found that they had
such a talented resource pool of humans of people that they're now all part of
the team. So I think that there are a lot of companies out there
that say, can I find somebody to merge with, achieve greater scale,
cut the ranks of the payroll, and thereby increase profits. Obviously, we're
looking to increase profits and that's a large driver of what we or any company
does, But in this environment, human talent is one of the hardest things
to find, and we've done it through the merger process. Well, it's
an extraordinary marriage that you have. And I'm so happy to hear that nobody
lost their gig, because that's the big worry when people merge. You worry
about all those layoffs and trying to save money and do differently and different But
obviously the business model was there that people were there. I'm glad you talked
about people because in this series two, beside the passion, the taking a
chance and the tenacity that all CEOs and founders have of companies, the backbone
of the company are people. Can you tell us about the eight hundred staff
that are part of this company and just a little bit about them. Sure.
Absolutely. We've got two headquarters for the company. Corporate headquarters is in
la at the Hawthorne Airport, right under the I'm in the shadow of SpaceX
every day when I walk out to my car and then our operations center in
Palm Beach, and we have a really talented group of leaders that are part
of that. And one thing I have striven to do from the beginning is
to get people that do have a long airline background and a long airline history,
but also to try to have about half of our leadership team be people
from outside the industry, so that we can look at every issue with a
fresh set of eyes, not just saying, well, this is the way
it's always been done in the airline industry, but to say, how should
it be done in the future to make it better for the company and better
for the passenger. And that's what we found in Southern Airways on is I
don't want to do things the same way everybody else has. I'm starting a
company because I want a different product than what everybody else has. And then
from looking outside of headquarters in leadership, you look at the six hundred people
who actually make the plane to run every day. We've got about three hundred
pilots in this company, and I'm so proud that we are one of the
largest creators of new pilots in the industry. We've all heard of the pilot
shortage. Everybody knows how we're going through this crisis at the larger airlines of
a lack of pilots. Well, surf Air is not a consumer of pilots.
Surf Air is a creator of pilots. We're one of the best places.
This is that a young pilot out of flying school, out of flight
school, can come to us and fly as a first officer, learned from
an experienced captain in the left seat, and become a captain himself within a
thousand hours or so of flight time. And then there are all the people
at our station's forty eighth station around the United States in every time zone.
Some have been with us from the very very beginning, some have been with
us since last week. But I hope that what all of them will tell
you is it's a great place to work. It's a fun place to work.
Stan, thanks for sharing all that. And one thing really garnered my
attention, if I may get on my soapbox just for a second, to
all the future entrepreneurs and CEOs out there, that Stan went outside of his
company and not just relied on his echo chamber to be yes people and I
love that about you, Stan, that you looked outside of the company to
get a freshet of ears and eyes and everything. And that takes somebody that's
checking their ego at the door, sir, and I know that goes for
a lot of your big team members and your managers. And I just want
to say I thought that was very cool because I talked to a lot of
CEOs of this series and not everybody feels that way, So I think that's
pretty darn cool. Thank you. Thank you for saying that, And you
not didn't discuss this at all prior to this interview, but mentioning ego is
something we talk about regularly at Surfair because if we all walk into the office
every day and check the ego at the door, it's amazing how much more
we can get accomplimented. Well, I feel the same way in my business
too, and we have people that are on the air all the time,
so that's a real balancing act that we have when it comes to radio and
the entertainment industry. Well, listen, Stan, I want to leave the
floor to you and some final thoughts on the company in Surfair. By the
way, the website's gorgeous, we're going to give that in just a moment,
and it's beautiful to check out, it's easy to navigate. But I
did want to kind of leave a takeaway for all our listeners that are listening
to our great conversation. And we can't tell you how much we appreciate your
valuable time. But if you were to give a few takeaways to our listener
about Surfair, what would it be? Ste I think that what I would
leave the listener with is that change so often occurs faster than people think that
it's going to and the electrification of aviation, I believe, is one of
those times when it will We're going to look up one day and find ourselves
sitting on an electric airplane and say, Wow, when did this happen?
Surfair Mobility is going to be the company that makes it happen. And I'm
really looking forward into being able to show you that airplane and take you for
a ride on it two or three years from now, not ten or twelve
years from now. We're really on the cusp of something great here. And
just like you don't even blink when you see a Tesla driving down the interstate
anymore, you're not going to blink when you show up at the airport and
you can barely hear your airplane because it's running on an electric motor instead of
a combustion motor. I would also say Surfair is always looking for talent that
wants to be part of something special. We have job openings in just about
every department in our company. So if you'll go to the website, take
a look around, see what we're about, and if you believe you have
something to contribute, send in an application. Stand what's that website address surfare
dot com. You can also access it from iFly, Southern dot com or
mogal lately airlines dot com. Those are some of our brands that we operate
under, but surfare dot com is where you can find out everything outstanding.
Well, listen, this has been my pleasure. I geeked out a little
bit because I love anything electric or that's great for the environment. It's a
brilliant idea. I know it's ten years in the making, eight hundred plus
employees, and I love talking to disruptors, and I think that's what you
and your team are. So it's a lot of fun what you doing.
I know the future looks bright. Stan We really appreciate your valuable time,
and thank you so much for joining us on CEO. You should know it
was a pleasure. Dennis. Take care,