Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Surf Air Takes Flight, Starts All-You-Can-Fly Shuttles To Silicon Valley

For venture capital investors and entrepreneurs, used to making the commute between Silicon Beach and Silicon Valley, the distance--and time--between the two technology centers has just dropped, thanks to the launch of Surf Air, an all-you-can-fly membership airline. Surf Air launched its first flight today at 10:45am, flying from Burbank to San Carlos. San Carlos is a small public airport, between Redwood City and San Mateo just off the 101 freeway, and is closer to Sand Hill Road than either San Francisco International or San Jose International Airport.

In a little over an hour, executives can now hop between the two technology areas--through the executive airline terminals at Burbank and San Carlos. The new service skirts the more crowded, security lines at the public side of Burbank--which is already drastically easier to navigate than LAX--and allows execs to simply show up and board their flights. The service arguably makes Silicon Valley closer for those in Los Angeles, timewise, than even a drive between Los Angeles and Orange County during rush hour, in part by reducing the long time spent at airline terminals before a flight.

The new service is the brainchild of Wade Eyerly, who came up with the idea for the service while helping to jet around high level government officials like Vice President Dick Cheney, and his brother, a licensed commercial pilot who was working at Frontier Airlines. Surf Air is venture backed by Velos Partners, Base Ventures, Anthem Venture Partners, NEA, actor Jared Leto, Mike Walsh, TriplePoint Capital, Siemer Ventures, Baroda Ventures, Gilad and Eytan Elbaz, Rick Caruso, and Jeffrey Stibel.

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