Santa Monica Airline Gets FAA’s OK for Takeoff

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Surf Air Inc. in Santa Monica has finally gotten the all-clear from the government to begin flying.

Come June 12, the airline that offers unlimited flights for a monthly fee will push off for its first trip between Burbank and San Carlos. Expanded routes to other cities on the West Coast will follow.

Official word from the Federal Aviation Administration came down at the end of May, almost a year after the airline’s initial planned launch date. Surf Air co-founder Wade Eyerly said he’d been anxiously waiting during the extended period, which made the relief from final approval sweet. And fleeting.

“It’s like getting an invitation to race in the Boston Marathon,” Eyerly said. “In one sense it’s an honor, but there’s also the realization that a lot of work is ahead.”

A few things have changed since the airline presented at Santa Monica accelerator MuckerLab’s demo day last year.

Though it was initially slated to fly out of Santa Monica Municipal Airport, that became untenable amid ongoing community efforts to limit flights to and from the facility. Surf Air is still planning to use its all-you-can-eat option, though the fee that was originally set at $1,000 is now $1,650.

Surf Air’s goal, like so many tech companies that it graduated with from MuckerLab, is to disrupt its industry – in this case, airlines. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so warmly embraced by L.A.s tech community, which has comprised the bulk of the company’s early investors and sign-ups. Eyerly said there are more than 4,000 people on the waiting list and he promised he’ll accommodate them as best he can.

The company also announced a second round of venture capital funding, bringing its total raised to $11 million. That haul should help pay for the handful of jets the company has purchased and the salaries of the 24 pilots it has on staff.

Product Placement

Culver City’s MeUndies, a subscription e-commerce site that sells underwear, socks and T-shirts, has undertaken noticeable marketing campaigns in the past. The company has pitched its wares through vending machines in malls and shops at boutique hotels. It’s had a minor viral video hit with underwear clad models dancing to the “Harlem Shake.” And it takes only one visit to the site for MeUndies’ skimpy banner ads to start tracking you and following you around the Internet.

The newest ad campaign though, might top them all. The site announced that it has signed a sponsorship deal with PaintBottle, an angel investor-backed video site that, how shall one put this, provides entertainment that’s only allowed for consenting adults. PaintBottle is porn.

Representatives of MeUndies admitted the move was a tad bold, but the general philosophy behind PaintBottle, a site that only shows licensed, nonpirated pornographic content, was important. And, as was explained in a release, porn is pretty popular on the Internet, so it has the potential for a sizable audience.

The more pressing question for a clothing company is how to get its products featured in a genre where the goal is for central characters to achieve a clothing-free state. According to a spokesman, a lot of MeUndies socks are featured.

Grabbing Gamers

As part of a major downsizing for San Francisco gaming firm Zynga Inc., it shuttered its Culver City offices. As many as fifty-five people reportedly were abruptly out of a job. But maybe not for long.

Mere hours after Zynga made the announcement, Hollywood mobile gaming publisher Scopely Inc. put forward its intentions to snap up the freshly unemployed workers.

Through Scopely’s Twitter account, company representatives made an offer: Anyone who helped bring on a Zynga developer would earn a free trip to one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Scopely has had some headline-grabbing strategies to hire employees in the past, such as the time it offered recruits a suitcase full of bacon-wrapped bills. And the company already has a number of former Zynga employees on staff and in executive positions.

Not to be left out of the Zynga melee, mobile game developer SGN Inc. in Los Angeles also announced the hiring of a few key executives. Two were alumnae of the ailing San Francisco company.


Staff reporter Tom Dotan can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 263.