Pogo Jet axes air-taxi plans

Former American Airlines chief Robert Crandall’s plans to blanket the Northeast U.S. with a fleet of air-taxi Eclipse 500 very light jets under the Pogo Jet brand name have come to an end. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Pogo Jet of Chicopee, Mass., applied to withdraw its registration statement for an initial public stock offering. Pogo Jet hoped to use $46.5 million of IPO funds to help pay for the Eclipse fleet, which was supposed to grow to 115 airplanes by the end of 2011. Before selecting the Eclipse 500, Pogo had placed an order for 75 Adam A700 VLJs; both Eclipse and Adam are now bankrupt.