Is JetPurple Airwayz for real? Airport officials say the airline has not contacted them about flights

Last week, JetPurple Airwayz announced that it would soon be flying its charter jets — each one upholstered with what looks like the skin of a dozen Muppets — out of Scottsdale Airport. Despite the airline's own press releases and media coverage, that's, um, news to the airport. According to officials at that Arizona airport, JetPurple has not contacted them about operating its luxury charter flights from the airport, nor has JetPurple CEO Adam Blumenkranz submitted a business plan to the city.

The same goes for Burbank's Bob Hope Airport; even though Blumenkranz said that his Grape Ape airline would eventually operate long haul flights to Asia from Burbank, he has not spoken to anyone at the airport about it. Lucy Burghdorf, a spokesperson for Bob Hope Airport told the Phoenix Business Journal:

"We learned about it through the media like everyone else did. We were getting calls from concerned citizens to such an extent that out of frustration we reached out to Blumenkranz."

According to the Journal, Blumenkranz has insisted that he will be as "transparent as possible" as he tries to launch the carrier, but he's not doing a great job so far.  He has not spoken with Scottsdale Airport officials in several years, not since his last attempt at getting JetPurple off the ground. Sara Ferrara, Scottsdale Airport's Aviation Planning and Outreach Coordinator, said:

"We did have a prospective meeting a few years ago. But we have a lot of prospective meetings, and we didn't hear anything from him."

The way things have gone so far, the next time they hear from him, it might be through a JetPurple press release.