Exploring Your Options
By R. Randall Padfield - August 1, 2009
On a recent airline flight, a CNBC reporter noted a businessman, whom he did not know, sitting one row ahead and across the aisle from him. “For nearly the entire five-hour flight from Newark to Los Angeles,” the businessman’s laptop computer “was wide open,” wrote the reporter, who covers the pharmaceutical industry. “I didn’t have to lean forward, squint or put on my glasses to see what the guy was working on: a presentation on the marketing plans for a new drug–one I had never heard of. We’re talking dozens of pretty PowerPoint pages.”
For many business jet travelers, privacy is reason enough to justify their use of business aviation. Many people add time savings, inadequate or total lack of airline service, security and even comfort. You can likely name additional reasons for considering travel by business jet, turboprop or helicopter.
Whatever your personal reasons, the more time you spend investigating your business aviation travel options, the better the result will be.
While airline travel has become a commodity, travel by smaller aircraft still appears exotic and confusing to many people. Look at all the advertisements about private flying in newspapers and magazines aimed at the high-net-worth market, and all the hits you get when you search online for “business jet,” “air charter” and “fractional jet ownership.” There are numerous shapes, sizes, names and models of aircraft to choose from, all with different capabilities and some even sporting propellers. And there are lots of ways to climb aboard, including charter, jet cards and fractional and full ownership. How can you possibly choose what is best for you, your company or your family?
The good news is that while there are certainly many aircraft options, which is to the customer’s advantage, there really are only two basic ways to get involved in business aviation: renting and buying. Everything else is just a variation of those options.
Chartering aircraft is the equivalent of renting a house. Owning an aircraft is the equivalent of owning a house. Owning a fractional share of an aircraft–the option developed and popularized by NetJets–is the rough equivalent of owning a timeshare in a vacation condo.
Unless you hitch a ride on a company airplane or with a friend, ad-hoc air charter is the least expensive option for your first foray into business aviation. But before you start searching online or in the Yellow Pages, neither of which are the best approaches, you need to decide a few things:
• Where do you want to go?
• How many people will be going with you?
• How much are you willing to spend?
• How long will you be gone?
• Are you bringing unusually large objects or pets?
If your departure and destination are well served by airlines, you are traveling alone and money is a consideration, flying first class with a favorite airline may be your best choice. If one or more of the above factors aren’t part of the equation, chartering an aircraft may be the better option.
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