Today’s Business Airplane: Tool or Toy?
By Robert P. Mark - September 1, 2009
To many people, the words “private jet” conjure up images of wealthy socialites sipping champagne from crystal flutes while reposed in supple leather seats. The reality, however, is usually far from this romanticized ideal, as legions of workaday business jet travelers can attest.
Asked how his direct-mail firm benefits from its Cessna Citation CJ3 (a business twinjet that carries nine passengers only if you count the belted seat in the lavatory), North American Communications chairman Mike Herman said simply, “After 42 years in business, my customers are everywhere the airlines don’t go.” Added Herman, who is based in Duncansville, Pa., “We wouldn’t be in business today if our company didn’t have an airplane.”
Many business aircraft operators undoubtedly share Herman’s sentiments. Quite a few, however, hesitate to say so publicly in the wake of the negative PR storm that began last fall after the heads of the Big Three automakers flew their jets to Washington, D.C., to testify before Congress about their financial woes. An already financially tense public went ballistic. Corporate jets became synonymous with the evils of Wall Street and are now widely viewed as mere perks for the wealthy.
Corporate flight departments tell a different story, however, and so does data from the National Business Aviation Association, which indicates that companies much smaller than the Big Three use the vast majority of corporate aircraft, with many operated by businesses with fewer than 50 employees. An NBAA survey also showed that nearly three quarters of passengers on business airplanes are non-executive employees, squelching the idea that the only one on board is Mr. Big, as many people believe.
Barry LaBov can attest to the value of business aircraft for small companies. He owns LaBov and Beyond Marketing Communications, a 55-employee firm with satellite offices in Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and Auburn Hills, Mich. The company is based in Fort Wayne, Ind., which LaBov said has inadequate airline service. “As our business grew,” he said, “we realized [using the airlines] would mean a six- or seven-hour trip plus an overnight stay to get almost anywhere.
“Ninety percent of flights aboard our Citation CJ1 occur without me,” LaBov added. “We never travel with fewer than three people on board, either.”
Home for Dinner
LaBov’s company first became involved in business aviation by chartering and eventually purchasing a Piper Cheyenne turboprop that delivered five years of service before the Citation replaced it. “Having the CJ1 lets us make two or three trips per week, often first to one location to drop off a team and then on to somewhere else with a second group,” he said. “At the end of the day, we pick them all up and have everyone home for dinner.”
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