Posted April 6, 2009 by Michael J. Ryan

It’s Monday morning, April 6 at your office in Pontiac, MI. You just found out that three of you need to be in Canton, Ohio Wednesday April 8 for an important sales meeting. The client wants to meet at 2:00 PM and told you to expect to be there until 5:00. Here are your choices:

Driving: MapQuest shows it takes four hours to drive 233 miles each way. You’ll need to start at 9:00 AM to allow for a rest stop and a lunch break. The return trip will start at 5:00 PM when the meeting ends. You’ll get back to Pontiac at 10 PM. Total travel time 10 hours. This saves the most money but wastes the most time for all three travelers.

Airlines: It’s a good thing you checked Travelocity right away, because there were only a few non-stop airline seats left! Unfortunately, you’re buying the tickets at the last minute and pay full fare coach. You leave the office at 10:00 AM to drive to Detroit Metro, park, check in, go through airport security, and hike out to your gate. Your flight departs at 11:58 AM and arrives at 12:53 PM. You’ll need to kill an hour in Canton waiting for your meeting to start, so you might as well have lunch. When the meeting’s over, you can go out to dinner, because the return flight isn’t until 7:02 PM. The tickets cost a total of $1,713.60 for the three of you.

Charter: You drive over to Oakland County Airport for your charter flight on American Business Airways at 12:30 PM. All three of you had productive mornings in the office or calling on local clients. You’ll find a box lunch on board to eat on your one hour flight to the Canton-Akron Airport. Arriving at 1:30, your rental car pulls right up to the plane. You drive out of the airport five minutes after landing and head over to the client’s office. When the meeting ends, you head back to the plane and take off about 5:30 PM for the one hour flight to Oakland County. You’ll enjoy some light snacks and a cold beer on the flight home, discussing in complete privacy everyone’s comments from the successful sales meeting where you closed the biggest sale so far this quarter. Landing at 6:30, everyone heads home for a late dinner with their families. The cost was $1,524. Really!

Comparison

·    Driving wasted 15 business hours and 15 personal hours, and was the lowest cost.

·    Airlines wasted 9 business hours outbound and 9 personal hours on the return, and cost the most because you bought your tickets at the last minute, paying full fare coach. The combined airfare was $ 1,713.60.

·    Charter didn’t waste any time at all. And best of all, you saved $189.60 by flying privately on American Business Airways.

Does It Always Work Like That?

No, it does not. But anytime you find yourself paying full-fare coach, and two or more of you are going to the same place, give American Business Airways a call at 248.444.5202 for a price comparison…and don’t forget to compare the time savings, too!

(Ryan is president of AirPSG, LLC and can be reached at mike.ryan@airpsg.com, 800.769.6082 or www.airpsg.com )

Posted March 30, 2009 by Michael J. Ryan
Let us help you put together a business case for business charter travel. We’ll start by finding out how much business travel you do as part of your job. We’ll break it down into how many business trips you take per week, per month, and this first quarter.

It’s important to count up the trips because if someone takes only two airline trips a year, they can’t help but ask, “What’s the big deal about standing in an airport security or check-in line?” Or, “So what if you have to kill 90 minutes each way changing planes?” They’ll think, “Would it really kill you to stay overnight this one time because your meeting ended too late for the last flight out?”

You’ve got to get everyone’s attention about the number of trips you take for the explanations about saving time to make any sense.

We can help you prepare some practical examples to illustrate a routine use of business aircraft versus the alternative of flying commercial. We would highlight three typical business jet trips flown last year that you reasonably expect to take again this year.

The analysis ought to show the number of stops, amount of work conducted at each location, explain work done aboard the plane, and add up the total productive hours for the trip. Then we’ll prepare an analysis of those same trips but using current commercial airline schedules.

Do the math. Show the actual productivity and time savings. And don’t forget to multiply the productivity impact on the company of anyone who travels with your client.

The key to this argument is found in overnight trips. Make the case that every overnight trip flying commercially, that could have been done same-day on charter, costs the company four wasted production hours per passenger.

Then, restate it in more colorful terms. Explain that every 10 airline overnight trips has the equivalent adverse impact on productivity of your top producer taking a week’s sick leave.

Our industry did too good a job over the years selling the luxury and perquisites of charter travel. Now our job is to focus on the hard-nosed business benefits. When we help you analyze and present the benefits, we supply you with the political cover you need to capitalize on the benefits and get back in our air.

(Ryan is President of AirPSG and can be reached at mike.ryan@airpsg.com or 800.769.6082.)

http://www.airpsg.com

Aircraft fuel, Gasoline and Jet fuel are low volume commodities and are manufactured in batches.  When the refineries produce aviation fuels, they actually stop producing auto fuels and make a 3 or 4 month supply at one time.  They then restart auto fuel production. In the case of Avgas (aviation Gasoline) which contains lead, they have to completly clean out the manufacturing and supply equipment before they can start auto production again.  Because of the lead times involved, aviation fuel does not see the rapid fluctuations in price that you see at your local gas station.  In fact, aviation fuel might totally miss a short term drop in auto gas prices.

This is one reason you will not see the price of airplane charters drop as fast, the other reason is that most operators have been holding the line on price increases to the public, they have taken lower profits in order to keep prices stable.  Many operators also charge a fuel surcharge, if you investigate you will probably see that these surcharges have indeed come down.

At many smaller airports and fixed base operators (aviation gas stations!) the volume of sales are low enough that it may take a month or more to use up their stock of fuel, they will not see a price decrease until the next shipment.  Of course you will also benefit from this same situation when fuel prices go up, most aviation fuel suppliers do not raise prices until they have to order a new shipment (unlike your local gas station!)

At American Business Airways, we do not currently add a fuel surcharge, part of our business plan is simpler pricing and we have indeed dropped our prices from 6 months ago.

Considering the volitility of fuel prices over the last few years, aircraft charter prices although raising modestly, have still not been as volitile as the fluctions in fuel prices.

Starting in January, 2009.  We will be offering weekend special fares to Boyne Mountain Michigan or other airports in the area (such as Atrim county, Traverse City, etc) for $300 per person.  This fare is based on six passengers making advanced reservations.  If we do not get six bookings the flight will not operate unless the remaining passengers want to pay the fare for the missing passengers.  We will leave Friday night and return Sunday. the exact times will be based on what the majority of the passengers agree on.  This is still a charter but we are making the flights available on a per seat basis.  If we have enough bookings, we may start a regularly scheduled flight.

Please post messages on this blog letting us know how often and at what times you would like to have service from Southeast Michigan to the Northern lower penensula.  Flights will leave the Oakland International airport in Waterford Michigan.

The following article was written by David J. Wyndham, VP and Co-Owner of Conklin & de Decker,  an aviation data and consulting company.  It is used with permission of David J. Wyndham and applies equally well to the use of a charter aircraft or aircraft ownership.

Reason 1 Why not to have a Business Aircraft:  They save too much time. Time is a non-renewable resource.  In Latin, it is Tempus Fugit:  Time Flies.  Why use the aircraft to be in several places during a short amount of time?  What’s the use?  Showing your commitment and concern to your business, your clients, and your employees by making the most efficient use of this most limited resource will not pay off.  Productivity is overrated.

Reason 2 Why Not to Have A Business Aircraft.  They save wear and tear on valuable employees. Next to customers, employees are the most difficult part of running a business.  If keeping motivated, highly productive employees and top executives were important, we’d look for ways to keep the aircraft busy helping these employees get and keep customers.  As it is, these folks are overpaid,  They don’t bring in new business, make the company profitable, or add value.  Given the unemployment rate, you can always find another intelligent, honest, motivated senior executive to run the division, company or operating site.  These folks are like laptop computers, replaceable.  So let them languish on the road rather than being productive and happy.

Reason 3 Why Not To Have A Business Aircraft:  Aircraft allow you to meet with your customers more often. In poor economic times, your customers don’t have any money.  Why work hard to maintain that personal relationship? We’ve all heard stories about how business down cycles do inevitably turn positive and that those companies who work smarter in keeping their current customers tend to flourish when things get better.   Do you really believe all that business school lecturer fodder?

In being sarcastic, I’m trying to say that a well-chosen, well managed business aircraft is not a luxury, but a necessary investment in the current and future success of a business. It can be a Cessna 172 for a small firm or a global jet for an international firm.  The right aircraft can help the right people retain the right customers to both create value and ensure future growth.  During these down times, we all must carefully evaluate what is important to the future success of our companies.  The business aircraft can be one of those important tools.  Sometimes you jet need some help in justifying one.

And please remember, the important thing is to have access to a business aircraft.  You can do this by charter, ownership or, ownership with a leaseback, management agreement.  The course that is appropriate to your business is dictated by how much flying you will do yearly.