Plane Conversations

From our first article with Plane Conversations, we have advocated for general aviation, pointing out how aircraft charter can be a logical solution to travel difficulties and why corporate flight departments and private aircraft ownership are far more than the corporate excess Main Stream Media supposes.  However, we realize that while we have said that air mass transit is not always your best solution, there are particular instances when it does  makes the most economic sense.  In those cases, travelers have to suck it up and deal with the hassles and inconveniences of scheduled air service.

One of those hassles is airport security.  As I have said before, while I am not a fan of the process, I recognize the need for it and I understand that it is a necessary evil.  In July, a woman was arrested for disorderly conduct at the Nashville International Airport when she refused to allow her teen-aged daughter to go through the body scanner.  This meant that the girl had to be screened using a standard pat-down, a procedure far more thorough than it looks on Law and Order.  The mother wasn’t happy with that, either.  She proceeded to complain loudly, repeatedly and abusively enough that the airport police finally put her under arrest.  She has now achieved some kind of bizarre martyr status in the Main Stream Media.

This absolutely blows my mind.

Her attitude reflects  a common sentiment, though.  The traveling public insists on government protection for fliers. Snicklefitz Traveler cries, “Keep me safe!  Keep me safe!  But do it by screening that other guy, ‘cause I’m not a threat.”  “Keep me safe, but handle it in the way that I want, even though I don’t really know how the whole process works.” “Keep me safe, but don’t inconvenience me.” “Seat me next to people like these….”

Security measures are not created out of a vacuum.  They are in response to a specific threat or incident.  Thanks to Richard Reid, we have our shoes screened.  Thanks to Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, we have our bodies scanned and our groins checked.  Organizations all over the world use both women and children as soldiers and terrorists.  Security screening is a thankless job and the TSA an easy target for criticism; but, the fact is, the TSA has to get it right every time – or as close to every time as humanly possible –  because the cost of being wrong could be catastrophic.  The terrorist has to get it right only once to achieve that same catastrophic effect.

Flying is a privilege, not a right.  To take advantage of the privilege, we must agree to abide by the rules of the airlines, airports and related agencies.  If you disagree with the measures in place, you don’t have to fly.  People crossed the oceans in ships.  They settled Utah using hand carts.  There are other ways you can get to your destination.

By the way, the attractive, harmless people in the photos are Alyssa Bustamante, a 15-year-old who strangled, stabbed and cut the throat of her nine-year-old neighbor and Anders Breivik who murdered 77 people in Norway.

If Timothy McVeigh taught us nothing else, he should have taught us that evil may look innocuous and that not all of those who would do us harm are from outside our borders.

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“Do you have 1000 hours of experience of 1 hour’s experience repeated 1000 times?”

I believe I first heard this question from the Godfather of General Aviation, Richard Collins.  It’s a great question that gets at the heart of our flying habits and willingness to stretch ourselves in our flying.

Some pilots fly under, and only under, very tight circumstances.  They look for CAVU (Clear Air Visibility Unlimited) days with less than 5 knots of wind (never a crosswind), only in the morning, only at their home field and never stray from their local area.  It’s great that they are flying, but they are going to have basically one hour of flight repeated 1000 times.  What a shame because flying offers you and I so much more!

It is far better, and more fun and rewarding, to gain 1000 hours of flight experience.  Go somewhere.  Make a trip an adventure.  Challenge yourself.  Fly to a Class C airport and have dinner.  Master the crosswind landing.  Learn to fly safely in something other than a CAVU sky.  If you need an instructor to help you gain comfort and confidence in some of these situations, then book one today.

Certainly, there will be flights that are similar.  My point (and I think Dick Collins’ point also) is that a variety of experiences and situations help us to become a well-rounded and proficient pilot.   I think in the end, this approach will also keep your flying fun!

So, fly often and always be looking for a new challenge!

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My son came home from school one day with a classroom story I found disturbing.  It was at the beginning of the school year and the teacher asked each student to introduce themselves and to tell what their career goals were.  One student stated that he wanted to be a famous rap artist.  The teacher’s advice to the student was to pick another career, he’d never make it in that one.

I’m sure that there were plenty of people who gave the same advice to Marshall Mathers and Curtis Jackson; but, apparently neither Eminem nor 50 Cent took notice of the naysayers. 

Several months ago, I read a blog entitled Misfit Entrepreneurs that really stuck with me.  In the blog, Dan Pallotta wonders how Bruce Springsteen could communicate his aspirations to his father, “How does he tell his father, ‘I’m going to be Bruce Springsteen?’ “  How does any true visionary communicate their vision to the rest of us?  How can they explain their dream to expand or alter a current reality?  How can they define what we can’t even imagine?

At the moment, my son wants to be a stand-up comedian.  He’s pretty hilarious; so, this may be a good fit for him.  I remind him that the path is difficult and that the price, in terms of work, will be high.  However, if Jerry Seinfeld can do it, I don’t see why my son wouldn’t be able to – provided he’s willing to do the work.  Those are the real keys, aren’t they?  We must be able to envision the goal and we must be willing to do the work.

In the charter side of Business and General Aviation, we often talk about the problems in our industry.  Operators all over the country have shut down.  Those of us still flying struggle with ever-thinner margins.  Customers want more stringent standards; but, they often want to pay less for them.  The market is unwilling to pay price increases that keep pace with cost increases.  How can we continue to operate under these circumstances?  We operate smarter.

But, we can’t operate smarter until we change the way we view ourselves and our product.  We have to envision ourselves as Bruce Springsteen before we can actually translate the vision to reality.  We have to stop seeing our industry only for what it is and, instead, see it for what it can be.  What if we can increase fleet utilization without substantially increasing costs?  What if we can increase our margins simply be changing our customer base?  What if we could increase our customer base by tenfold?

What if I told you that we can?  What if I told you that the vision was becoming reality right on the horizon?  Would you be willing to envision it?  Would you be willing to work on it with us? 

We can do it.  After all, Bruce Springsteen exists.

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Part 2: Looking to 2011 and Beyond

Where does the general aviation industry go from here? Well, this looks to be a year of transition, from the old economy that we knew prior to 2008 to the new economy that should start to really see growth in 2012. Growth will come with a different look than it has in the past, driven by technology innovation in the market and increased globalization. The United States will no longer be alone in the drivers seat. Traditional market general aviation growth will happen in China, India and other developing economies.

Growth here in the U.S. has to come from market innovation. We need to do more than get used to it. We need to adapt and embrace it, and determine where the opportunities are for those of us in general aviation in the U.S. and in Europe.

Our company finished 2010 with a strong run to the end of December, and the first few months of 2011 look strong in aircraft charter and FBO fuel sales. Is this a sustainable trend? I hope so. My major concern is the volatility of fuel prices. We don’t know if the economy, let alone the aviation industry, can stand oil prices 30% to 50% higher than they are today.

Setting concerns aside, when I look out to 2011 and beyond, I see opportunities for general aviation to capture the traveler in a new way. The number one reason more people don’t fly general aviation aircraft is price. I have written a lot about this over the past 18 months. I’ve thought about this problem (opportunity) for many years prior, as I talk with people who use or want to use our service almost every day for the past 28 years. There are some ideas worth considering in a good book I’m reading right now called “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption” by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers.

Wikipedia says the following about this term I had not heard of until recently:

The term collaborative consumption is used to describe the cultural and economic force away from ‘hyper-consumption’ to re-invented economic models of sharing, swapping, bartering, trading or renting that have been enabled by advances in social media and peer-to-peer online platforms

The authors propose that in order for “Collaborative Consumption” to work, four underlying principles must be present:

* Critical Mass
* Idling Capacity
* Belief in the Commons
* Trust Between Strangers

Conditions one and two definitely exist in General Aviation and the subset of Business Aviation. We sit on a fleet of underutilized aircraft (idling capacity) , many parked and not flying at all, and even the active aircraft are not used anywhere near optimum levels. Critical mass is present but not properly managed and accounted for. In the U.S. there are 17,000 aircraft available for hire in charter service. Many more aircraft could be available if demand was sufficient to put them to work. Where are they and how do they work together as a synergistic fleet to serve the market? Today the fleet doesn’t work in a synergistic way.

The charter industry is fragmented and not optimized, but technology companies like Charter X / Avinode are making strides in providing a global distribution system for supply of aircraft availability across the fleet. The bigger problem seems to be finding the customer.

That customer is currently being pushed and shoved around by the airlines in a system that seems to become profitable only at the expense of efficiency, comfort and happiness of the traveler (the customer).  If Zappos is in the business of delivering happiness I sometimes wonder if the airline system is in the business of delivering misery.

On conditions three and four, we don’t know if there is a belief in the commons and trust between strangers in General Aviation. Are we willing to share a ride or flight, and do we trust who we are sharing with to sit next to them? The defining technology that will push us through these hurdles will be social media. I can see a day when we share a flight with others to a destination of common interest and long before we board the aircraft we know who we are flying with because we know them online. We see their Facebook profile and we are connected to them on LinkedIn. We have tweeted and texted them and maybe even used email (outdated) to connect to them, to discuss our common travel intentions.

And so our belief in the commons and trust between strangers centers on sharing a flight in a private aircraft together to safely and efficiently travel. And more than that, it will be enjoyable travel because the travel itself will have a social component to it that we don’t get when we travel on the airlines today. Traveling with old and newfound friends and business associates and family will be the new order of travel.

This is not going to happen on a large scale in 2011, but it will begin this year. By 2015 it will absolutely change travel by air in ways that most people cannot even imagine today.

Early adopters from the supply side will be those charter companies (new and established) who are not afraid to adopt new technologies and business processes to meet the new economy. As the critical mass increases and more travelers find this way of air travel, more suppliers will fill the demand.

From the demand side, those who are fed up with the current system of air travel are hungry, maybe even begging for a better solution to meet their need to travel. Social technology may discover that demand for what we have to offer far outpaces our ability to meet it with the supply where it sits today.

Eventually the airlines will have to reorder their business model when they discover that travelers don’t want to go when and where they are being forced to through the current system. It will take them a while to realize what is happening and some airlines that do understand innovation will figure it out. Many will not, due to their inflexible business models.

The next few years will be an exciting time in our industry as disruptive technology changes the way we travel. I look forward to seeing it happen and hopefully being in the midst of it.

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Part 1

I read a lot and try to keep up with what is going on in our industry, trends, innovations, economic forecasts for aviation and the economy on a macro level, what and how the airlines are doing, and so forth.

However, my best perspective about Business and General Aviation still comes from where I sit working in the middle of a business that charters, manages, sells, maintains, fuels and stores aircraft. We also partner on two flight schools that do primary and advanced flight training. I am surrounded by and involved with just about every aspect of general aviation.

2010 was a year that started out with no clear understanding of whether it would be the year of recovery or a repeat of 2009.

The first 8 months of the year were up and down on monthly revenue in charter. Some months looked great and some looked like 2009. It is hard to run a business without predictability in revenue and activity. How do you staff for that and plan cash flow? We managed to hang on.

We have been very fortunate to have a maintenance division of the company that never slowed down during the recession due to the type of maintenance we specialize in. We perform work on and refurbish small regional airline aircraft and the demand for these aircraft worldwide didn’t change much during the recession. Small airlines around the world and the communities they serve need aircraft. Aviation in many countries is not so much a luxury but more of a necessity of travel with poor road infrastructure. The weakness in the small regional airline market seemed to be more the lack of financing than lack of demand.

Our FBO’s showed steady improvement this year over last year. Fuel sales volume was still not at 2007 levels but it got closer. I like upward trends more than downward trends.

The good news really happened in the last 4 months of this year. The phones started ringing more and our charter flights picked up tremendously. As I reviewed it yesterday, and compared to the last 4 months of 2009, I almost couldn’t believe the numbers. Our revenue in charter was up 65% over last year from September through December.

What happened to cause this increase?

A few things on our end helped, including an increase in the size of the charter fleet with 8 new aircraft additions over the past 12 months. Included in that mix was a 30-seat turboprop that met a void in the market. Without too much marketing effort this aircraft started flying immediately when it went into service at midyear.

Looking at the external factors, the airlines and the system they operate in continued to add frustration and inefficiency to air travel. More TSA hassles, more delays and cancellations added to the misery factor. Reduced seats and increased demand created profit for the airlines but caused trouble for the business traveler. Full flights don’t allow much flexibility when cancellations happen due to weather or maintenance. It is not so easy anymore to rebook on the flight leaving two hours later. Sometimes that turns into “we will get you there tomorrow”.

Demand for travel has come back but the friction in the system has gotten worse.

That is good for those of us who are in the business of offering alternatives to scheduled airline travel.

So my guess is that we also benefited from the economy and the airline system. I will take the gift the airlines are handing us and smile.

The snowstorm in the Northeast this week generated a lot of year-end flight activity for us. Stranded vacationers were willing to charter flights to get where they needed to go.

So this year ended up a whole lot better than it started, and I am encouraged that the opportunities for our company and for our industry are going to improve in 2011.

Even in a shaky and uncertain economy people still need to travel. Businesses have proven their resilience to keep doing business and make things work even when the forecasts from some are doom and gloom. Face to face business has yet to be replaced totally by the videoconference. I still can’t share a meal with you through the video screen.

I believe we have amazing opportunities as an industry to improve the efficiency of businesses by saving time and stress on their most valuable asset – their people.

From my perspective I will take 2010 as a year of learning to adapt and innovate and treading water without sinking.

In the next posting I will throw out some ideas and thoughts about what 2011 and forward could look like.

Happy New Year

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Several months ago, Ryan Keough with Cutter Aviation asked me if I would like to participate as a panelist in a webinar on social media strategies that NATA was planning.  I wondered if he knew whom he had called.  He put me in touch with Shannon Chambers, who was putting the whole event together.  After speaking with Shannon, I agree to participate since, while I might not know everything, I’m happy to share what I do know.   After weeks and months of worrying what I should say, the webinar finally arrived.

Twice, I was introduced as an expert, but I really believe I’m more of the Poster Child for You-Can-Do-It-Too.  My degree is not in marketing.  Anytime my job has required me to construct marketing campaigns, I’ve based them on approaches that work for me as a consumer.  I want straight-forward information from people I can both trust and relate to.  But it’s a big world and general aviation covers nearly all of it; so, how do I find those people?  The internet is a good tool made much more useful by Social Media, as we discussed in a previous post. 

Acknowledging that Social Media is a great tool for connecting with customers is all well and good, but, for a company with a limited marketing budget that may not be up on the latest internet tools, getting started can be a daunting task.  Well, at least it was a daunting task for me.  But, I’m going to share something with you…..lean closer so I can whisper it to you…….shhhh, it’s not rocket science.  Okay, don’t tell anyone I told you that; but, it’s the truth.  Social Media is not rocket science – it’s a lot of effort – but a degree from MIT is not required, neither is a secret de-coder ring.

I recently attended a seminar to discuss Social Media use and, frankly, was disappointed.  In my opinion, the subject was discussed as though everyone in the room already understood the basics, which post-seminar discussion proved not to be the case.  I spoke with several frustrated attendees who needed more direction than “just open a Twitter account and follow the directions.”  For them, I sent my own notes gathered during the process of developing our own Social Media campaign.  Now, I don’t assert that I am the Queen of Social Media (note: if you want to call me that, I do already have a tiara in my desk drawer); however, I have learned something during our journey and I am more than happy to share what I’ve learned.   Technology and applications are evolving so quickly that any instructional document I might attach would be out of date before I hit “publish;” so, if you’d like to talk with me about establishing your own blog or social media campaign, email me or call.  I’ll be happy to share. 

In the meantime, we’ll keep blogging, Tweeting, changing our statuses and interacting with you while we all continue our way on the learning curve.

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An article in CAIXIN Online  states that China is opening up a low altitude segment (less than 1000 meters) of its airspace for General Aviation. This may seem like small news since you can’t do much with business aircraft below 3000 feet, but it is really the beginning of a change that will have a major impact on the growth of General Aviation in China.

A friend of ours in China followed on with an email yesterday that said “Beijing  Lanzhou and another 3 cities have opened the low altitude airspace for policy trial yesterday”.

Wichita is sitting around waiting on the rebound in the US and World Business Aviation market and the opportunity is about to be unleashed in the largest country in the world. Maybe a little more attention should be focused on the largest market opportunity for Business and General aviation for the next 20 years?

Here are some interesting excerpts from this article about the potential in China:

According to a research report from the State Council, China’s general aviation sector is at an “initial stage of quick growth.” The report expects China’s general aviation aircrafts to increase to up to 100,000 units. Currently, only 1,000 general aviation aircrafts are operated in China, compared with more than 200,000 in the United States

In case anyone missed that: “units” mean “aircraft” and the numbers were growing from 1,000 to 100,000.

According to the report, as the world’s largest aviation market, the U.S. has seen its general aviation industry create more than US$ 102 billion in value every year, accounting for more than one percent of the country’s GDP. Liu Ping, chief editor of the industry journal China Civil Aviation said that the effective access to low altitude airspace will create 100 million yuan in growth within the general aviation industry as well as large number of job opportunities.

China’s government seems to understand the impact that aviation would have on economic growth by viewing the impact of General Aviation in the US. I think maybe they get it more than the politicians in Washington DC. A growing General Aviation market means new and well paying  jobs.

One of the limiting factors for China opening up airspace will be overcome if they can implement a satellite based air traffic control system. By doing so they would leap ahead of the US who is using 1960’s technology to control air traffic flow through ground based radar. Presently China is working with limited air traffic control capacity and using systems that are also outdated and restrict traffic flow in major hub airports.  

The question is: How long will it take for China to address the issues that really open up airspace for practical use of business aircraft? Can they open up the airways for real air traffic flow as they have done on the ground with the massive road building projects?  

When they do address these issues the sky will be the limit.

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Today marks the one year anniversary of this site we call Plane Conversations. When we started we knew what we wanted to accomplish but did not have an idea of where the hard work would take us in the first year.

This post is the 338^th by the writers, 14 in number, who have contributed. The page views according to the stats number about 45,000 in the first year. I can’t tell you whether that is good or bad. I like numbers, but quality seems to outweigh quantity for me after the first year in the world of social media.  

I am grateful to everyone who has contributed for their perspectives and stories about aviation. It would have gotten pretty dull had it just been me.   

About the same time we launched this site, we also made a strategic decision to use tools of Social Media to communicate to our market, our peers and those we hope to do business with. Today we have active Facebook friends numbering 1360, with several Facebook pages covering the different areas of our businesses. We also actively communicate through Twitter, as well as distributing our blog content through numerous other sites and social media applications. All of this has helped us reach and meet new people across the globe.  

At the outset we hoped to reach the audience of travelers who need Business Aviation but just haven’t realized it yet.

I believe in looking at our readers in the first year that we have communicated more to our own, those of us already in the business of aviation.

That’s OK though, because what this site has brought us are new relationships with people in business and general aviation around the world. Chances are we would have never met most of you any other way and that makes the effort worth it.

Who knows where the beginnings of these new found relationships will lead, but my hope is that we will mutually prosper. Maybe the shared knowledge will help us all in some way even if it is small. Many people have taken the time to read these posts and the hope is that the time was not wasted.

What are the lessons learned so far? 

• If you want to launch a blog site and contribute regularly be prepared for a serious time investment. It is much harder than I thought it would be.  
• You think you know what people are interested in but you really don’t know until you put it out there.
• Moving forward I want to spend more time thinking about what to write and put more effort into the quality of the posts and worry less about the quantity of posts.
• The more perspectives and stories we get from different people the better. After all this is a conversation, and conversations are best when there are more people participating.

Over the past year I have seen Business Aviation start to wakeup to the power of using social media and its technologies to communicate our message. Each week I become aware of new people on Twitter and Facebook. The ability to move the conversation to the positive in our industry has been tremendous. For the most part I believe we have silenced or at least neutralized the mainstream media bias against our industry; the bias that we were an industry for the rich and famous only.

I have seen the technology of social media develop so fast that no one can keep up with all of the changes happening. As Facebook and Skype come together in an integration of their communication services over 700 million people will be using the two together. That is a staggering number and it will grow.

Is there an opportunity to reach this audience with the message of our industry and what it can do for people’s time and lifestyle? There has to be, so maybe the best is yet to come.  

Thanks to all of you have taken time out of your busy lives to read a post or two.

Thanks to the writers, and especially Jon Anne and Rachel who have not only written, but contributed by editing and proofing the rest of us, as well as distributing the posts out to all of the other sites and applications. Your tireless efforts have made this happen. It has been a true team effort.

A big thanks to Benet, Rob, Clint, Paula and other friends who have promoted our message and site in a social way. We have learned much from you and will continue to listen and learn. 

I look forward to this next year and what it will bring to those of us in Business Aviation who have weathered the storm of the past two years. Never before have we had the opportunity to tell our message like we do now. It will be great to see the impact that “Social Media”  has on Business Aviation.

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C.S. Lewis once noted that, “You are never to old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.”  In teaching high school students, I have also found the opposite to be true –you are never too young to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.  As a pilot and advocate for General Aviation, I believe that helping people dream dreams of flight is one of the our greatest responsibilities.  It is also a great privilege.  Recently I took our high school Aviation Club (organized through scouting’s Aviation Explorer  program) to tour Corporate Flight Management’s facilities at the Smyrna Airport.   

It was an excellent visit.  It gave our kids an overview of the aviation world.  We saw a major refurbishment shop at work as well as a behind the scenes walk-through of how charter operations work.  Of course we were able to hang around the planes including sitting in the cockpit of a LearJet.  The kids walked the ramp as our tour guide (PlaneConversation’s Jon Anne Doty) explained the charter system and pointed out features and uses for different aircraft.  One of the most important parts of the afternoon was hearing an explanation of the benefits and uses of corporate aviation.  This is something that many of the kids had never heard.  They have only heard the mainstream media’s criticism of general aviation.  I saw the lights go on for several students as they considered how aviation can save time and money and actually serve its customers. 

CFM’s staff took a lot of time with us on this tour which lasted more than two hours.  The kids talked all the way home about how this was the best tour we had received.  

One student wrote me the next day saying, “I really liked learning about the different aircraft and their different features.  I enjoyed seeing how flights are arranged and what the airplanes look like when taken apart. I liked the nice people who gave us the tours. It was fun getting on the jets and getting to go into the cockpit. When I learn to fly I would like to learn here. Thanks for the tour.” 

Notice the “When I learn to fly…” statement.  

The power of visits like ours to CFM Smyrna may not appear today or tomorrow.  But I am convinced they will be remembered.  Who knows what seeds may have been planted?  

No, you’re never too old or too young to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.  

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Photograph by: Chris Ware, Getty

Bloomberg and Associated Press report that June 2010 airline traffic rose 2.3% over June last year with US airlines carrying 65 million passengers. Annualized that comes to 780 million passengers. DOT projections say we will hit the 1 billion annual passenger level in the US in about 10 years.   

In spite of low customer satisfaction with airline service, people keep coming back for more. If you listen to all the grumbling you would think that, surely, travelers have had enough.  

The need or desire to travel must outweigh the pain of going to the airport and flying by airline.

People don’t like to fly the airlines but they keep doing it and the numbers are growing.

People love to fly in their own aircraft, ride in the back of a business jet or even a prop aircraft on their own schedule, and without the hassle of airline system,  but our industry languishes in this economy.

What is wrong with this picture?

It seems that price outweighs most considerations for the masses when it comes to travel.

Wouldn’t we all rather ride in a private jet if we could do so for the price of a Southwest Airline ticket?

How do we move a very small percentage of the market of travelers over to our side of the game?

It would only take a very small percentage of those 780 million annual passengers to radically change the fortunes of business and private aviation from manufacturers to service providers to the operators of the aircraft.

Move a few percent of the market share of travel to business and general aviation and, suddenly, the world looks a lot brighter for those of us in this industry.

I see a lot of effort being put forth; but, mostly, the efforts are in their own silos. I don’t see a lot of effort as an industry working together to solve the problem. There seems to be a general acceptance that it is what it is and that the situation on a macro level is not going to change quickly anytime soon.

It is worth thinking about to see if we can come up with solutions, isn’t it?

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