Plane Conversations

There’s an old song from the World War II generation that says, “Wishing will make it so…”.  Buddy DeSylva’s lyrics speak of hope, optimism, and belief.  Yet wishing can’t give you more hours in a day, or more productivity while travelling, or access to places difficult to reach.

Flying can make it so.

That being said, we need to tell our stories, ways that aviation assists us daily in carrying on our various activities and work.  This is partially because we gain strength and synergy when we see that there are others much like us who know and understand the real benefit of flying.  This doesn’t have to be a $20million dollar corporate jet.  It can be as simple as a Diamond DA-40.  It’s the story of the DA-40 that I want to pass on to you today.

Last week our company’s CEO, VP of Sales, and I took a DA-40 to visit a customer in Jonesboro, AR.  We then had a pop-up visit with a lead in Little Rock, AR.  We then lunched in Tunica, MS on our way home (no gambling, just food) and returned home in time for a local Chamber event in our hangar.

The plane, by business aircraft  norms, was really modest.  In fact, a LearJet pilot teased me as I preflighted my plane parked next to his.  The only refreshments were in the small cooler I packed with green tea, water, and peanut butter crackers on my way to the airport that morning.   The only in-flight entertainment was an iPad.   And the air conditioning?  On this 97+ degree day, it was inoperative.  So we climbed until we felt comfortable at 60 or so degrees at 7,000 feet.

And yet, even in this basic small aircraft we were able to condense over 14 hours of drive time into 6.2 flight hours.  Had we driven we would have certainly been out overnight in order to drive and have time for our meetings.  And while it was a long day, it was an easy day.  So we made our rounds, saw our clients, and returned before dark.

Yes, aircraft are fun.  Some aircraft are luxurious.  Some aircraft are expensive and some are not.  But for the businesses that operate them, they are tools.  Their value in time savings and multiplied productivity is astonishing.

Flying can make it so.

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“Group Buying” was an idea that first surfaced during the “dot com” boom and ultimately failed to build any momentum.  The idea is again gaining popularity in the era of social media where scalability can be introduced as aggregation cost diminish on applications such as Facebook and Twitter.

Ditch the gatekeeper, axe the marketers, lose the spam.

My first reaction is to find the most unsavory business transactions today and eliminate all the unnecessary middle men and their costs, gateways, noise pollution, and inefficiencies.

Why can’t there be one cell phone store where I can buy anything for any mobile device? Why do I have to pay to use my credit card and pay to not use my credit card? Why am I still treated like a terrorist precisely when I am doing everything that I can to avoid terrorists?

There are some glimmers on the horizon.

Applications such as SocialBuy, Groupon, and Living Social, use their social media platforms that offer vouchers for steep discounts on a variety of goods, once a minimum threshold of consumers is reached.  People have an economic incentive to promote products in their social network (on Facebook and Twitter) in order to reach those thresholds more rapidly and consistently.

Product Networks?

Suppose the group buying experience could aggregate packages of products.  Strategic products would then be aggregated as  ”A Network of Products” that together increase net value.  Yes, you heard me…a ‘combination of products’ with Twitter followers.  A zip car, a movie ticket, Segway rental, and a dinner coupon could be aggregated into an entertainment / shopping package.

This is not so strange.

Apple’s enduring success is very much a model of commercial social aggregation. Nobody can compete with an iPhone without also offering iTunes, iMovie, iPad, and all the social trappings of the iStore.  Perhaps Google, with its social commercial network can compete resulting in a duopoly.  Group buying can empower the smaller players and bust monopolies in an infinite array of combinations.

Why not air travel?

The door-to-door travel time and social cost to fly between two small cities, say, 500 miles apart using commercial airlines is greater than just driving. There is no other alternative, sans high-speed rail, and the economic result is that the two cities remain small with very little new commerce or diffusion of new ideas that air travel benefits a region.  People just don’t travel much between, say, Omaha NE and Cheyenne, WY.

Yet, small city pairs within 500 miles have strong extended family roots, migration patterns, and social network density.  It would be relatively easy to offer Group Buying on a 20-25 seat private airplane for less than the cost of driving; and in 1/10 the time!

The travel package could include ground transportation, shopping coupons, and maybe even a A zip car, a movie ticket, Segway rental, and a dinner coupon could be aggregated into an entertainment / shopping package.

Every small city economic development agency in the country should be in this business of building social networks and matching them with product networks between other small city pairs…

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A business aircraft is a productivity tool. It is no different than any other tool we use in business to become more productive. It has a cost and it brings, or should bring, value. The value has to exceed the cost. If it does then we get a positive rate of return on the investment. If the value does not exceed cost then it is not a good investment.

All of the mainstream and social media conversations about the “extravagance” or “corporate excess” associated with the business jet play well with the anti big business crowds and populist politicians, but they lack substance. So far, these conversations have had nothing to do with the reality of what a business aircraft does to enhance the productivity of a company and its most valuable assets – its people.

The discussion about the value of business aircraft should be all about productivity. If using business aircraft increases the productivity of an organization, and the measured gain in productivity exceeds the cost, then it makes sense. Bottom line!

I just purchased an iPad. I can use this device to increase my productivity in internet research and communications or I can play games on it. How I choose to use it doesn’t make it inherently good or bad. How I use it does determine its value in my personal and business productivity.

In that way, a business jet is no different than an iPad.

Those of us in business aviation need to do a better job of first understanding, and then selling the value proposition of business aircraft as a tool to enhance productivity.

Billions of dollars have been spent in research and development of new high technology aircraft that will take us higher, faster and further on less fuel.  All the while, business aviation has invested very little in the technology to truly measure the enhancement of productivity gained by flying in a private aircraft. It is not just the time saved that we need to measure and quantify. What about the social and physiological experience of travel and its effects on human productivity and creativity?

Additionally, we should invest in the technology to learn how to better utilize the business aircraft to bring the costs down. How do we cut the inefficiencies of business aviation without reducing the experience?

An industry-wide increase in the efficient use of the business aircraft coupled with a measurable understanding of the value would do more than just silence the naysayers. More importantly, it would grow the industry that supports business aviation and bring an innovative increase in the productivity of our economy.

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