Plane Conversations

There is a lot of buzz these days about “social”, evidenced by the fact that anytime a topic is brought up online with the words “social” or “social media” all of us who claim to be social tweet it out. 

So what is social and anti social about the experience of traveling by air? 

A good definition of social in this context of travel is “allowing people to meet and interact with others in a friendly way”.

Conversely, Encarta defines antisocial as “hostile or indifferent to the comfort or needs of other members of a community or society as a whole”

So here’s a question for those of you who travel routinely in the airline system: 

Would you rate the experience of airline travel social or antisocial based on the definitions presented above? Is the experience friendly or hostile?

Maybe hostile is too strong of a word to use to describe traveling by airline but “indifferent to the comfort or needs…” may accurately define the experience.

As I queue up in line to take off my shoes, unload my I-Pad bag, get searched, wanded and body scanned I don’t feel real social. The weary and worn out road warriors who spend valuable hours in the waiting areas of terminal buildings most likely don’t feel social either.

Compare the experience of airline travel against the experience of traveling in a business jet or even in a small private airplane.

Come hang out in the lobby of a fixed based operation, a terminal for private flights, and see the difference in the traveler’s demeanor over what you see at a busy hub airport.

We see it every day in our business. Smiling people passing through the lobby departing to go on vacation or a business trip, or getting ready to go home from a trip, knowing they will be back home soon. Knowing the experience they are about to have will be positive from beginning to end.

I grew up flying in small airplanes and some of my fondest memories of travel were the flights riding up front with a father who was a corporate pilot. The passengers in the back of the aircraft most always enjoyed the trip with my father smoothly flying them to the destination. Even when the weather did not cooperate he somehow still made it a good experience.

So what’s it worth to you to have a social versus antisocial travel experience?  

Is there a monetary value difference in the two experiences?

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VIP is an acronym used often to describe Very Important People or those that, for some reason or another, are more important than other people. It is most associated with music stars, sports stars and the rich. But, let’s face, it: We all want the VIP treatment. It makes us feel special or important. And feeling very important? Well, that’s really cool.

 More than VIPs, I like the idea of MIPs. Most Important People. Who are the MIPs in our lives? Family first, best friends, and coworkers who are also friends.  We like spending time with our MIPs. When we are away from our them, we can hardly wait to get back to them.

 So for all of you Road Warriors, you business travelers I see in airports all the time with wearied expressions on your faces and Smart Phones in your hands, what is it worth to you to get more time with your MIPs?

With all the negative things that have been said and written about riding around in business jets (could be a propeller aircraft, as well)  – about the costs and luxury, the one thing the critics always fail to mention is the time private jet travel saves. Time - that finite resource we all possess and want to maximize.

 With travel by business aircraft you get security, privacy and, most importantly, you get time. Time not wasted in an airline terminal can be spent with your MIPs.

 So, like a lot of things we spend money on, methods of travel have different values to different people. If you don’t travel and like to stay home then a private jet doesn’t bring much value.  You are less likely to understand why anyone would spend that much money using that mode of transportation. But if you have been financially successful, you do travel and the your market values you highly, then you are more likely to understand the value proposition.

 As I have said in other posts, the way our industry will continue to grow is to find ways to bring the costs down so that more people can take advantage of the value proposition that we can provide.

For all of you road warriors out there riding on the airlines every week, going to sell your product, meeting your vendors any doing everything else you must do to grow your businesses, you deserve to get more time back – just like Oprah or any other VIP does.  To get that time back, you don’t have to ride around in a Gulfstream jet (even though it would be nice to do so). If  time is what you are looking for, then your options are numerous. You can charter an aircraft or you can learn to fly, renting or buying a small aircraft to get around. Flying yourself compares to using air mass-transit like driving your car compares to taking the bus.  In some cases riding the bus saves time (when you are in big city traffic) but in other cases driving yourself is more efficient.  Or maybe there isn’t even a bus to ride and driving the car is the only way.  It works much the same with airplanes.  In a lot of cases, the time savings of flying yourself versus flying on air mass-transit ultimately translates to monetary savings.

On one end of our business spectrum sits the Gulfstream G550 business jet and on the other end sits the small Cessna or Cirrus propeller aircraft.  The Gulfstream that requires years of piloting experience, but the Cessna and Cirrus can be flown by anyone who takes the time and effort to learn to fly. In between are a world of options that make sense at levels where the value of your time increases.

At the end of the day, the goal is to spend more time with your MIPs; so, I say go take a look at what our industry has to offer to help you achieve this goal. If you have to travel there is no other device invented yet that can save your time like the private aircraft.

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Corporate Shuttle: An operation where private aircraft are used to move people in a company or companies between locations on a regular basis. Much like a private airline for the company without the hassle and inefficiency of the public airline.

Several years ago our company was fortunate enough to provide corporate aircraft shuttle service for a Fortune 500 company. The contract started with a term of six months, but ran  for three years and six months. Since then we have done other corporate shuttle contracts across the United States and even in other parts of the world, but that was the operation that really taught us the economic value proposition of the corporate shuttle for a company that needs to move people on a regular basis between two locations.

Before the merger of these two large companies, each one had the majority of its United States employees based in their domestic headquarter cities. Each company had highly educated and skilled research and development personnel whose intellectual capital they wanted to retain even while they combined operations.  In other words, much of the companies’ value was in the knowledge these people had in their heads.  In spite of the fact that during many mergers the efficiency gained by the action translates into job cuts, both companies wanted to retain as much of their intellectual capital as possible.  Providing a shuttle, rather than requiring personnel to relocate was one way to accomplish this. 

Non- stop airline service did exist between the two cities, but the route, monopolized by one major airline, had a high pricing structure and a schedule that was not conducive for travelers to leave from their home city in the morning, go to the other city, put in a full day at the office and get back home on the same day. Air mass-transit rarely provides that opportunity in any combination of city pairs.  The newly combined company looked at the number of people traveling, the time spent traveling, and the number of overnights required to make the meeting schedules, and decided that something had to be done to make the travel more efficient. There were a lot of hours wasted traveling and, once salaries were entered into the equation, those wasted hours were costing the company much more than just airline tickets, hotels, cabs and meals.

The company contacted us to put together a corporate shuttle that would meet the needs of their personnel traveling between those two cities. We were able to base a ten-passenger aircraft in each of their cities.  That aircraft would depart from their respective cities early in the morning, stay in the opposite city during the day and return to its base in the afternoon. The two aircraft literally passed each other in the middle of the route going opposite directions.  We set up a reservations system, giving them their own tailor-made, private airline which did allow passengers to leave from their home city in the morning, go to the other city, put in a full day at the office and get back home on the same day and at a reasonable time.

This service became so effective both in both time and cost savings that, as I stated earlier, the six month contract went on for an additional three years. The price per passenger ended up only slightly over the airline fare offered. However, the savings in overnight costs, as well as the efficient use of employee time made the enterprise worthwhile.  No more time wasted in airport terminals or overnight hotel stays.  Employees were free to do what they were being paid to do and, with the exception of those frequent flyer mileage junkies, most of the travelers in this company loved it. How many road warriors do you know who get excited about the next airline trip?

This is a story that can be told time and again all around the world. We were not the first  ones to provide corporate shuttle service.  Midwest Airlines was actually started as one!  Many companies around the world today are still  using corporate shuttles run by their own flight departments or by private jet service providers like us to move their people efficiently and cost effectively. This doesn’t sound like the “fat cat” riding around in the big jet story to me. It sounds more like an innovative way to connect people  to people and save the most valuable asset a company has – its people’s time. Do you agree?

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