Even in a Recession Booking a Private Jet Can Still Make Sense

By Patrick Margetson-Rushmore

When economic times are hard it may seem counter-intuitive to consider using an executive jet as your method of transport. But is it? Do you need to visit three of your company's overseas sites in a day? Discuss market-sensitive plans with colleagues while en route? Maximise productive time rather than enduring interminable airport delays? Then business jet hire may very well be a viable option.

Add the direct costs of three or four executives' business-class airline fares plus the indirect costs of wasted time while negotiating the increasingly frazzling major airport experience and an executive jet - while not cheap - becomes an increasingly realistic option. And if executives can get home at the end of the day, their company also saves on hotel bills.

Much adverse sentiment towards booking a private jet is based on the outmoded image of these aircraft as 'emperor's barges' - an image which, in the vast majority of cases, is completely at odds with the uses to which these aircraft are put today.

Getting to grips with chartering

Private jet charter used to be the preserve of a very small number of senior PAs with major organisations; the option would simply not have occurred to many companies. Several factors have changed their stance.

Firstly, companies have become much leaner; increasingly, fewer managers need to do more. Booking an executive jet lets you do that. You are in control; you're paying for the aircraft, so you dictate the terms. Instead of being tied to airline schedules, the aircraft follows yours. And if that schedule changes - if meetings overrun, if traffic jams delay you - your aircraft will still be there for you. It's totally flexible.

Secondly, as noted above, major airports have become increasingly frustrating places. Longer check-in times, queues for security, bans on liquids...they all add up to hassle that senior executives can do without. Hiring an executive jet gives you the ability to get into smaller airports closer to your ultimate destination, saving valuable time.

And airports specialising in executive aviation, such as Farnborough or Biggin Hill near London, or Le Bourget on the outskirts of Paris, have an added inherent layer of security. Anyone flying on a private jet is usually known to his fellow-passengers and is thus by definition not a threat.

Such airports have the added benefit of being discreet; if your company is in the throes of a takeover talks for a foreign competitor, for example, you may not want your top executives to be seen in the business lounges of mainstream airports.

Thirdly, another benefit in private jet hire is the ability to maximise executives' productive time. They can prepare for the next meeting or discuss sensitive issues secure in the knowledge that their deliberations will remain confidential.

Which aircraft?

If booking an executive jetis terra incognita for you, like any new activity it can initially seem confusing. Many of the aircraft look vaguely similar. Take heart. Nobody expects you to keep the specifications for individual models in your head. This is where you can call on the expertise of a charter operator or air broker. (Operators own or manage the aircraft themselves, brokers act as middlemen between you and the operator.)

Provide them with some basic information - number of passengers, length of journey and your budget. They should be able to suggest an option to fit your requirements.

The aircraft costs the same whether it's carrying one passenger or eight, but for a group of three or four travelling to Germany, for example, it might be possible to use a smaller, less-expensive model, such as the recently-introduced Cessna Citation Mustang. This is an entry-level four-passenger jet pitched to cost around one-third less than its predecessors.

Planning your trip

Operators and brokers need certain basic information to ensure everything slots into place.

Some are obvious, such as the departure point. But do your passengers want to get there under their own steam or to be picked up? From home or the office? Providing passport details in advance is helpful and reduces already short check-in procedures even further. Operators and brokers should both have 24-hour operations departments to handle short-notice trips.

Booking a car to meet the aircraft at a remote destination may not be easy for you, but it's precisely the type of service good charter companies provide as a matter of routine.

And you specify the in-flight catering. Coffee and croissants for an early-morning departure? Lunch en route between your first and second destinations? You decide.

Finally, what time do the passengers need to be home? If a CEO is in the habit of reading a bedtime story to his young children at 7pm, he has a greater chance of being able to do so if he is following his own schedule, rather than an airline's.

Patrick Margetson-Rushmore is chief executive of London Executive Aviation, a leading European charter operator. For more information visit http://www.flylea.com.
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