Travelling by commercial air carrier
had become expensive.
 Any businessperson who regularly has to fly via commercial air
carrier will tell you in no uncertain terms that service and
convenience are not features of this method of getting from A to B.
Even before the challenges of the post-9/11 environment, many in
corporate Canada were openly complaining about the cost and
deteriorating level of service. Travelling by commercial air carrier
had become expensive - especially when tickets were purchased at the
last minute - and time consuming. Flight planning departments and
travel specialists took to seeking innovative and effective
alternatives.
The Canadian business community has largely shed its inhibitions
about the use of private jets for corporate transport. Gone is the
image of the flying barge with fancy bar service, flight attendants and
expensive accoutrements. Company aircraft move people in a timely
fashion without the loss of productivity that comes from commercial
travel, and also move goods and smaller, easily transported
inter-office materials. A key US financial publication ran an article
earlier this year on the effectiveness of corporate aircraft. Using the
NBAA Travel$ence program, it compared the total costs for four
executives to travel from New York to Dallas and return in a day. The
model for comparison used last-minute-purchased business- class tickets
vs. a chartered business jet. A company would have saved some US$10,000
by using the corporate charter over a commercial airliner.
Many companies have neither the need nor the resources to acquire
their own corporate aircraft. For them, charter or shared ownership of
an airplane can be a viable answer. As of this spring, there were 35
fractional aircraft operations listed in the US, seven in Europe, Asia
and the Middle East and three helicopter/ specialized aircraft
fractionalownership operators. In Canada we currently have two firms
offering fractional ownership of business aircraft - AirSprint of
Calgary and Jet-Share Canada of Mississauga, Ontario.
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