We develop, market, sell, install and support a software package to fortune
250 companies. Salesmen, sales engineers and support staff travel to each
customer at least twice. It only takes 1 day to install our software and 1
day to train the trainers. Often due to scheduling and drive time from the
closest commercial airport, our installation techs can only install one
customer a week because they require an extra travel day on each end of the
trip. If each of my teams can dependably install two a week, I've doubled
my billing.

The short answer is hire more installation teams and fly them all
commercial. With that solution, I've increased my travel budget and my
payroll burden, decreased productivity and now I have twice the number of
people sitting on their thumbs in airport bars or watching a movie in a
hotel room because the last flight out of Podunk left at 4:15 and the next
one isn't scheduled until 4:15 tomorrow.

Ed


"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Don Hammer wrote:

Matt,

My company is in the business of doing those kinds of studies. One
thing I can say with confidence is there is no way you can own a jet
cheaper than taking the airlines. When people or companies decide to
get their own aircraft, it is some of the same reasons you own your
own car. Public transportation is certainly cheaper.

Ego - I always wanted my own (The Jones's deal)
My own space
Point to point transportation
Can't get there from here
Fits my lifestyle

Can it be cheaper? - never. I don't get involved with small older
jets, but budget about $1M a year to operate a larger one.

I never said it would be cheaper, I was just providing some ideas for
him as to how to obtain representative costs.

Another big reason nowadays is security for corporate executives. And
if you consider the cost per hour of a CEO in the equation, then often a
corporate aircraft will save the company money compared to using public
transportation and the additional time that consumes. Keep in mind that
many CEO's make upwards of $1MM annually. If you figure 2,000 working
hours, that is $500/hour. If you add 4-6 hours to every trip for the
CEO to take an airline flight, that is a fair chunk of change. It may
still not make the corporate airplane more cost effective, but combined
with the other advantages you list above, it can make the decision much
more logical.

And if you use a fractional ownership program, it gets even better.


Matt