In previous examples, I've detailed last minute trips which certainly favor general aviation - so what about advanced notice?
Well, with 21 days of advanced notice the one way fairs on Southwest for a flight between Dallas and Houston are: $151 for business select, $136 for anytime, or $49 for wanna get away. For my airplane, the cost is $66 each way for up to 4 people (including the pilot).
So, if you want to go cheap you can get to Houston from Dallas at a lower cost, but with a lot of restrictions. The anytime fair from SWA certainly eliminates that problem, but then the cost escalates dramatically. For two people on a business trip the price breaks down thusly -
Southwest anytime fair (round trip) x 2 = $544.00
Taxes on the tickets = $ 36.18
Total 580.18
Airplane Gas (33 gallons round trip) = $132.00
Total 132.00
Not to mention that you still end up saving 1 hour and 10 minutes of travel time, which under this scenario is multiplied by 2 and then further multiplied by the salary of these folks.
You can slice the stats many ways, but given the right plane for the mission a private individual can be faster and cheaper than public transit.
Clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Professionalism and flying
There have been several stories recently concerning professional pilots who have acted with a deficit of professionalism in the course of their duties.
In Atlanta, there was a jet that landed on a taxiway instead of the runway, needlessly putting slow moving airplanes in harm's way and then there's the crew who overflew their destination by 150 miles because, they claim, they were busy using their laptops???
Now, as a member of the human race I am just as capable of making a mistake (my wife might say even more than average), but I can't seem to wrap my head around what these pilots were thinking at the time. Yes, flying can be both fun and relaxing, but when you are pilot in command (PIC) of a bread and butter flight (i.e. one made for money), a certain level of performance is expected. These mistakes by seasoned aircrews, with 2 people checking each other's performance ranks on the amateur side of things.
Regardless of whether you are flying a Cessna 172 on 100 mile business trip, a King Air on a 500 mile excursion, or a Gulfstream traveling between the coasts, exhibit professionalism in your demeanor and behavior. Your passengers will be confident in your abilities and mistakes that might be made will be caught much earlier.
Clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike
In Atlanta, there was a jet that landed on a taxiway instead of the runway, needlessly putting slow moving airplanes in harm's way and then there's the crew who overflew their destination by 150 miles because, they claim, they were busy using their laptops???
Now, as a member of the human race I am just as capable of making a mistake (my wife might say even more than average), but I can't seem to wrap my head around what these pilots were thinking at the time. Yes, flying can be both fun and relaxing, but when you are pilot in command (PIC) of a bread and butter flight (i.e. one made for money), a certain level of performance is expected. These mistakes by seasoned aircrews, with 2 people checking each other's performance ranks on the amateur side of things.
Regardless of whether you are flying a Cessna 172 on 100 mile business trip, a King Air on a 500 mile excursion, or a Gulfstream traveling between the coasts, exhibit professionalism in your demeanor and behavior. Your passengers will be confident in your abilities and mistakes that might be made will be caught much earlier.
Clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Another example
Here's another scenario where a private plane makes sense.
An emergency arose with a customer about an hour west of Houston and we needed to have 2 people with replacement parts there on the same day. From Dallas we could drive for 7 hours or we could take Southwest Airlines. There are flights leaving all the time between these 2 cities, so scheduling is not difficult. However, the 40 minute flight ends up taking 4 hours:
An to top it all off, it would be $130 per person each way - or a grand total of $520!
With a 4 seat airplane the flight time was longer, but the door to door time was much better:
Grand total: 2 hours and 50 minutes!
On top of that the total fuel burned was only 33 gallons, for a flight cost of $132.
Obviously this type of travel is not typical for many business, but if your company has a lot of last minute travel, or travel outside of the major cities the cost and time savings can be real.
Clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike
An emergency arose with a customer about an hour west of Houston and we needed to have 2 people with replacement parts there on the same day. From Dallas we could drive for 7 hours or we could take Southwest Airlines. There are flights leaving all the time between these 2 cities, so scheduling is not difficult. However, the 40 minute flight ends up taking 4 hours:
- 1 hour drive to Love Field
- 1 hour early arrival for security and seating
- 40 minute flight
- 20 minutes to get a rental car
- 1 hour drive to the customer site
An to top it all off, it would be $130 per person each way - or a grand total of $520!
With a 4 seat airplane the flight time was longer, but the door to door time was much better:
- 15 minute drive to the airport
- 15 minutes to preflight the plane
- 105 minute flight
- 10 minutes to park
- 10 minutes for a rental
- 15 minute drive to the customer
Grand total: 2 hours and 50 minutes!
On top of that the total fuel burned was only 33 gallons, for a flight cost of $132.
Obviously this type of travel is not typical for many business, but if your company has a lot of last minute travel, or travel outside of the major cities the cost and time savings can be real.
Clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
A Concrete Example for Why
How do I answer the question - why do think using a private plane is better than the airlines? Here's a situation that illustrates my answer:
A couple of weeks ago we had a piece of networking equipment fail in an office about 200 miles from the IT staff location. We were faced with three options -
1. Ship the part overnight, which would mean that payroll for that location would not be turned in on time. Not an acceptable solution.
2. Drive to the location with the part (since this site has no nearby airline service). This would cost 3 hours in round trip travel time and would mean that our technician would not arrive home until after 8pm. Doable, yes, but not he best work/life balance that could be achieved.
3. Fly a private plane to the site to replace the part. This would take a total of 2 hours and 45 minutes round trip, would get the site up and running nearly 2 hours earlier, and at no additional cost to the company over driving.
Obviously we chose option 3. It was both faster and cheaper than our alternatives as well as a perfect example of how a small plane can benefit your business. I'll have another scenario next week.
Until then, clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike
A couple of weeks ago we had a piece of networking equipment fail in an office about 200 miles from the IT staff location. We were faced with three options -
1. Ship the part overnight, which would mean that payroll for that location would not be turned in on time. Not an acceptable solution.
2. Drive to the location with the part (since this site has no nearby airline service). This would cost 3 hours in round trip travel time and would mean that our technician would not arrive home until after 8pm. Doable, yes, but not he best work/life balance that could be achieved.
3. Fly a private plane to the site to replace the part. This would take a total of 2 hours and 45 minutes round trip, would get the site up and running nearly 2 hours earlier, and at no additional cost to the company over driving.
Obviously we chose option 3. It was both faster and cheaper than our alternatives as well as a perfect example of how a small plane can benefit your business. I'll have another scenario next week.
Until then, clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike
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