Get Ready for a New Age in Business Travel: Affordable Jets for Hire Will Create Trips Without Connections
February 20, 2006 By Martha Lynn Craver - As early as this summer, business travelers will be able to get to their next sales pitch or strategy meeting more quickly and with fewer hassles. In June, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expected to certify the first new very light, very cheap jet, the E500 from Eclipse Aviation. Following on its heels are the A700 from Adam Aircraft and Cessna's Citation Mustang. These so-called microjets, which seat from four to six, will cost about a third of other jets currently on the market. The E500 from Eclipse Aviation will cost about $1.3 million and the A700 from Adam Aircraft, $2.2 million. They'll be able to fly at over 400 miles per hour and have a range of up to 1500 miles. Also, they are quieter and more fuel efficient.
Because these jets will cost far less to buy and operate than the small jets now on the market, they are expected to expand the market for air taxi services. Indeed, once these jets are certified by the FAA, several outfits are poised to begin using the jets for air taxi services that focus on flying clients, on demand, directly to and from small and midsize airports in the U.S. Not only will clients be able to travel when they want to, but they will be able to avoid the security and traffic hassles at most major airports and fly directly to their destination instead of having to connect through one, or even two, hub airports” say, near Lexington, Ky., and Raleigh, N.C., or Dayton or Columbus, Ohio, and Des Moines, Iowa.
"There are few direct flights between secondary and tertiary cities. We aim to change that," says John Staten, CFO of DayJet of Delray Beach, Fla. The intent of these new taxi services will be on short haul routes"500 miles or fewer. Especially since 9/11, there's been an exodus from plane travel to car travel on such short trips. Staten says DayJet will target midlevel managers, who can afford the premium over regular coach fares. DayJet's pricing will depend on the length of the trip and how much flexibility the traveler has. A short window of availability will cost the traveler more than if he or she can be more flexible. DayJet, which has ordered 239 E500 Eclipse microjets and is eyeing a fleet of 310 by 2008, will have a membership fee of about $100 per individual. Clients would go to DayJet's Web site and enter when and where they want to go. Then, just a day before the planned trip, the flier would be told exactly when the plane will take off. Another air taxi service, Pogo Jet, does not plan on having membership fees. Unlike DayJet, Pogo will sell the whole plane, not individual seats. "We'll leave it up to the customer to decide if he or she wants to fill the other three seats or not," says Cameron Burr, president of Pogo. According to Rick Adam, CEO of Adam Aircraft, while full coach airfare in the U.S. is 50¢ to a dollar per passenger mile, and about $10 per passenger mile for a chartered jet, the air taxi service operators believe they can get the cost down to $4 or $5 a mile” even lower, if you put two or three people on the plane.
"Our greatest fear is not whether or not there will be demand, but whether we can keep up with demand," says Burr. Critics of microjets say they will increase stress on the country's already overburdened air traffic control system. But supporters say the idea is to fly, not to the major airports, but to the 5500 small regional airports that are underserved and underutilized. Eighty-five percent of the U.S. population lives within 30 minutes of one of these airports, says Adam. "Air traffic demand is going up, and we are not building more airports, so this provides another option as we run out of places to land," says Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition. "Besides, landing at these smaller airports may put executives closer to the factories and customers that they need to get to." DayJet plans to limit service to one regional area at first” for example, the Southeast” before branching out. Service should start this summer. Pogo is not expected to begin service until the spring of 2009. Current plans are to provide service to the 700 airports that are in a 500-mile radius of New York City.
