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Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

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Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#31

Post by hammock »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #30
hammock wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think your idea would shave off any time from the car-to-air sequence. If anything it would add time- You still have to get a boarding pass, go through security, walk down the terminal to the gate. The only difference is, normally you can plan ahead and waste no time since you know when your plane will be taking off. With your new system, once you get to the gate the plane might be full so you ha…

If you use the general aviation terminal there is no security or boarding passes. You just have to know the tail number of your airplane as a kind of password.

Yeah and I thought we were talking about commercial flights. I get it now

Even still I might rather get on the scheduled 6am flight and know (~90%) that I'll be in the city in time for the meeting than get an extra hour of sleep and potentially be late because there happened to be a rush that morning.

When you don't have guaranteed arrival times, like car commute, you end up leaving the house early anyway just "to beat rush hour" since you never know how long it's actually going to take. Versus guaranteed arrival times, like a commuter train, where you don't have to worry about that.

Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#33

Post by jonnathanson »

rdl wrote: post #20
blhack wrote: post #8

The article is a bit disingenuous. While this might bring the cost down, it's certainly not going to be an alternative to commercial flights. Let's look at a flight that I would love to take right now: Phoenix to Seattle. Here is a map of the route you [could] take for this flight: http://wh98.fltplan.com/mapgenerator/index.cfm?UdTimer=40838... This 1028 miles, but lets say (for ease of calculation) that it's 1000 ex…

Phoenix to Seattle is not the market. Even if I owned a private plane, I'd probably fly commercial for hub to hub flights like that. (and almost definitely for super long haul point to point like SFO-HKG; it's reasonable to own or charter a Caravan or King Air or Citation II or something if you fly a lot with a group of people, but a G650 or BBJ3 is an order of magnitude more. I've been a passenger on a moderate numb…

I've been a passenger on a moderate number of business/corporate/government vs. super-rich-person jets, and a top quality commercial business class or most first class products are actually a more comfortable experience, at a much lower cost)

True in many cases, though not always. I think there are a lot of variables at play, all of which need to be accounted for: wait time and hassle at commercial airports vs. private jet strips; minimal to no risk of delays; and so forth. I agree that corporate private jets hardly offer anything approaching a luxurious in-flight experience, but in those cases, luxury of in-flight experience isn't the goal. Rather, the goals are roughly a) mitigation of delay risks; b) ease of travel and convenience; c) provision of a sterile, noise-pollution-free, whining-baby-free flight environment in which to conduct business and get stuff done in the air.

An uber-rich-person jet, on the other hand -- assuming we're talking about one owned purely for convenience and/or vanity, and not for corporate purposes -- is a more luxurious experience, with luxury as one of the core goals. True, most of these jets are too small to offer the day bed or stewardess service you'd get in first class on a major international flight. But I'd argue that those benefits of commercial are outweighed by power and freedom to fly at will, private catering on the flight, etc. Also, the most comparable use case is private jet vs. first class domestic, rather than private vs. first class international. International fist class is where all the bells and whistles come into play. Domestic first class is a pretty unremarkable experience; it is debatably the coach experience of 10 to 15 years ago.

Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#34

Post by graupel »

Our company (based in Cincinnati) uses a scheduled service charter that flies from a secondary airport to Chicago, NY and DC on great, 30 seat jets; it's a great business model and we love using it - http://ultimateairshuttle.com/ - we feel rich flying it but it's cheaper than United or Delta for the same route + no TSA.

Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#35

Post by lucasjung »

hyperbovine wrote: post #19
jasonkester wrote: post #16

I've got a better idea in the same space. I've always wanted somebody to take the idea of "leave when full" minibuses in the 3rd world and apply it to popular airline routes. How cool would it be if there was an operator running flights from Los Angeles to San Fransisco using small commuter jets with no fixed schedule and plenty of planes. You'd just turn up, buy a ticket, make your way to the gate, and get on the pl…

I routinely have my flights into SFO delayed hours in advance due to weather and traffic considerations. The ATC system doesn't seem like it's set up handle such an arrangement without major changes being made to the way flights are programmed. Just a guess.

You are more or less correct about the ATC system. You have to file IFR flight plans ahead of time because it takes time for the system to process your flight plan, grant you a clearance, and assign a release time. As the ATC system becomes increasingly saturated, this process takes longer and longer. The system has to plot out every flight and schedule departure times so that you don't get too many airplanes in the same general area at any given time. Even more importantly, they have to make sure that the airports don't get inundated with too many planes at once becuase they only have so many ruways and only one plane can use a runway at a time.

Commercial airports deal with that last problem by selling time slots for passenger flights, which are generally auctioned off at long intervals (e.g. anually), which is not compatible with a "leave when full" business model.

Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#36

Post by kd0amg »

hugh3 wrote: post #27
jasonkester wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it'd be every 15 minutes to average a 7 minute wait. And to find routes, simply look at Southwest's schedule between major airports. Or any commuter airline between New York and Chicago. If they're filling a 150 seat plane every 45 minutes, you could certainly fill a 20 seater in 15.

Slots at major airports are very expensive, and scheduled very carefully. You could only do this if you used minor airports, which would probably kill the convenience factor. edit: Actually there probably are pairs of cities where it could be made to work by using small, low-traffic, convenient-to-the-city airports which can't handle large planes. But now your main problem is chicken-and-egg: until you have a lot of…

Actually there probably are pairs of cities where it could be made to work by using small, low-traffic, convenient-to-the-city airports which can't handle large planes.

I think this was the intent -- fly out of Palwaukee, not O'Hare.

Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#37

Post by tlrobinson »

hammock wrote: post #15

One benefit of flying on a private/charter plane - you don't have to go through security.

In the past that's true because why would you want to hijack/blow up your own plane with your business partners / family / friends... but will that remain true if you're booking a private jet with 7 random strangers?

Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#39

Post by suking »

rdl wrote: post #20
blhack wrote: post #8

The article is a bit disingenuous. While this might bring the cost down, it's certainly not going to be an alternative to commercial flights. Let's look at a flight that I would love to take right now: Phoenix to Seattle. Here is a map of the route you [could] take for this flight: http://wh98.fltplan.com/mapgenerator/index.cfm?UdTimer=40838... This 1028 miles, but lets say (for ease of calculation) that it's 1000 ex…

Phoenix to Seattle is not the market. Even if I owned a private plane, I'd probably fly commercial for hub to hub flights like that. (and almost definitely for super long haul point to point like SFO-HKG; it's reasonable to own or charter a Caravan or King Air or Citation II or something if you fly a lot with a group of people, but a G650 or BBJ3 is an order of magnitude more. I've been a passenger on a moderate numb…

I almost prefer first class with no stops vs. a PJ. Those tiny ass airplanes can make for some bumpy rides! As someone who already hates turbulence, those little planes don't help.

Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)

#40

Post by hammock »

tlrobinson wrote: post #37
hammock wrote: post #15

One benefit of flying on a private/charter plane - you don't have to go through security.

In the past that's true because why would you want to hijack/blow up your own plane with your business partners / family / friends... but will that remain true if you're booking a private jet with 7 random strangers?

Yes. Because when you have one terrorist plus 10 planes with 100 people each, your chance of getting blown up is 10%. But when you have one terrorist plus 100 planes with 10 people each, your chance of getting blown up is only 1%
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