Venture Aviation Group, LLC

David P. Knoblauch, President

Randy Duncan, Charter Coordinator

The Greenville Downtown Airport

1 Aviation Lane, Greenville Downtown

Unit 6, Hangar 6
Greenville, SC 29607

24/7 Service

Office (864) 370-2962
Fax: (864) 370-2247

E-Mail: david@venture-aviation.com

Website: www.venture-aviation.com

Budgeting and Planning for the Company Plane

Every charter customer, at some point, asks us for ideas to help them cost justify the charter investment they make to fly with us in what they call the “company plane.”

In this article, we will show you a logical approach to budgeting for the company plane, and how it makes economic sense to do so.

 The Single Trip Analysis

 Your CFO or controller will almost always be able to make the case that flying commercial costs less money than taking the company plane.

If you happen to have four or more passengers, it was a last minute trip, everyone would have paid full-fare coach, and an overnight stay would be needed, you can usually show a break even between that commercial trip and using the company plane for a same day round trip.

But how often do those circumstances happen? Yet, for many companies, that would be the only time they use the company plane.

 Annual Usage Is Better

 We suggest that the company plane should be used like any business tool, and you should expect a comparable return on the investment.

Instead of analyzing the isolated single trip, what makes better business and economic sense is to plan the annual business strategy using the company plane.

For example, suppose you are planning next year to hire a new sales manager or any executive who supervises multiple teams across a geographic area. Let’s assume the annual salary, bonus, and benefits for this new hire would be $100,000.

Now compare the cost and expected return from a new hire to using the company plane twice a month to leverage your existing management team so that you don’t need to hire a new manager.

Instead of losing the time it takes to teach a new manager your products, methods, delivery, and support standards, your existing management team would be productive from day one.

Overnight Trips Waste Your Time

Most of your business travel is probably on commercial flights. Even with airport club memberships and first class upgrades, the reality is that commercial business travel wastes an enormous amount of executive time.

You probably take quite a few overnight trips, either to get to your destination city the night before because you have an early morning meeting; or you stay overnight because business ends too late in the day to catch a reasonable flight back home that evening.

Hours could be lost because you left work early the afternoon before the meeting to fly to the destination city. Or you lost an entire morning flying back the day after your business concluded. And you already know how much time is lost getting to the airport an hour before each departure.

We think your experience would show that the average overnight trip results in a minimum of four wasted business hours.

An Extra Four Weeks!

 Through strategic use of the company plane, we believe that you can easily gain an additional four weeks each year of productive time, simply by eliminating some of your overnight trips.

If you and your executive team eliminated just 40 of your overnight trips each year, by using the company plane for same day round trips, you would save 160 business hours, or four weeks of productive time. Think about all the ways your company would benefit from you having that extra time!

 Back to the CFO

 What your CFO may not know is that companies that plan for the annual usage of the company plane are often able to negotiate rates that reflect the higher usage. And that makes the company plane an even more sensible business tool!

 To plan a sales blitz, call Randy Duncan at (864) 370-2962 or randy@venture-aviation.com

Flying in the face of conventional wisdom that chartering a plane is only for the rich, Venture Aviation routinely flies Greenville-Spartanburg business travelers who find on-demand air charter can be less expensive than buying last minute, full-fare airline tickets.

“Suppose you just found out that three of you need to be in Raleigh tomorrow morning for an important client meeting at 9:00,” said David Knoblauch, President of Venture Aviation Group, LLC. “Last minute, full-fare coach seats for three people on the airlines from here to Raleigh would cost $4,886. But we could fly everyone from Greenville Downtown Airport non-stop to Raleigh and back for just $1,700 in our Beech Baron,” he said. “That’s a savings of 65% over the airlines.”

Knoblauch points out that while some companies would opt to drive to Raleigh, he can’t see the sense in tying up three executives in a car for 10 hours each, just to attend a 2 hour meeting. “In the Raleigh example, they’d pile into the car at 4:00 in the morning to make a 9:00 meeting. If the meeting ran two hours, they wouldn’t get back to Greenville by driving until 4 PM,” he added. “Flying with us, we’d take off at 7:15 AM and get you back to Greenville about 1 PM, giving you all afternoon at the office.”

While TV, movies, and politicians would have you believe that only the rich and famous fly privately, Knoblauch says that’s just not the case. “According to the National Business Aviation Association, 74% of all general aviation flights are time-critical trips by sales, technical and middle management employees. That’s certainly been our experience,” he said.

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According to Knoblauch, the airlines have abandoned nearly 100 mid-sized cities in just the last year, while business aviation reaches over 5,000 public-use airports in the U.S. “Flying non-stop from Greenville, we can take clients to about 3,000 of those markets, and back the same day. That’s a lot better than just the 16 non-stop destinations the airlines service from here.”

Naturally, if you can plan ahead and get deeply discounted seats, the airlines will be cheaper. “But at the last minute, even if you can find non-refundable fares, they’re often nearly as much as full-fare coach,” Knoblauch said. “Anytime you find yourself paying full-fare coach or something close to it, and two or more of you are going to the same place, you should always ask us for a charter quote. You’d be surprised how often we’re competitive with taking the airlines,” Knoblauch added.

Greenville-area companies charter Venture Aviation’s 4-passenger Beech Baron airplane as an alternative to spending all day driving to and from a sales presentation. Businesses use Venture’s 6- to 9-passenger King Air or Pilatus turbo-props to close sales in the morning; then stop off once or twice on the way home to visit current customers and to shore up accounts. “And when you get the call to ‘come at once,’ our Citation V business jet is the answer, offering the most speed and non-stop range in our fleet,” said Knoblauch.

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About Venture Aviation Group

Venture Aviation is an FAA-licensed Greenville aviation company that delivers on-demand private aircraft charter, aircraft management, and charter brokerage services. Founded in Greenville in 1999, Venture Aviation currently flies and manages eight aircraft, (2) Beech 58 Baron, (2) King Air C90A/B, King Air 200, King Air 350, Pilatus PC-12 and a Citation V. Unique in the Greenville-Spartanburg market, Venture Aviation uses its diverse fleet to provide clients with the most cost-effective and time saving alternatives to road trips or overnight connecting flights on the airlines. To arrange a trip, call (877) 635-0633 and speak to Katie Joner or Randy Duncan. To learn more about Venture Aviation, visit http://www.venture-aviation.com.

Contacts:

Venture Aviation Group, LLC

David P. Knoblauch, President

1 Aviation Lane, Greenville Downtown Airport
Unit 6, Hangar 6
Greenville, SC 29607

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDT Monday through Friday

Office (864) 370-2962
Toll Free (877) 635-0633

Fax: (864) 370-2247
E-Mail: david@venture-aviation.com

Website: www.venture-aviation.com

If you listen to the politicians, and most of the press, you might conclude there is something unpatriotic about (a) earning a profit; and (b) using a business jet.

Let’s start with the premise that earning a profit is a good thing to do, as long as you don’t violate the laws of God, your country, or intentionally harm your fellow man.

It’s Patriotic to Provide Jobs

Given that you already know the importance and value of earning a profit, we should be able to agree that jobs are good for America; and providing them is a patriotic thing to do.

To create and provide jobs, you need to close sales and keep customers. Doing those two things well requires you to make the best use of the talent, capital, skills and tools available for your company.

Business Travel Is a Fact of Life

Whether you’re a small business owner, mid-sized company executive, or C-level corporate executive, you end up spending a lot of time on the road.

In this tough economy, it’s more likely that you must be face-to-face with your prospects to help your sales team close key sales. No matter how much authority you delegate, the prospects often insist on meeting “the boss” and looking in your eyes before they’ll sign that order.

Even successful meetings typically last only two hours but require an overnight trip because of airline schedules.

Travel to Protect the Account

No sooner do you get back in the office than you find out you must leave again to sit down with a supposedly “safe” account which suddenly is in danger of moving to your competition.

Did you know you can fly to only 13 cites from Greenville-Spartanburg non-stop on the airlines? What’s worse is that you can only go to 8 of those cities every day of the week.

If you want to go anywhere on the airlines besides that handful of cities, you must fly to one of the airline hubs and change planes.

Charter, on the other hand, allows you to fly directly to your destination city, when you need to go there, while continuing to work on board in complete privacy.  That flexibility can make the difference in closing a sale or saving an account.

A Recent Example

In late January 2009, one of our clients had an opportunity to bid in an auction for the property management business and other company assets of a corporation going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Our client’s winning bid, on February 5, expanded their capabilities 147 percent!

Venture Aviation was honored to play a role in this business success story by flying our clients on two separate trips to Wilmington, DE over a 2-week period.

Our clients told us that one reason they were successful in obtaining this huge increase in business was their ability to move fast. They competed against several other national firms but won out, in part, because of the speed they could be places and the flexibility our plane provided.

Right Reason, Right Plane, Right Now

Charter our Beech Baron as an alternative to spending all day driving to and from a sales presentation. Use the King Air to close a sale in the morning; then stop off once or twice on the way home to visit current customers and to shore up accounts. When you get the call to “come at once” our Citation V business jet is the answer, offering the most speed and non-stop range in our fleet.

Profits, Patriotism and Planes

Chartering a plane for cost-effective business reasons, like closing sales and saving client accounts, is a good thing to do. It helps you earn a profit, which lets you create and keep jobs.

What could be more patriotic than that?

One advantage in chartering a plane, instead of buying one, is that you can choose the best aircraft for each trip. When customers make that choice, they frequently ask us for help comparing two popular piston engine models: The twin-engine Beechcraft Baron 58, and the single-engine Cirrus SR22. The following table compares some features that customers tell us are important to them.

Both airplanes are designed and built to carry you safely to your destination. The Baron is a bit faster on most trips, though. Both aircraft fly at the same altitudes, and neither one is pressurized, which means you typically fly at or below 10,000 feet. They can each travel about the same non-stop distance.

If you’re interested in flying, and curious about what the pilot’s doing, it’s certainly a lot of fun sitting in the right front seat of the SR22. Keep in mind, though, that you won’t be able to do much work from there.

The big advantage of the Baron is that it’s designed for business passengers. If you’re planning to work during the flight, you definitely want the Baron, with its club seating, added legroom, work tables, and convenient access to laptops and briefcases.

Finally, if any of your passengers will be wearing a skirt and heels, entering the Baron’s cabin through its doorway is much easier (and more elegant) than climbing up on the wing, and then stepping down into the front seat (or climbing into the back seats) on the SR22.

Venture Aviation operates a Beech Baron 58 for its charter customers. In addition to the standard features noted above, our Baron has {Katie…help me out here. Things like air conditioning, A/C outlets, and any creature comforts you can think of. Any special avionics that would matter to a passenger…}

Venture Aviation Group, LLC

David P. Knoblauch, President

The Greenville Downtown Airport

1 Aviation Lane, Greenville Downtown

Unit 6, Hangar 6
Greenville, SC 29607

24/7 Service

Office (864) 370-2962
Fax: (864) 370-2247

E-Mail: david@venture-aviation.com

Website: www.venture-aviation.com