CA1900
Big Member
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2002
- Posts
- 5,436
There's definitely a lot of that riding on us -- wish I could afford our product!
More often than not, I see it being used as a business tool. There are a lot of companies who use it to save time for their executives or, in many cases, lower-level employees traveling on business.
On a recent trip I flew, it wasn't high-level employees I carried, but rather a team of corporate auditors going to a number of different locations to check on their offices in various small towns. There were six of them (just about a full airplane), going from location to location. They'd pull up in a rental car at one FBO, hop in our plane, we'd fly an hour or so, and they'd get into another rental car and go to their location. They were quick visits, so we'd wait for them, and in a couple of hours, they'd be back, and we'd continue on to the next city.
As I said in my earlier message, these employees were able to hit three cities a day, allowing them to complete their mission in two days and get back to their home office, instead of spending a whole week traveling in and out of airline hubs. Having them back in the office much sooner was a big savings to the company! The value of an employee or executive's time can't be understated.
Just to pick an example, one of the city pairs was Toledo, Ohio, to Lacrosse, Wisconsin. To get there before 5pm, the only possible flight leaves at 6am, connects in O'Hare, and arrives at 9:25am. Add a conservative hour and a half for security, baggage claim, and rental car, and that's about 6 hours until you're on your way to the office. And at $3120+tax for six tickets, we weren't a whole lot more expensive, especially when you add in hotel rooms.
At that point, after their meeting, there isn't enough time to hit a second town before close of business if they're traveling on the airlines.
That's where the real value comes: time savings. Not only are they not wasting time in security lines and airline hubs, they can actually get collaborative work done on the plane. And they can do it confidentially. (On that note, I got to enjoy reading the laptop screen of the Microsoft employee ahead of and across the aisle from me a little while ago on an Alaska flight to Seattle. Each page of the Powerpoint presentation said "Company Confidential," but apparently it didn't occur to him there were people watching. Looks like they're going to try to take on the iPhone, according to the confidential document. Whoops...)
