How Slow Are Things For You Frac Guys??

[clickclickboom]

Guys in the last few months I have been amazed how quiet the frequencies are while airborne. It seems like all I hear are the occasional pt91 plane, maybe one or two Netjets and thats it..

I saw the number put out by nbaa regarding reduced flying but it seems as though those number are nowhere near the reduction in reality.

You go to an airport that has a signature and the ramps are empty. ( With the exception of PBI that looks like every GA plane in the world is parked there)

So are you guys flying much?

 

[av8trinabarrel]

Flew 3 pax legs a day for my last day tour. For me the last month has been very busy compared too the previous 3.

I know what you mean....Flying from the midwest to KVNY yesterday, I checked with ATC twice too see if we had missed a freq change. After Sept when everyone parked planes it was quite clear the sky was a little less cluttered.

 

[brokeflyer]

ill agree...sounds really slow but I've flown more the last 3 months than I did same time last year.

 

[HAZ-MAT]

The revenue flights that I have flown have stayed the same as last year. The ferry flights compared to last year are a lot less this year. The company has reduced the ferry flight length and frequency significantly. That sometimes means that I will sit in XYZ for a day or two and bring the same people back. So when you sit somewhere for a day, it feels like your flying less, as opposed to dropping off those pax, ferry to ABC, while another flight ferries into XYZ for the next days flight.
Efficiency is getting a lot better compared to to previous years.

 

[sexybeast]

Its because they were all in ASE. That place had planes everywhere last weekend.

 

[BeeDubya]

Last tour I had only 1 ferry flight.... Flew pax the rest of the time.

 

[CA1900]

Things are slower than normal, but not stopped by any means. NJA has 61 planes in the air right now, and I've had some busy days. Today isn't one of 'em, but as the other guys have said, our ferry flights are way down. With a little slack in the demand, we can be much more efficient, which helps the bottom line substantially.

Also, VNY looked like a NetJets parking lot yesterday.

 

[imacdog]

The mountain airports were pretty busy this past weekend. I agree with the others in that flying may be down some but a lot of that is from a reduction in ferry flights (or at least the length of the average ferry flight).

 

[Whale Rider]

How slow? Not slow at all, just steady.

 

[QOL_is_great:)]

Guys in the last few months I have been amazed how quiet the frequencies are while airborne. It seems like all I hear are the occasional pt91 plane, maybe one or two Netjets and thats it..

I saw the number put out by nbaa regarding reduced flying but it seems as though those number are nowhere near the reduction in reality.

You go to an airport that has a signature and the ramps are empty. ( With the exception of PBI that looks like every GA plane in the world is parked there)

So are you guys flying much?

Busy week last week!!! Flew multiple legs on every flight day and travel days were just that, travel. ASE's ramp was packed on Thursday late afternoon. Less ferry legs and that mean better utilization of aircraft.
My nice pay check keeps coming so I am very happy there.
The fracs flying is down, no question, equally the 121 guys have decreased flying as well as our freight brothers' too. Hell, I have been having empty seats next to me when I'm airlining to/from home.
It'll improve in time, but who knows when that time will come?

 

[clickclickboom]

I will add that all I see is NJA on the ramps.. Did a bermuda turn last week and there were three NJA birds there.. 2 Soverigns and something else not sure.

At JB I am flying more now than I have since i started there.. 95-100 hrs of credit per month is easily obtained.

PS see lots of NJA guys on Jetblue thanks for flying us

 

[realityman]

My flying here at NJA has been WAY down. Seriously. On a typical 7-day tour, I've been averaging about 4 legs.

yes, you heard that right. 4 legs TOTAL. and that's not just the past few tours. This goes back about three months. And prior to that, I was maybe flying 8 or 9 legs in a 7-day tour. Those numbers are pretty good for the past 9 or 10 months beyond the first 3 I mentioned.

Oh yes, I've seen a very occasional tour where I still fly my butt off and come home exhausted, but not enough to make me think that things are okay.

Two tours ago I flew 1 leg!! Yes, one leg total during a 7-day tour. Good plane. Good crew. No flying.

Hey, I think in the long run we'll be alright. So far, it's not the end of the world. But things are gonna get tougher for a while. Anyone who thinks NJA will just bleed money forever in order to keep everyone employed better get their heads out of the sand.

I'm not going all doom and gloom on ya. Just not seeing any appreciable increase in flying that gives me the confidence to say we're all right. Again, I think we'll be fine in the long run, but there's going to be some turbulence enroute if things don't pick up here very soon.

Hope my crystal ball is wrong.

 

[QOL_is_great:)]

Since ya asked

Today @ 1200 EST via FlightAware:

Company and aircraft in the air:

NetJets (EJA) - 51
Avatair (VNR) - 13
CitationShares (FIV) - 12
FlexJet (LXJ) - 08
Flight Options (OPT) - 06

Yup, not much going on other then studying and needed a break.

 

[jonjuan]

Today 1:20 EST

EJA-55
VNR (Avantair)-19
FIV-15
OPT-14
LXJ/BJS-18

 

[DO-82 driver]

OK...next question....

These number represent what percentage of each Company's total, airworthy fleets?

Meaning, what persentage of each Comnpany's aircraft are in the air?

 

[fischman]

PS see lots of NJA guys on Jetblue thanks for flying us

You're welcome!

I used to see a lot of JB guys on my Independence Air flights too. All very courteous.

 

[Publishers]

The thing I notice is more coming in and sitting for a few days not like before.

 

[CALRepublic]

Also, VNY looked like a NetJets parking lot yesterday.

Well VNY always look like a QS parking lot, and wait until we get kicked out of Santa Monica, they won't know where to put us.......we'll be crowding Clay Lacy's ramp......

 

[realityman]

OK...next question....

These number represent what percentage of each Company's total, airworthy fleets?

Meaning, what persentage of each Comnpany's aircraft are in the air?

THAT is a very good question. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I know that just on the NJA side (not including NJI, NJE, EJM, or NJME) we have well over 300 aircraft.

Seeing less than 70 or 80 in the air at any time (except, perhaps, in the middle of the night) doesn't give me a real good feeling.

Like I said, we'll be okay. I'm just very ambivalent about how long we can maintain at our current level without much flying.

 

[BeeDubya]

OK...next question....

These number represent what percentage of each Company's total, airworthy fleets?

Meaning, what persentage of each Comnpany's aircraft are in the air?

Having planes in the air is not as important as the revenue those planes are producing. Lots of planes in the air (by total number or percentage) is not necessarily indicative of revenue produced or financial strength.

 

[imacdog]

Seeing less than 70 or 80 in the air at any time (except, perhaps, in the middle of the night) doesn't give me a real good feeling.

Would it make you feel better if we had 100 planes in the air at all times, if those extra 25 or 30 were all on ferry legs? My flying has been down some but a substantial portion of that has been flying empty planes around.

 

[gutshotdraw]

Well VNY always look like a QS parking lot, and wait until we get kicked out of Santa Monica, they won't know where to put us.......we'll be crowding Clay Lacy's ramp......

Nah, the new preferred FBO for Netjets is moving from Raytheon/Hawker-Beechcraft/nee Signature (pick your favorite) to McGuire Aviation this month. McGuire is on the site of the old Peterson. Good thing too because I HATE parking on the Lacy ramp.

 

[DO-82 driver]

Having planes in the air is not as important as the revenue those planes are producing. Lots of planes in the air (by total number or percentage) is not necessarily indicative of revenue produced or financial strength.

You may be right but if you have a bunch of pilots just sitting in hotels and FBO's or going home prior to the end of their tours might indicate that flying is down...... the question is....for how long.

Now granted, sitting in a hotel or FBO doesn't effect NJA's bottom line, but shipping pilots home prior to the end of their tour is an interresting twist.... that shows no viable legs.

 

[BeeDubya]

You may be right but if you have a bunch of pilots just sitting in hotels and FBO's or going home prior to the end of their tours might indicate that flying is down...... the question is....for how long.

Now granted, sitting in a hotel or FBO doesn't effect NJA's bottom line, but shipping pilots home prior to the end of their tour is an interresting twist.... that shows no viable legs.

I'm not going to argue that low utilization presents a problem. My point was that a number (be it, number in the air at a given time, or percentage of fleet in the air at a given time) is really useless for determining economic viablity, unless it is coupled with the other parts of the economic picture.

 

[DAS at 10/250]

THAT is a very good question. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I know that just on the NJA side (not including NJI, NJE, EJM, or NJME) we have well over 300 aircraft.

Seeing less than 70 or 80 in the air at any time (except, perhaps, in the middle of the night) doesn't give me a real good feeling.

Like I said, we'll be okay. I'm just very ambivalent about how long we can maintain at our current level without much flying.

Did that number include the QS tails? If the flightaware search just included EJA flights then all of our international acft wouldn't be included.

 

[realityman]

Did that number include the QS tails? If the flightaware search just included EJA flights then all of our international acft wouldn't be included.

Yes, I'm talking QS tails only. In fact. not even including the NJI planes, which are also QS tails. NJA alone has over 300 aircraft.

Yes, Fisch, I would feel better seeing 70 or 80 planes in the air at a time, even if many were ferry legs. Because it means that we're actually going somewhere to pick up pax! True, ferry legs were down anyway before the bottom dropped out of the economy, mainly because of new efficient scheduling that reduced ferry legs, but I was still flying a great deal, just more back-to-back pax legs.

BeeDubya, I agree that NJA probably makes most of its money on sales and management fees (which also are way down, if you can believe anything RTS told us in recurrent back in Dec. I was there.), but to say that we don't make any money from the operational side of things is not correct. When we fly pax, we make money. After all the fees are paid, have you seen what we charge as hourly fees? We're VERY expensive! It's not that we aren't worth it, but just pointing out that we make profits on actual flying too. If we just had average sales, but flying was way down, I think we'd be doing okay, at best. But with sales way down, and flying way down, well, let's just say it's going to be interesting of one or the other doesn't pick up a great deal this year.

By the way, I don't remember who said it or in what thread, but we did NOT have record sales of Marquis Jet cards last year. RTS himself said Marquis did okay, but was still down significantly from the year before. I'm not going to throw actual numbers up here on a public message board, but I think anyone who believes we are immune from this economic climate just because we're Netjets, better pull his/her head out of their a** and take another look.

And I still think we'll be alright. It just won't be easy.

 

[pilot772]

I'm really bored so here ya go right now there are 57 airplanes airborne that are using the EJA call sign. and another 7 that are flying under a NxxxQS tail number. These don't include any NJI airplanes. so right now the total is 64 planes airborne, now back to "prime time in the daytime" on TNT.

 

[BeeDubya]

BeeDubya, I agree that NJA probably makes most of its money on sales and management fees (which also are way down, if you can believe anything RTS told us in recurrent back in Dec. I was there.), but to say that we don't make any money from the operational side of things is not correct. When we fly pax, we make money. After all the fees are paid, have you seen what we charge as hourly fees? We're VERY expensive! It's not that we aren't worth it, but just pointing out that we make profits on actual flying too. If we just had average sales, but flying was way down, I think we'd be doing okay, at best. But with sales way down, and flying way down, well, let's just say it's going to be interesting of one or the other doesn't pick up a great deal this year.

By the way, I don't remember who said it or in what thread, but we did NOT have record sales of Marquis Jet cards last year. RTS himself said Marquis did okay, but was still down significantly from the year before. I'm not going to throw actual numbers up here on a public message board, but I think anyone who believes we are immune from this economic climate just because we're Netjets, better pull his/her head out of their a** and take another look.

And I still think we'll be alright. It just won't be easy.

realityman,

I have not (nor will I) commented on where NJ makes its money. Unless RTS has spoken publicly about it, I would consider it proprietary information, not appropriate for a public forum.

My point was simply that a comparison (either by percentage or raw numbers) of aircraft airborne at any given point in time is a poor indicator of the relative economic health of the various fractionals (absent a significant amount of additional data). It might be relevant if we knew if the flights were revenue or not. It might also be relevant if we knew exactly where the companies' profits are generated (meaning, does NJ make as much profit per hour as Flex or Shares). It would also be important to know if each fractionals' flying is evenly (or similarly) distributed throughout the day to evaluate whether the "snapshot" is reflective of a company's total flying.

Fraternally,

Brian

 

[eagle06]

OK...next question....

These number represent what percentage of each Company's total, airworthy fleets?

Meaning, what persentage of each Comnpany's aircraft are in the air?

Well cant be so sure about percentage of airworthy or revenue legs. But percentage based on how many APC says they have is as follows:

EJA - 12%
VNR - 36%
FIV - 18%
OPT -11%
LXJ - 17%

 

[gutshotdraw]

Nah, the new preferred FBO for Netjets is moving from Raytheon/Hawker-Beechcraft/nee Signature (pick your favorite) to McGuire Aviation this month. McGuire is on the site of the old Peterson. Good thing too because I HATE parking on the Lacy ramp.

BTW, correcting myself, it's Maguire Aviation and we start using them next Monday.