How will the recession affect corporate/charter?

[400A]

Must be one of the american brands. Sucks bad.

True, but one of our Nissan stores is off a bit. The others are doing well. I am aware of one guy who paid a few million to get out of a Ford store.

 

[AA717driver]

Off topic: In the mid to late '90's, Ford offered to buy out some of the larger dealerships and make them "company stores". The owners revolted because Ford was in the midst of a revival.

Bet they wish they'd taken the deal now...

On topic: I rarely ran into a corporate pilot who hadn't had at least one department shut down on them. I think that's just the corporate aviation business.

If I were the frac's, I'd be jumping for joy right now. Between the economy and the airlines tanking, I'm sure their business (and that of new-entrant 91 departments) will be booming. IMO. TC

 

[hawkerflyer]

While I agree that corporate may fare a bit better than expected, especially when you see what's happening at the airlines, I don't know that anyone is out of the woods. The amount of posts regarding flight department closings is noticeably up on NBAA's AirMail message board. Pfizer just announced the closing of its EMB-145 shuttle operation. Also, if you look at the increase of aircraft entering the preowned market in recent weeks, it's pretty substantial. Our flight department is 90% business travel and will continue to be a necessity, not a luxury but I do believe that the prices of Jet-A will have a negative effect on many small to mid-size flight departments.

 

[psysicx]

So its a good time to buy a ford dealer?

 

[Hawker800]

Our flying has actually picked up this year. (Pt91) A friend was just laid of by JSSI. Several field reps and some sales people also. Not good sign.

 

[part61]

some folks are looking for the economy to dump and then buy another plane at a bargin price.

I believe post 9/11 some GIV's were selling for about 11M, maybe it will happen again...

 

[Jetdriver69]

It hasn't affected us one bit. In fact we just hired two new pilots and are flying more.

 

[stupidpilot]

I don't think it will affect it much either. The filthy rich will remain filthy rich, and will still be able to afford to do what they want to do.

 

[pilotyip]

That is my experience also

I was always under the impression that the first thing to go at a company was a flight department. I hope not, but that's just what I've been told. Good luck to all pilots in every corner of this industry, we're gonna need it!

CM

When a company has tuff times, the first thing to go is the Flight Dept. It happened to me at a Fortune 500 auto parts maker in 1982, I became the first pilot in their company history to be laid off. I watched it happened to friends of mine at Chrysler, K-Mart, Ford Motor Company, the Drug Company in Kalamazoo used to be Upjohn, US Steel, some dept store chain out of St Louis, MO. Job security in the Corp world is not a sure thing.

 

[Corp Pilot]

Job security in the Corp world is not a sure thing.

There is no such thing as job security in ANY occupation.