Live4flyng said:
Dear Management,
You are quick to forget what has made NetJets so successful. It definately wasn't Leadership from the crack management team at any level. It wasn't owner services who rarely tells an owner the truth. I doubt it was the pricing. Safety and Service are 2 things that ring the bell. Pilots are the company representatives that the owners see. When things go to "he11 in a hand bag", it's not operations or management fixing the problems, it's the pilots. The Pilots made Netjets successful which lead to its substantial growth.
That being said, you can thank a pilot for making the place safe, successful and giving the company the ability to employ more people.
Hmmmm...not to detract from the the pilots' contribution for doing their job safely, and and offering pretty good service, but...
Pricing is the foundation of the success, and the economic model makes fractional ownership economically advantageous for a niche market for users requiring between 100-350 hours of flight time per year....cheaper than chartering at the low end, and less expensive than full-ownership at the high. This is BY FAR the most important reason for it's success. Rulings with respect to the US Tax Code helped further this advantage. What also can't be underestimated, is the advantage of a customer being able to more easily forecast with great predictability (and therefore budget for) it's aircraft expenses from 3-5 years in the future. This is especially important for first-time owners or flight departments looking for supplemental lift. The pilots didn't come up with this system, btw.
Salespeople and buying power....Pilots never sell a share or convince people to sign on the dotted line and commit to years of payments. Easy to do?....try it sometime. Pilot's don't parlay the buying power of Netjets into the huge unit cost cuts from the aircraft manufactuers that translate into profit, nor did they dream up the notion of "occupied time" whereby an owner is automatically billed for .2 hours extra for every leg he flies, but the aircraft didn't.
The fact that "pilots are the company reps the owners see", doesn't mean they don't also talk to, or see, other company reps. The fact is, you don't see or hear of problems that are avoided or resolved before you're aware of them, only those which the pilots have to deal with.
Schedulers, dispatchers, mx techs. Now, you may not be happy with everything they do, but the fact that customers who pay the bills are kept happy the majority of the time because servicable, crewed aircraft show up to take them where they want to go, proves that the above individuals and the managers are contributing to it's success.
Much as you'd like to think otherwise, without any of the above, you wouldn't have a company, or a job there.
