We do both. Our first priority is our program members, and the surplus time on the airplane is made available to the charter market. When all of our program members are using their airplanes, we raise our charter rates (simple supply and demand economics) as the charter availability goes down. On the days when our program flying is slow, we can lower rates and increase our outside charter availability. So instead of limiting our program members on peak demand days, we simply turn off the outside charter. This eliminates the need to contract with outside charter companies to provide supplemental uplift. When we need to get an airplane into position for a program flight, we can discount the repo leg all the way down to DOCs to the charter market, but sometimes we just have to eat that cost. Luckily, that doesn't happen very often.
A full owner gets 400 hours per year. The airplanes average 1200 hours per year, so there is 800 hours per year that we have to either Lease out or sell to the charter market.
For years now, companies have either been pure fractional, or straight charter. We are combining the virtues of both. For the pilots, it really doesn't matter who we are flying. Everything is done under part 135, and we treat everyone as if they were an owner. It's all the same to us.
