XOJet growth...??

[atpcliff]

Hi!

According to their website u can either buy a whole aircraft, buy 1/2 or straight charter.

They have King Airs, Xs and are buying Challenger 300s.

cliff
GYY

 

[xrated]

I am confuses. I thought it was THEIR plane, now its XOJets plane?

One of the many benefits of NJs, is they have a variety of planes to choose from.....1 guy going from SJC to LAS can get by with a small plane (less money). The same guy wants to take his family, and nannies, to Hawaii...take a G4. (can you sqeeze 12 people in a C300?).

In reality, XOJet sounds like any other charter or management company, but with 2 aircraft types.

Blah Blah Blah....now I know why you're confused or as you say "confuses". Some people will never understand so it's not worth trying to explain.

 

[X-rated]

Toyota?

There is a market for both. Much like the markets for Toyota and Lexus. The Toyota version amy be "cheaper," but the Lexus has more appeal to a certain clientel. NetJets has never advertised as a discount source of air travel. It is what it is.

NJA Capt,

Well, I'm not sure I agree with your analogy. Why are you so sure NetJets has to offer a higher quality product? You know nothing about us! I on the other hand, have personally flown over a hundred NetJets trips, and I can tell you with absolute certainty, many of your customers do not agree with you. Your customers have told me more times than I can count that "this is the best trip I have ever had," and "this is the nicest airplane I have ever been on." I am not trying to sugests that Netjets does not give great service to their customers. Clearly, Netjets sets the level of the bar in this industry. We however are not content to merely meet that bar. We strive to continually far exceed our customers expectations in every aspect of our business. We have a highly efficient and innovative business model which you and others do not immediately understand, so you infer we are somehow second tier. You basically inferred that we are a bargan basement carrier. I wonder what people thought of the fractional business when RTS thought it up?

Please don't misinterpret this post as flame. It is not meant to disparage Netjets in any way. For a large company, you guys do a phenomenal job, but to some extent mediocrity grows with size. We too are battling to maintain our level of quality with our explosive growth. However, we are still a small boutique carrier with all brand new highly upgraded aircraft. Our pilots are all highly motivated stockholders in the company, and we are all trying to build something truly special. Our founding pilots flew for Netjets for many years, and they tried to emulate what worked well and improve what didn't.

On second thought, I think your analogy may have been correct; you just mixed up the players!

 

[X-rated]

understanding the numbers

But they do pay for the entire plane? Take a CX, for example. At $20,000,000, they are now exposed to the ENTIRE cost of depreciation. Say a CX is worth 65% after 5 years and 1,000 hours a year in the airframe. An owner flies 300 hours a year or 1,500 hours over 5-years.
They have lost $7,000,000 or $4,666 an hour of asset value. Now take a 300-hour fractional owner who buys the plane for $7,500,000. With a 35% loss, the total loss will be $2,625,000 or $1,750 per hour. A difference of $2,900 per hour.
Now factor in the cost of capital. $20,000,000 at 8% a year is $1,600,000 for year one or $5,333 per hour. Cost of capital on the fractional owners $7,500,000. 8% is $600,000 during year one or $2,000 an hour for a delta of $3,333 an hour.
Combining these two differences yields $6,233 an hour or $9,350,000 over 5-years.
If you don't think most potential owners won't consider this, you are crazy. Very, very niche market, imho.

Dude,

You obviously put a great deal of thought into this post. It is funny to me that it never occured to you that a Netjets owner will take an equal, but proportional depreciation hit on whatever fraction they purchase. In fact, Netjets puts so many hours on their aircraft, an NJ owner will likely take a bigger hit on their investment over time. (proportionally of course)

However, many owners buy these aircraft not simply as a means of transportation, but also as a tax stratagy due to the accelerated depretiation schedule. It is not necessarily a bad thing.

As T-Bone pointed out, we have a competitive advantage because we are part fractional, and part charter operator. This significantly limits the number of "guaranteed" customers on peak days, and allows us to dramatically reduce the deadhead legs by backfilling with charter. To put it simply, we can be cheaper because we don't fly as many empty airplanes around, and we never have to rely on expensive outside vendors to supplement our flying on peak days. We just sell less charter.

So, with all due respect to your humble oppinion, we hope prospective owners will fully "consider" the economics. We just hope they understand them better than you.

 

[On Your Six]

FYI - XOJet is getting bashed on the Fractional board in a comparison with Netjets.

 

[Sun Devil 2000]

XOJet seems like an interesting option. I have some questions and I was hoping someone may be able to answer them for me please.

1. How quickly someone could be based in PHX?

2. I have not seen any concrete information about pay and/or benefits on this site or the company's web site. Someone posted $50K for FOs and $90K for CAs are these figures correct? Does anyone have an actual pay scale? How about 401k, 401k matching, and/or profit sharing?

3. How long does it take to upgrade? Is upgrade based on seniority or is it merit based?

4. Can someone please describe a typical day? By that I mean - how long is a normal duty day? How many legs?

Any additional information on XOJet would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for the information.

 

[On Your Six]

XOJet seems like an interesting option. I have some questions and I was hoping someone may be able to answer them for me please.

1. How quickly someone could be based in PHX?

2. I have not seen any concrete information about pay and/or benefits on this site or the company's web site. Someone posted $50K for FOs and $90K for CAs are these figures correct? Does anyone have an actual pay scale? How about 401k, 401k matching, and/or profit sharing?

3. How long does it take to upgrade? Is upgrade based on seniority or is it merit based?

4. Can someone please describe a typical day? By that I mean - how long is a normal duty day? How many legs?

Any additional information on XOJet would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for the information.

Trying to get back for those ASU football games in Tempe? I don't blame you. I read on another thread that if pilots select a reserve schedule (more possible days out) then they can do homebasing. I don't know many details. Flying the C-X or Challenger 300 wouldn't be too bad...

BTW, I do know a few Netjets pilots who live in PHX but commute to LAX on the 7/7 schedule (they only commute twice per month to LA) - it works for them. Citationshares and Avantair also have PHX domiciles for pilots if you are interested in the fractional business.

 

[X-rated]

XOJet seems like an interesting option. I have some questions and I was hoping someone may be able to answer them for me please.

1. How quickly someone could be based in PHX?

2. I have not seen any concrete information about pay and/or benefits on this site or the company's web site. Someone posted $50K for FOs and $90K for CAs are these figures correct? Does anyone have an actual pay scale? How about 401k, 401k matching, and/or profit sharing?

3. How long does it take to upgrade? Is upgrade based on seniority or is it merit based?

4. Can someone please describe a typical day? By that I mean - how long is a normal duty day? How many legs?

Any additional information on XOJet would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for the information.

1. You could be based in PHX from the date you are hired.

2. I'm the one who posted the 50 and 90K numbers. It is actually 250 per day for FO's times 204 days per year = 51K, and 450 per day for Capt times 204 = 91,800. More for IOE Capt, Check airmen, Team Leaders etc. Longevity pay will be anounced shortly.
Yes, there is 401K. No match right now because they are giving us company stock intead. It is my understanding eventually there will be a match.

3. We do have senority numbers, but upgrade is not entirely based on them. We hire pilots with varying experience levels, and some guys need to build their total time before we can send them out as Capt. Wyvern and Argus require certain TT limits to certify us.

4."Typical Day"? My guess is that you are new to the unscheduled world? It could be anywhere from no flying, to 10 hours of flying with 14 hrs of duty, and six legs. That said, the X does lots of coast to coast. Often it is just the one leg, often not.

 

[AGVMIA]

X-Rated, please check your PM's. Thank you.

 

[hammer2]

There is a market for both. Much like the markets for Toyota and Lexus. The Toyota version amy be "cheaper," but the Lexus has more appeal to a certain clientel. NetJets has never advertised as a discount source of air travel. It is what it is.

This may change fractional life as we know it. Charter plus owner, sounds like more work!!!!

 

[Torpid]

I've never had to do 8 or more days away from home for my job. (This is a serious question)...what do you guys do to keep your uniforms and layover clothes clean? Hotel dry cleaning? Does the company pay this expense?

Do they also have a limit on what you can spend on your meals? Can you get a juicy steak from Ruths Chris and charge it to the company card?

 

[t-bone]

Get a soft hanging garment bag, put 5-6 shirts and an extra pair of slacks in there, fill your suitcase up with an extra pair of shoes, socks, boxers and undershirts and you're good to go. If you need to do laundry on the road, the company will take care of it. Plan on using the coin-op laundry machine though, we aren't in hotels long enough to use the hotel's laundry service.

As for meals, keep it under $75 per day and you can enjoy your steak compliments of the company. Bump up against that $75 limit everyday though and you may raise some eyebrows. And if you do eat that much, you won't fit in the 10's cockpit for very long! Crew catering is not included in that $75 cap, but again, be smart about it. As long as we behave like adults, the company will treat us like adults. When we have time, I think a lot of crews get food to go from where they had lunch and eat that on the plane for dinner.

 

[X-rated]

This may change fractional life as we know it. Charter plus owner, sounds like more work!!!!

Hammer,

You're not grasping the less owners part. A typical fractional can have up to 16 owners all with guaranteed availability. Talk about a recipe to get slammed! We have a max of 3 owners per aircraft. That is up to 5 times fewer guaranteed availability customers per plane which allows us to better regulate peak days.

However, if you are concerned about working hard, do yourself and the rest of us a favor. Stay where you are. Slackers are not welcome.

 

[bizjet800]

I've never had to do 8 or more days away from home for my job. (This is a serious question)...what do you guys do to keep your uniforms and layover clothes clean? Hotel dry cleaning? Does the company pay this expense?

Do they also have a limit on what you can spend on your meals? Can you get a juicy steak from Ruths Chris and charge it to the company card?

You've NEVER been on the road for 8 days? What kind of pilot are you?

 

[avbug]

I've never had to do 8 or more days away from home for my job. (This is a serious question)...what do you guys do to keep your uniforms and layover clothes clean

Torpid, I don't fly for XOJET (though from what I'm hearing, I probably wouldn't mind)...but will address your question. Eight days on the road is probably the shortest I've ever spent, if that...sometimes up to ten months in all kinds of conditions before returning home.

I generally carry a weeks worth of clothing with me. I roll everything. It helps avoid wrinkling, and makes it easy to iron. It also takes up much less space. If I'm wearing a white pilot type shirt, I go a day per shirt (I've known some who go several days if it's short legs and not a lot of duty time). I don't like to go more than that beause shirts become difficult to clean. You could dry clean, but it's usually not so easy because often as not it's a late arrival and an early departure.

I like hotels with laundry facilities, and will usually try to do a load every five days or so. Or in some cases, whenever I can get hold of a machine. I usually carry my own soap, either in a small plastic container, or a couple of the single-load tide's. Some detergent or oxyclean in a ziploc bag works well, too. I carry a little squirter bottle for ironing in my shaving kit, and you'll find that hanging clothes in the bathroom with a hot shower tends to take care of most wrinkling before you ever get to the iron.

With a little care, making clothes stay clean and last a long time on the road is no problem at all.