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Thread: My Other Vehicle Is a Gulfstream

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    My Other Vehicle Is a Gulfstream

    August 6, 2006
    My Other Vehicle Is a Gulfstream

    WHETHER the joys of summer are riper for plutocrats than for the rest of us is always open to question. Would watermelon taste sweeter if you had a billion in the bank? Let me spit out this seed, check my bank balance and get back to you. As vacation season reaches its peak this month and millions of Americans jam the highways and skies seeking a precious portion of leisure, there is at least one way in which it becomes clear that the very rich are indeed very different from the rest of us.

    That difference can be described in two simple words, almost magical to those who partake: flying private.

    Just two decades ago, private aviation was exclusively the province of a global super- elite. That was before airline deregulation and 9/11 turned commercial air travel into the noisy, cramped, humiliating nightmare it is today. It was before the tech boom and hedge funds threw off bumper crops of multimillionaires. It was before innovations in the private aviation industry made it possible, first, for the ultrawealthy to use the time-share model known as fractional share ownership to enter the big leagues of private jet travel and, more recently, for the merely rich to buy into jet-sharing plans that are the deep-pocketed equivalents of a MetroCard.

    “When I was young it was quite rare,” said a society decorator in his early 50’s. “Maybe you knew one older gentleman with a great deal of money who had his own jet.”

    Nowadays, private air travel has become so mainstream, relatively, that among the decorator’s numerous young and well-heeled clients is a couple in their 30’s whose Cessna Citation X encountered instrument problems in this mountain resort town not long ago, forcing the couple and their sons to board an airborne cattle-car to Denver. There, the clients’ children, 4 and 6 — never having experienced a commercial airport — sat on the floor of the vast and bewildering concourse and wailed. And who among us, truly, has not at some point experienced a similar urge?

    “Seven years ago, I was traveling a lot and I just got sick of the hassles,” said Gavin Polone, a former Hollywood agent and now a producer whose credits include the cable television show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “My Super Ex-Girlfriend.”

    For Mr. Polone, the moment marking his decision to defect from the ranks of airborne hoi polloi was a trip he took from New York to Los Angeles. “I was in first class and there was a woman in business with a baby that screamed for five hours,” he said. “And that did it.”

    Trans-Atlantic flights are now the only occasions on which Mr. Polone submits to commercial air travel’s many indignities. “In North America, I only fly privately,” he explained. “For me what’s important is excluding myself from people who might bum me out.”

    Even at an elevation of 8,000 feet, in the bright light and thin air of a resort where A-frame fixer-uppers change hands for seven figures, avoiding bummer people and situations takes work. Thus Aspen has become one of the places most often cited — Nantucket, Mass.; Sea Island, Ga.; Sun Valley, Idaho; and Jackson, Wyo., are several others — on lists of the top American destinations for people who long ago left behind the sad pretzel mix and microwave cookies of in-flight snack service, and the weary attentions of airline employees who so often wear the expression of doomed souls working off a karmic debt.

    “We’re always operating at the edge of full capacity,” said Chad Farischon, the general manager of Trajen FBO Network, which operates the private jetport a short drive from the modest commercial airport at Aspen.

    During peak times like winter break and again in August — a period when billionaires and Nobel laureates, destined for either the rigorous hiking trails of Maroon Bells or the equally strenuous Aspen Institute cocktail party circuit, descend in droves on the onetime mining town — so many aircraft vie for parking spots at Aspen airport that the overrun has to be shunted to nearby Rifle or Vail. “Jan. 2 this year, we had 150 aircraft that didn’t get in,” Mr. Farischon said.

    By aircraft Mr. Farischon is referring not to self-piloted two-seaters but to multimillion-dollar machines like an Embraer Lineage 1000, a Citation X, or a Gulfstream IV or Gulfstream V, respectively the aeronautic versions of a Lexus or Mercedes-Benz. At least one of each was parked, chevron-fashion, on the tarmac one quiet recent Monday, as was a Boeing 727 retrofitted for private use.

    As much as 80 percent of private air travel is now undertaken for leisure rather than business, say some in the industry. While private aircraft sales have risen lately, according to Dan Hubbard, the spokesman for the National Business Aviation Association, those increases must be measured against a years-long slump. “It’s not that there are so many more planes being sold,” Mr. Hubbard said. “It’s that there are more options” for private flying to suit evolving consumer demand.

    From the number of tan, fit people ambling through the clublike lounge at Aspen’s private airport — wearing Chanel jeans and Franck Muller watches and accompanied by their dogs and children — the assertion is easy to credit. In contrast to the harried atmosphere of a commercial airport, here all is calm and clubby. Even the dreaded check-in procedure amounts to little more than identifying one’s pilot from among the various uniformed personnel slouched in overstuffed chairs.

    “No one checks anything,” remarked Richard Edwards, an art dealer whose Baldwin Gallery in downtown Aspen and members-only Caribou Club are fixed points on a circuit of the celebrated and monied. Despite his ready access to friends’ jets, Mr. Edwards tends to prefer commercial; he likes the anonymity.

    Still, he has enough experience of private air travel to know that, among a certain segment of locals, the sense of entitlement to private air travel includes an expectation that interiors will be appointed with burled walnut fittings and seats of calf leather; that the in-flight entertainment will consist of a recent movie shown on a flat-screen TV, and not a seat-back viewing of “Scooby-Doo,” and that the usual eternities spent in limbo on the tarmac will shrink to a 10-minute interval between buckling one’s seat belt and reaching 34,000 feet.

    “The Aspen resident is a very discerning client,” said Ricky Sitomer, the chief executive of Blue Star Jets, which sells access to a private fleet. To get an idea of exactly how discerning, Mr. Sitomer produced a note from the butler of one Blue Star client, whose on-board meal requirements were detailed to an extent (Grey Goose vodka frozen two hours before flight; ice cubes made with Fiji water; filet mignon of precise cut and dimension; and Froot Loops, Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch for the kids) that would make the most demanding rock-star diva blanch.

    The rise of private aviation is generally thought to have begun with the purchase by Warren E. Buffett, the Omaha investor, of NetJets in 1998. Under the NetJets scheme of fractional-share ownership, buyers purchase, say, a 16th of a Hawker 400XP for about $400,000, or the same fraction of a Gulfstream 550 for roughly five times that amount, and then negotiate, much as time-share holders in a condominium might, for use of the plane. Then as now, fractional-share owners tended to be either large corporations or the ultrarich.

    But as a certain group of Americans became richer and air travel became generally unpleasant, an appetite also developed for the fine perks of private air travel among what in the industry are termed “high net worth individuals,” people who are merely, rather than obscenely, rich.

    To accommodate this new market, a passel of companies were formed like Bombardier Skyjet, CitationShares, Sentient Jet, Le Bas International and Marquis Jet, an affiliate of NetJets, each pitching its own version of a surprisingly simple concept: sell access to a private jet without the necessity of buying one. The companies sell “jet cards,” not much different from buying a Starbucks card.

    “You call up and say you want to fly from X place to X place,” explained Mr. Hubbard of the National Business Aviation Association. “They provide the equipment, swipe your card,” and the hours disappear until one fills the card up again. For $299,000. That is the cost of a representative 25-hour Marquis Jet card with ready access to a Gulfstream IV-SP, a jet that seats 13 and has a 4,600-mile flight range. That is enough for a trans-Atlantic flight, although a great many consumers use their hours to reach the dinky airports that are convenient to nothing except, as it happens, the finest golf course in the country.

    “The sweet spot in private air travel is the entrepreneur,” said Ken Austin, the Marquis Jet senior vice president for marketing. “There is a generation of younger people in their 30’s and 40’s who have a high disposable income, and they use it.” Mr. Austin refers to these people as “the disposers.”

    For disposers who used Marquis cards to fly to Nantucket one recent Friday, the sticker shock of a $9,000 round-trip price tag was apparently offset by the startlingly short time between wheels-up and the glorious moment when the jet hatch door opened to admit a salt-scented maritime breeze. “If you ever tried getting to Nantucket flying commercial, you know the stress alone could take years off your life,” Mr. Austin said.

    When David Brodie, the owner of an audiovisual production company, and his wife recently decided to celebrate their wedding anniversary in Nantucket, he used his Marquis Jet card to book a flight. “We were on the plane at 12,” said Mr. Brodie, who lives in Fort Lauderdale. “And we were in our hotel in Nantucket at a quarter to three.”

    Whereas the wealthy of an earlier era may have preferred fiscal conservatism when it came to air travel — flying economy class as Mr. Buffett purportedly did for years — disposers apparently have as few qualms about circulating wealth as they do about the more disquieting aspects of private jet travel, grotesque fuel consumption being one.

    “You don’t have to be as rich as you and I once thought” to become a private aviation flier, said Alan Antokal, a seasoned jet card user. Mr. Antokal, a New England entrepreneur, manages his aviation cards as cautiously as he did the millwork and pottery businesses he sold for millions in 1998. “If today I’m going to go down to Florida, I can get on JetBlue for a hundred bucks,” he said. “That’s not necessarily what one does with 25 hours” of private-jet access.

    “You do things that are lifestyle,” explained Mr. Antokal, a passionate Boston Red Sox fan who flew to New York from Boston for a playoff game two years ago on a last-minute whim. “I went online and found tickets for me and my wife,” he said. “I called Marquis and said, I want a plane for 3 o’clock and a plane to take me home.” It was a thrilling ballgame for Mr. Antokal, and an expensive one. For seven hours in New York, he spent close to $40,000. “Like the MasterCard commercial says, it’s priceless,” he said.

    For Bob Beson, a Michigan entrepreneur who sold his call center business for $80 million in 1999, the habit of flying private is variously practical, addictive and “spoiling to the highest degree.” When Mr. Beson’s son turned 21 last year, he used a jet card to book a birthday flight to Las Vegas to celebrate. Mr. Beson, the product of what he called a lower-middle-income background in a Midwestern farming town, occasionally wonders, he conceded, whether he has succumbed to the “lifestyle of the rich and famous.”

    “Sometimes when I’m writing the check” to Marquis for $250,000, he explained, “I question myself.” But then he drives his car to the tarmac, boards the plane and “I don’t think about it anymore.”
    The problem with socialism is that you eventually,
    run out of other people’s money.
    ” - Margaret Thatcher

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    Senior Member hiss srq's Avatar
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    Yeap, best way to travel on earth. We charter out for anywhere from 700 an hour for our Navajo and KingAir 200 to 1100 an hour on the Lear 35 and on up to around 3,800 an hour was the figure I recall for a Challenger 604 we lease. Than you tack on the P.O.S. hotels dispatch sets up for us and a rental car along with 120 a day per diem for us and that is quite a bill if you so choose to have us stay for your return. It is amazing though how young some of the people who we fly around are. We do aircraft management and we also do charter but I routinely fly this one kid from Charlotte down to SRQ or was last year like two times a month for TENNIS SCHOOL at Baliteri academy. Pretty rediculous. We manage Jerry Springers Lear N776JS for all you spotters out there as a noteable and Kathrine Harris is quite frequent on out Navajo's and Senica up to Tallahasse. Quite the life.
    Southwest Airlines-"Once it pop's it's time to stop" Southwest Airlines-"Our Shamu's are almost real" Southwest Airlines -"We blow our top real easy" Southwest Airlines- "You can't top us..... really"

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    Senior Member lijk604's Avatar
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    The article is true to form. Some of the folks we fly are unbelievable when it comes to catering, some order the finest of everything (I remember one flight where they had $1500 bottles of wine!) Then you have those who want nothing more than a fruit tray, and a tray of cookies for a 2hr 30min flight to Florida.

    Hiss who do you fly for? I work Operations for Summit up here in FRG. We manage a Lear 45, 2-Challenger 300's, 1-CL604, 3-G-IVSP's and a G450. We had 2 Hawker 800's but they both were sold in the last 2 weeks and are being exported to Mexico.

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    Senior Member hiss srq's Avatar
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    I fly for Sarasota Jet Center, we manage a 35, a 25, a BE-200 formerly a CE-550, we also charter out a 25, 35, Navajo with the Panther kit, Senica 2, and lease a 604 for the big charters. I also fly for a company named GulfJetInc./Tropical Jets Of SRQ on occasion as a fill in F/O on a 25D and a PA-31-300 Mojave (pressurized Navajo). They are on a seperate Cerificate owned by A.J.C. in Melbourne Florida though. Rumor has it that Sarasota Jet Center might buy Southern Air Service which is HUGE as far as what they have on certificate from what I know so we will see. These guys are loaded. They own the Dolphin Aviation F.B.O. down here as well that we are based at and a ****wad of real estate too. I almost applied with PrivatAir though, I was going to actually go pay for my own training to fly a E-135 Legacy based here at SRQ owned by Vern Buchannen a huge car sales guru down here as well as hopeful republican congressmen. The money in Sarasota is on par with West Palm. A ton of fractional business here with FlexJet and Flight Options in particular.
    Southwest Airlines-"Once it pop's it's time to stop" Southwest Airlines-"Our Shamu's are almost real" Southwest Airlines -"We blow our top real easy" Southwest Airlines- "You can't top us..... really"

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    I was VERY VERY VERY happy to see that the cover photo today was of Taxiway Mike @ Jet Aviation... where I work, and the photo was of our storage area... it was a total thrill to see what thrills me day in and day out getting some serious attention in the media... definatly a cool thing to see today when we got to work
    FAA Licensed Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic
    Student Pilot

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    Moderator mirrodie's Avatar
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    Well, I ususally read articles such as this in Business and COmmercial Aviation.

    It's weird and perhaps personal philosophy, but even if I hit the lotto, I could not justify spending so much. Just one of those things I suppose.

    Of course, the experience I am sure is great, but I personally can't see the value in it except for those smaller airports, as was mentioned.
    And I, I took the path less traveled by
    and that has made all the difference......yet...
    I have a feeling a handle of people are going to be very interested in what I post in the near future.

    http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?userid=187

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mirrodie
    Well, I ususally read articles such as this in Business and COmmercial Aviation.

    It's weird and perhaps personal philosophy, but even if I hit the lotto, I could not justify spending so much. Just one of those things I suppose.

    Of course, the experience I am sure is great, but I personally can't see the value in it except for those smaller airports, as was mentioned.
    Mario, well, you say that now. But, when you are worth millions of dollars, the idea of dropping down a 1/4 of a million dollars for a share in a Corporate Jet, that is like us spending money for an airline ticket.

    Just think of somebody like Bill Gates who is worth billions, why would you want to go through the hassle of flying commercial, when you can go Corporate & fly when you want, hell, you can drive your car up to the airplane.
    The problem with socialism is that you eventually,
    run out of other people’s money.
    ” - Margaret Thatcher

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    Senior Member hiss srq's Avatar
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    Actually Gates flys Alaska and Southwest quite often though he does own a BD-700 to me the granddaddy of em all. I would personally buy a 727 just because it is the bird of my dreams and island hop all over the carribean in her.
    Southwest Airlines-"Once it pop's it's time to stop" Southwest Airlines-"Our Shamu's are almost real" Southwest Airlines -"We blow our top real easy" Southwest Airlines- "You can't top us..... really"

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    Quote Originally Posted by hiss srq
    Actually Gates flys Alaska and Southwest quite often though he does own a BD-700 to me the granddaddy of em all. I would personally but a 727 just because it is the bird of my dreams and island hop all over the carribean in her.
    Well, Bill Gates has been known to hitch a ride in the BBJ (I know the pilots that have taken him around)

    What a flight that was, they had Bill Gates & Steven Spielberg on the same BBJ flight.
    The problem with socialism is that you eventually,
    run out of other people’s money.
    ” - Margaret Thatcher

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    Administrator PhilDernerJr's Avatar
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    In a book I read recently, I learned about how gung-ho BArbara Streisand is for the environment, complaining about air pollution from cars....yet she cruises the country in her own jet. How backwards is that?

    As for me, I love the airlines and would fly commercially no matter how much moeny I had because that's what I enjoy doing. The only exception would be if I chartered an airliner like an ATA L-1011 for a fun NYCA trip.
    Email me anytime at [email protected].

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    Senior Member hiss srq's Avatar
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    let us all prey Phil hits NY lotto jackpot this week guys!
    Southwest Airlines-"Once it pop's it's time to stop" Southwest Airlines-"Our Shamu's are almost real" Southwest Airlines -"We blow our top real easy" Southwest Airlines- "You can't top us..... really"

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    Member AndrewM's Avatar
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    I spent about 8 months working for an FBO and I was always amazed at how many people flew private. The lowest most D list celebrities/ athletes would come sauntering off a Challenger or Lear and you would just stand there dumbfounded trying to figure out how they paid for it. Fractional ownership, man. Its made it very possible for a lot of people.

    Back when I worked for the airlines I would non-rev all over the world in first class and I thought it was the best. I would always joke how after that I was so annoyed with flying in coach, but it was sort of true. You get used to something and completely lose perspective. Then I started to hitch rides on private jets ( one of the benefits to working at an FBO ) one week it would be Vegas on a Galaxy the next San Fran on a G-IV. Then you really realize how much easier and nicer it is.

    In my humble peon-esque opinion its not the actual flying in the plane that makes it so much better. Its the fact that you drive up to a gate somewhere, they open it for you, you pull up to the plane step on and you are on your way. No wait, No security, No hassles. Its unreal. I could be sitting in Santa Monica at 7:30 pm and get offered a ride to Vegas and from when I leave my house to when I am on the strip it is about 1 hr. 5 minutes.

    For me and people like us, flying commercial is usually fun. Usually. But for people that can afford it, I totally get why they do it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phil D.
    In a book I read recently, I learned about how gung-ho BArbara Streisand is for the environment, complaining about air pollution from cars....yet she cruises the country in her own jet. How backwards is that?

    As for me, I love the airlines and would fly commercially no matter how much moeny I had because that's what I enjoy doing. The only exception would be if I chartered an airliner like an ATA L-1011 for a fun NYCA trip.
    Don't you love that, have you ever seen the Streistand Mansion, no Solar Panels, this from the gal that preaches so much about evils of pollution.... :lol:
    The problem with socialism is that you eventually,
    run out of other people’s money.
    ” - Margaret Thatcher

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    Getting more accurate with age

    I absolutely adore how this post touches on the depth of the changing aviation climate. Posted 10 years ago and I only found it as I am working on a research project on similarly charged topics. 9 Years ago, “Seven years ago, I was traveling a lot and I just got sick of the hassles,” said Gavin Polone, a former Hollywood agent and now a producer whose credits include the cable television show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “My Super Ex-Girlfriend.”
    Though we have had economic downturn, programs have arisen that let just about anyone fly with this level of convenience. It is amazing the luxuries that are available to us. Programs such as Marquis Jet, Sentient Jet, and Sky Route Jet Card have made the luxury of "having your own jet" a possibility for nearly any of us! For example, I flew my fiancee and myself to Charleston on a Learjet by finding an empty leg and it ended up costing not much more than a first class ticket! This is a truly amazing world that we live in, nice to see people 9 years ago that appreciate this and I hope your appreciation has only grown greater.

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