Personal Jet Flights

Well, at least that was the case when I recently flew aboard a Cessna Citation Latitude for a 30-minute plane ride from Teterboro, New Jersey, to Hampton with the kind permission of NetJets, the biggest privately owned jet airline in the entirety. Ironically, despite the general perception that personal jet trips are an exclusivity for business executives and VIPs, a large proportion of personal jet travellers do not use aircraft for pleasure but to do work.

There is one thing I can say about privately-owned aviation, and that is that it cannot compete in terms of effectiveness. Patrick Gallagher, NetJets' Executive VP of Business and Corporate Communications, said that "the folks who fly privately are often the ones who have to go to two plants in different towns in the mornings and then to an in the afternoons somewhere else.

Airplanes that fly commercially, you just can't do that. "He said top management was more likely to fly around in luxuries on personal aircraft, middle management used personal aircraft to commute between sites with peak efficiencies, do more work in less timeframes and save dollars thanks to this efficiencies.

There is one thing I can say about privately-owned aviation, and that is that it cannot compete in terms of effectiveness. In front of a privately owned airfield, passing the gates of safety, a traveller can be on board in a few moments. When there is minimum take-off and landing strip congestion, planes are usually in the skies within a few moments of the planned take-off time.

Unfortunately, both the eastbound and westbound flights took off and arrived punctually, and I was looking forward to any delays that would have left my flights on the asphalt or circles before take-off or land. Airborne, the ride was calm and steady despite the relatively small 62 foot long plane with a 72 foot span and a nearly level cabine.

The Citation Latitude can accommodate a grand total of nine people, when laden with four people and a two-man team, and has a cruising distance of 2,700 mph. Convenience and cruising distance in combination with the modest cost (moderate for the personal corporate jet class, note) of around $16.7 million per airplane have made the Cessna Citation Latitude the best-selling airplane in its class, and NetJets has purchased it at a stable cost.

No wonder, because the enterprise is both the oldest privately owned jet airline in the world and the biggest privately owned jet family in the world with a combined capacity of around 700s. Don't get me wrong, personal jet trips are costly even with the NetJets mock - you have to get price information directly from the airline - but it's more accessible to own a percent of an airplane than the whole bloody thing.