What is the the Aero Advantage?
The Aero Advantage is about improving business efficiency and productivity through the use of business aviation. It provides business professionals and companies fast, flexible, safe, secure and cost effective access to destinations around the country and across the world. Industry studies have shown that small to medium sized business that use the Aero Advantage are able to develop more new business opportunities and realize 22% higher average revenue growth than their competitors who do not.1
Key company personnel can visit their customers, business prospects or their own facilities more easily and with greater frequency because they control the schedule, routes and destinations. If you think that business aviation is only for the “big companies”, think again. Business professionals, entrepreneurs and small business benefit from business aviation.
How does it work?
The best way show how the Aero Advantage can help your business is to look at a recent real world example from our own company. Several weeks ago representatives from Aero Advantage were invited to participate in an Airline Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) training summit in Caldwell New Jersey. From our headquarters at the Minute Man Airfield in Stow, Massachusetts (ICAO:6B6) the 228 mile drive to the meeting place in Caldwell New Jersey would have taken close to 5 hours. The meeting was scheduled for 4 hours. Had we elected to drive and did not want to stay overnight we would have to plan on a 14+ hour day. We would incur 10+ hours of deadhead travel time for a 4 hour meeting. As you can see, driving to the meeting is not too efficient.
An airline could get us there faster, right?
A flight from Boston to Newark, (17 miles from our meeting location) takes only an hour and a half. Unfortunately, as many of you know, there are a lot of steps and stops along the way to get to and from a scheduled airline flight. From the Minute Man airport to Boston Logan takes a minimum of an hour. If we travel during rush hour that time could easily double. You normally need to arrive at the airport about two hours before the flight. It might take an hour to get checked in and pass through the TSA security checks. Once you get to Newark you have to rent a taxi or a car and drive another 30 minutes (with no traffic) to get to the meeting in Caldwell. After the meeting, you then have to retrace your steps, back to Newark, back to Boston where you arrive during the middle or rush hour, and then return to Minute Man Airfield in Stow. You might be able to save a little time over driving, but it will still be a very long day filled, no doubt, with unpredictable delays.
So is there any better way?
Yes there is! If you made the trip by private plane, the total travel time can be reduced dramatically. In our modest single engine airplane, we are able to travel to Essex County Airport, about 2 miles from our meeting place. The flight in our single engine airplane took approximately 1 hour. We did not incur any additional travel time because we were able to simply walk out of our offices and get into our airplane. You may not work at an airport but there are 5000 airports in the country, most not served by the commercial airline industry. Chances are pretty good that there is a suitable airport that is closer and more convenient to get to than an airport that is serviced by a commercial air carrier. We were able to travel from Minute Man directly to Essex County Airport in Caldwell. Our only viable commercial alternative was Boston to Newark.
By traveling by private plane we were able to reduce the total time to attend our meeting from 14+ hours down to less than 8 hours! Additionally my business partner and I were able to conduct two very productive one hour business meeting on the flights to and from Essex County airport. The airplane can offer a comfortable meeting place free from the normal office distractions.
This is just one example of how business aviation can give your company the competitive Aero Advantage. Imagine the time savings if you routinely traveled to meetings. Also, business aviation is not as expensive as you may think. Please follow our blog and we will continue to write about and analyze the benefits of business aviation, or contact us to set up a free, no obligation review of your aviation needs.