Examining Travel Options For Private Business Jets

Business travel really hasn't changed very much in the past 40 years to 50 years. Business professionals still get to their destinations on airplanes and check into hotels. The biggest change is the perception of business travel. There are more people looking into the costs of travel and looking for ways to cut corners. A business might have financial officers and stockholders looking to eliminate business travel. But even with the advent of the Internet and the rise of telecommunications face-to-face meetings cannot be beat. Often it takes a skilled specialist to get the job done and he or she cannot do it remotely. One of the ways businesses get people to destinations in a timely manner is on private aircraft.

While traveling on private aircraft can be expensive it is still a matter of perception. There are a number of different options that businesses can use to travel on executive aircraft to get to their destination quickly and comfortably.

The first option everybody thinks of when it comes to private aircraft is private jet ownership. Private ownership is actually the most expensive form of private jet travel. The purchase price of a private jet and the ongoing cost will be in the millions. However, this could be a reasonable choice if business personnel travel often. It is also probably the only choice if the aircraft has to be customized for some reason.

The next option to travel on corporate aircraft is when executive travel is actually infrequent. In this case a business could simply use a private plane charter service. These charter companies are distributed throughout the country and can be booked with fairly minimal notice.

A hybrid option of ownership and charters is known as a fractional airplane or fractional ownership. This is where a person or business buys a partial share of a private jet. Then theoretically owners get to share the use and expenses of that jet. However, fractional ownership has grown and evolved. Fractional jet programs now provide owners use of the entire fleet of jets. So, while the person may not be able to fly on their partially owned jet, they can fly any available jet in the fleet. This means more options of aircraft for different trips.

A variation of fractional ownership is known as a jet card. Like a fractional program a person gets to use an entire fleet of private business jets but essentially they pre-pay a debit account. And the travel is charged by flight hours. Those flight hours are deducted from the debit account. The value of this option of fractional ownership is that one does not have the expenses of the initial partial jet purchase.

As one can see there are a number of different options when using a private jet for business. The value of having options is that there different things that can be done when business travel is being scrutinized by the bean counters.