As airline chaos hit a summer crescendo and workforce shortages scuttle small community air service, travel managers have been overwhelmed with recovery work that often sees clients stranded because of reduced seat capacity.

But a simple solution might be private aviation offering more reliable service and taking on that recovery burden if anything goes wrong.

More importantly, however, travel managers can enhance their value by offering strategic travel solutions that make their companies more successful. They may be surprised that corporate shuttles may save significant productivity and travel-related expenses which then begs the question what the company can do with those savings. Indeed, flying private may be a way to regain the productivity lost to the pandemic.

“Ninety-six percent of our subscribers say they view private aviation as a solution to missed meetings or arriving without luggage,” says Doug Gollan, founder and editor-in-chief of Private Jet Card Comparisons. “When airline flights are suddenly canceled, it’s often several days before they are rebooked and airports are saying it’s not going to get better for months, if not until next year.”

The bottom line is the more people traveling, the more compelling the private aviation story becomes, especially when it provides solutions that enhance connectivity for companies with multiple operating bases or expand lift for special projects and conference attendance.

“Corporate shuttle programs offer a clear and decisive strategic advantage much like business aviation service has always done for some of the most successful companies in the world,” according to Private Jet Services Group (PJS) senior vice president of sales Andrew VanderPloeg.

Indeed, numerous studies over the past decade found private aviation is not a cost but an investment in company success. “In addition to increasing profits and share prices, private aviation is seen by the business community as a net positive,” says PJS CEO Greg Raiff. “It is no coincidence that 98 percent of Fortune’s Top 50 World’s Most Admired Companies rely on business aviation. These organizations understand that a person’s time is valuable both on and off the job.”

Easing Pain Points
“Overcrowded airports, congested cabins, cancelations, delays and long wait times have become serious liabilities in business travel,” Raiff wrote in a recent blog. “Avoiding them is not seen as a luxury.”

Gregg Brunson-Pitts, who is CEO of charter broker Advanced Aviation Team, agrees. “Private aviation is no longer viewed as luxury. Today it is viewed as necessity.”

Chapman Freeborn vice president sales-Americas Kari Bigot sees airline service disruptions as the major driver. “There is an ongoing uptick in the demand for corporate shuttles,” she says. “Large organizations need a reliable, consistent service and are moving workers regularly. A well-developed corporate shuttle program provides optimal benefits. Traveling between spoke cities or internationally has become more challenging. The reduction in scheduled services enhanced the value of corporate shuttles. We often find our clients who need to reach destinations without commercial services prefer the greater flexibility and reliability of corporate shuttles.”

Jeff Agur, who is CEO at business aviation consultancy The VanAllen Group, told Business Travel Executive that interest rises in proportion to stress within a company. “Lost efficiency, employee exhaustion leading to turnover, poor airline service, rising cost of airline travel are all reasons companies are moving to private aviation,” he says.
Rising fares are reducing the gap between private and commercial. If it’s cheap to fly commercial to a destination, it costs an arm and a leg to get home. But equally important is the diminishing number of nonstops on some airlines. Add in the critical loss of productivity travelers endure between getting to the airport early, connection times and the inability to work in flight because of crowded airplanes and the need for confidentiality, it becomes increasingly inviting to at least run the numbers on flying private. It also means less work for travel managers tasked with recovering from travel disruptions.

“Deloitte’s 2022 travel industry outlook confirms companies are placing a heightened emphasis on duty of care,” says Raiff. “With flight cancellations and delays hitting all-time highs, travel regulations changing by the day, and more than 600 unruly incidents reported in 2022, I believe the companies that have started flying private are voting with their checkbooks, and decision-makers will continue to invest where they feel the most valued.”

More Than Just Cost/Benefit
Travel managers are uniquely positioned to analyze whether private aviation should be integrated into more strategic travel planning. A simple fare comparison with fees must be balanced with the costs of disruptions and the amount of work involved in recovery.

“The demand for travel is people intelligence – the need of a person’s presence,” says Matthew Grunenwald, former chair of the Corporate Shuttle Working Group for National Business Aviation Association. “For certain companies, there is a healthy tension for engineering, architecture, and manufacturing to collaborate at geographically diverse locations. Other operators need to move labor (oil production and sports teams). The necessity is determined by analyzing travel demand between established city-pairs and seeking the best way to source that travel. Routes are any distance, but the most frequent are where ground alternatives are time intensive, especially during peak commuting times or airline service is not readily available. Think of corporate shuttles as the ‘what’ is needed – travel. The ‘how’ is the method of sourcing – fractional, charter, capacity purchase agreements, operating leases, aircraft ownership and repurposing.”

Grunenwald, a senior consultant for AirMarkets Corporation and a PhD candidate researching corporate shuttle decision factors, helped run Intel Corporation’s air shuttle for more than six years. He works with a team of experts to develop shuttle analyses for Fortune 100 companies, ensuring corporate shuttle operations are paying off. The team also advises on changes the companies want to make to route structures, new markets or aircraft choices.
“The most compelling argument is the value of assuring employees will meet specific travel schedules,” explains Bigot. “This reliability assures the company will meet projected work deadlines and time-sensitive meetings with the ability to do so on a regularly scheduled or unscheduled basis. Any analysis must also include savings from not needing additional hotels/meals/transportation.”

Air Partner senior vice president of group charter US Simon Moore agrees. “Corporate shuttles have always been valuable business tools for companies that need to transport employees to different offices, meetings or conferences around the world,” he says. “Their importance spiked in recent years. For business travel, group flight arrangements offer companies a cost-efficient, time saving and overall smoother way to get employees and team members where they need to be.”

Past studies have shown corporate shuttles have the potential to save tens of millions of dollars in travel-related expenses over time. One cost/benefit analysis several years ago pegged the savings at $53 million over a decade vs. costs of $30 million.

“The way corporate shuttles provide value hasn’t changed since those studies were done,” says VanderPloeg. “Plugging in today’s cost will prove corporate shuttles deliver on the benefits of business aviation. In fact, we think the value is even greater now because commercial fares are climbing and health concerns didn’t exist back then. Shuttle programs have value when you consider the increased risk of not making it to their destinations on time or at all.”

Raiff dispelled many of the myths surrounding private flying, noting while many think private aviation is restricted to the C-Suite, studies show 86 percent of private aviation missions carry marketing and sales personnel, technical and engineering staff, middle managers, and company customers. Accessibility is another factor, with 42 percent of private aviation operating to communities with little or no scheduled airline service.

“Nor is usage limited to large corporations – 45 percent of companies using private aviation have fewer than 500 employees,” according to Raiff. “Research reinforces the growth in demand: 65 percent of companies surveyed anticipate increased business jet usage in 2022.”

Competing for Talent
“With the Great Resignation, private flying can lead to higher retention rates,” says VanderPloeg. “Corporate travel departments also realize cost savings by pivoting their most difficult O&D traffic to dedicated corporate shuttle flights. When factoring in each employee that travels combined with the value the company places on productivity, security and employee retention, the benefit increases very quickly for a corporate shuttle. No amount of airline miles can compensate for a missed meal at home with the family or workplace burnout.”

That is why companies are turning to corporate shuttles to increase competitiveness in attracting top talent and saving money in high-cost areas such as San Francisco and Seattle. That improved productivity is complemented with an increase in employee satisfaction and retention because corporate travel means they’re home at the end of the day, an important consideration for Millennials and GenZs.

This problem is so extreme, Business Insider recently reported that one company created a corporate shuttle for its lawyers by buying a nine-seat plane to operate weekly flights to its Bay Area headquarters.

“Each flight for the firm costs about $1,900 a passenger but since the lawyers are working in flight, the three-to-four-hour ride is billable,” said the publication. “Plus, private flights protect any confidential work and save the firm's lawyers about 36 collective hours they would spend arriving early, waiting in security and checking bags on a commercial flight. Even so, the company is still able to offer clients lower costs because most of the patent work is done in Houston, where commercial real estate is 43 percent cheaper, salaries 52 percent lower, and competition for technical talent far less fierce.”

Even for non-lawyers, private aviation offers an office in the sky where teams can prepare sales pitches, strategize on customer service problems or decide how best to manage teams attending a major industry conference.
“We’re finding there is a corporate desire to care for employees and concern of reduced airline service,” says Agur. “We have observed a bifurcation of companies considering shuttles today. Industries like financial services and information technologies are leveraging video technologies. Whereas the industries like industrials, utilities, and consumer staples require engineers to be on project sites and manage supply chains in person. These industries see greater value in corporate shuttles.”

The missions covered by corporate shuttles or group travel are quite varied, according to Brunson-Pitts, who was formerly travel manager at the White House prior to founding Advanced Aviation Team. He sees the integration of private aviation into travel management from a different perspective.

“As director of the travel office, I sat in the corporate traveler manager’s seat, so I see it from their perspective,” he says. “Flying private adds an element of reliability into both schedule and pricing. Budgeting is difficult but bureau chiefs wanted budget predictability and we were able to establish travel budgets for reporters covering the White House.”

Advanced Aviation does work for campaigns as well as other group travel. “We are familiar with what groups need versus taking two to three people from New York to Florida,” Brunson-Pitts says. “With each additional passenger the price per seat goes down. We are seeing an uptick because more conferences, concerts and conventions are happening.”

Air Partner also offers shuttle services. “Clients want the flexibility around the nearest end-to-end airports or book multi-city itineraries,” Moore explained. “Air shuttles are typically suitable for 30 to 100 passengers and are often used for corporate flights or industry-specific travel, such as oil and gas crew rotations, flights for boards of executives or employees. Our shuttle aircraft range from a 30-seat Dornier 328, a 50-seat Bombardier CRJ-200LR, and a 109-seat Fokker 100 amongst others.”

Outsourced Solutions
Agur also notes that with aircraft management companies and the availability of current business jets for shuttle service, private aviation is now within reach. Companies do not have to create in-house shuttle programs, own aircraft or add the complexity of a flight department. Aircraft management programs are designed to avoid all that. 
But those who do create their own shuttle aircraft could benefit from the growing number of small regional jets being shed from airline fleets. Flying Colours, an aviation maintenance and overhaul services company, has done about 30 CRJ conversions over the last decade and recently signed a deal for 29-seat corporate shuttle conversions for a charter company wanting to satisfy rising demand.

“There is a lot of value to the aircraft conversion because it enables access to an aircraft of global airframe size but for a much-reduced price compared with a new aircraft,” says Flying Colours Corp. executive VP Eric Gillespie. “Pre-owned inventory is at an all-time low for business jets, good aircraft are hard to find and new production aircraft wait times are long. Conversions provide an excellent solution for operators who want to quickly access aircraft and that is why we are getting more inquiries, especially from charter companies.”

Private aviation can definitely help companies be more strategic in their travel planning, providing a huge opportunity for travel managers to think beyond the scheduled airlines’ horizons when it comes to getting employees from Point A to Point B.