December 04, 2004

Away on Business - Private air travel.
By Michael Conlon

More high-end business travelers are opting for air charters instead of crowded and time-consuming commercial flights.

Credit goes to an improving economy. But there are also quality-of-life issues in executive suites that were slimmed down during recent bad times. The personnel who remain often find themselves with a bigger share of travel than they once had, industry figures say.

"We are growing very rapidly, and the pace at which we are growing is increasing," says Steven Hankin, chief executive of Sentient Jet, a five-year-old company that facilitates charter travel by bringing planes and customers together.

The New York City-based company reported earlier this year that its sales were 80 percent above year-ago levels.

Sentient sells memberships for $100,000 and $250,000, guaranteeing private air travel within 10 hours of a request 365 days a year, and deducting the cost from the account when a trip is taken. It works with about 1,000 top aircraft operators.

Arrangements such as that have brought down the price of charter travel, Hankin said, and "made it easier to fly privately today than it ever has been." At the same time, he adds, commercial travel has become more problematic and less productive because of the amount of in-the-airport time required.

The number of hours being flown by his customers is increasing, he adds. "We are seeing more and more short-distance travel ... We are, in a sense, making the day trip happen for the business traveler."

Joe Moeggenberg, president of Cincinnati-based Aviation Research Group/U.S. Inc., is seeing some of those same trends, but from a different angle. His company sells safety and security checks on individual charter aircraft, the pilots scheduled to fly the plane and the company that arranged the charter.

Customers can order one security/safety check for $249 or subscribe on a yearly basis, with fees starting from $1,200.

There was surge of interest in charter travel right after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Moeggenberg said, but "very few people really pulled the trigger. People just stopped flying, period. But today the charter business has been doing extremely well."

"The industry, based on our estimates, is up about 20 percent over last year," he adds.

It has become more economical than the days when chartering a plane meant paying for it on the ground until it was time for the return trip, or paying for two round trips. He credits the brokers like Sentient and other similar companies for changing the landscape.

"They (the travelers) have a certain amount of money in their budget and they're not going to go commercial anymore. They want to get where they want to go, on their own schedule," Moeggenberg said.

"The executive suite has been narrowed down. There are only so many people, and these individuals have horrific travel schedules. Trying to do that on commercial airlines is almost impossible," he adds. There is also, he said, an increase in charter use by middle management.

Moeggenberg said his business is very good. Last year his company was doing perhaps 100 safety and security checks a day. On one recent day it did 300.

On another business travel front, here are some final observations based on tracking this field for the last dozen years.

• Many airports have gone from culinary wastelands to outposts of healthy and appealing food, a welcome take-out option at a time of disappearing in-flight meals. Most major terminals now have a range of retail shops beyond the news stand, also a favorable development for travelers spending more time within the security barrier.
  
  
• The green movement may have found a permanent home in the hotel industry, a voracious consumer of energy. Guests are often asked to think twice about demanding a daily change of sheets and linens, while soap may come from refillable dispensers. Lodging is also safer, thanks to key card door locks that can record unauthorized room entry; and front desk personnel who do not say a guest's room number out loud so anyone standing nearby can hear.
  
  
• Excessive hotel telephone charges, where they still exist, remain a sore point for frequent travelers. But wireless environments and plug-ins, not to mention cell phones, are increasingly helping travelers avoid the in-room phone.
  
  
• Frequent flier points are far easier to collect from hundreds of non-travel related commercial transactions, but they are no easier to cash in for upgrades or free flights.
  
  
• Some rental cars now offer direction-finding gadgets that make wrong turns in strange cities a thing of the past. And many rental cars are no longer tagged with stickers or other identifiers that can tip off thieves or hijackers preying on roads near airports; but somehow most rental cars seem to be white and look alike anyway.