Originally Posted by
beech1980
The GV's and other heavy corporate jets were never owned by Delta. They were all charter managed aircraft. The problem with paying the GV crew like they pay the 777 pilots would be Delta would not make the money they like to make. The profit Margins are not there I guess??
The profit margins are not only not there, there is no intent to try to make money.
The jet I flew on a charter manage program cost the owner about 2.5M per year out of pocket whether it never flew or not. We put it out for charter for 400-500 hours and raised his costs about another 500K. But he made about 2M back.
So his 2.5M cost became 3M but he made almost 2M so now it was 1M out of pocket. A savings of 1M.
On a per hour cost, my boss per hour cost was around $25,000. We charted for 4500 then later 5000 per hour. The management company took 15% out but added a 15% fuel surcharge. So -$6000 per hour was great even if he lost -$1000 per hour on every charter.
To overcome an increasing maintenance cost as you operate more, which comes in chunks based on 400 hours on our jet, you needed airline like utilization that ain't never gonna happen in charter.