VLJ's are garbage it doesn't take an aviation consultant or expert to figure that one out. They will clog up the airspace, fly in the same flight levels as the jets at slower speeds causing a headache for ATC spacing especially in the busier areas of the country, and the costs are not that eye popping to me. Eclipse fibbed when they said initially the 500 would be under 1 million, it's now about 1.3 and rising. It has a slow cruise speed, it's payload is pathetic, and many of these places like DayJets are delaying going into business and with that the orders of these planes because there are still a lot of concerns.Ok so VLJ's can supposively fly to out of the way airports that the airlines can't, but it's not cost effective.
My friend who flies corporate says that to charter any jet it cost at least 2000 dollars an hour just for the company to turn a small profit. You really think people are going to want to throw down that kind of money when they could fly the airlines for much less than that, the air taxi segment has never proven in my eyes to be an affordable means of travel and the VLJ isn't going to change that. If anything it is going to cause more problems. The training part is also not as simple and straightforward as the VLJ market makes it sounds. Like usmc brang up, insurance is going to be tough for owners and for those looking to sign on to the big air taxi ops trying to get out there those hiring mins are ridiculous. im all for modernizing aviation and improving the technology and the way it's done, but vlj's are about as lame and flawed as NASA's highway in the sky program, it might sound like a good idea at first, but in the end there will be plenty of problems.