Typical Fractional Commute?
 

Can some of you share the details of a typical commute to and from your plane at Netjets/Flexjets, etc?

I am within an hour of 4 airports served by regionals, but they have little or no mainline service. I haven't had any luck finding a recent list of "bases" for either Flex or NJ.


I've heard that you can almost live anywhere now and take the closest RJ to your plane. Is this true, or is it still limited to the 100 or so bases I found in the list from 2016? Is it a positive space ticket?

Thanks.

How quickly can an airline get you to a West Palm Beach or Greater New York, and what’s the flight frequency? That usually decides whether your location will be considered for a base.

For a new hire at NJ, the current list is just over 100 locations. There are different criteria regarding such confusions as “Green Base” and “Waiver Airport” and “HBA,” and eligibility for something known as an “After Midnight” when they can’t get you home. Confusions that I still don’t quite get and don’t much care about since I live in a major base in the top ten of passenger destinations and they ALWAYS find a way to get me home on time. Others can probably better explain the difference.

Your mileage will vary.

Whichever city you end up using, the company buys you a ticket to and from your jet as if you were a regular airline passenger and you retain all loyalty points earned for such travel. Ground transport is either arranged by the company (long ground distance) or by FBO van, taxi, Uber, or Lyft, the cost of which is reimbursed.

When ending your tour, you also have the option of something known as a “dummy ticket” where the company’s cost of getting you home can be applied (partially) toward a ticket to a destination other than your home. You can also use a dummy to utilize your preferred airline when the company gives you a retarded ticket on Crazy Clown Airways.

Clear as mud?

Definitely clearer. If someone has that updated list of 100 airports that would be super nice.

Basically I’m trying to figure out how long it’s going to take me to get to that first airline.

What region of the country?

For LXJ and NJA list, see link(s) below.

https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/...tional/flexjet

https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/...tional/netjets

Awkward trying to get this copied but I think I did it with 3 jpg's to get all 100 bases in:

https://i.imgur.com/l2TJeUJ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/AC90yhk.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/X12tH2M.jpg

I knew there must have been an easier way to get the 100 bases :o

So if the nearest one of those is 4 hours away, you start your work week with a 4 hour drive?

There are at least a couple pilots in my area that work at these places. It seems unlikely that they’d be doing that, but I guess it’s only a couple times a month if you’re on 7 and 7.

Do bases get added at all?

The short answer is yes, you start your tour with a 4 hour drive and frequently you'll have to drive up the night before. And your 1st day brief isn't final until 6pm, although you'll see the tentative plan earlier in the day. Early shows are fairly common on day 1 so they can get u to the jet and get some flying out of you. But you will get lots of hotel points and can use those to pay for a room.

I'm not clear on how the basing works for new hires vs. legacy pilots, maybe some others can comment on that. But I know that domiciles/bases get added when airline service meets the min criteria and then they get dropped when the airline service changes. 95% of our pilots live within a 2 hour drive of a base. The only pilot I flew with that lived further away was a dual citizen who lived in the Canadian Rockies with his photographer spouse. He had to drive about 4 hours to Spokane to catch his airline.