Wow back at ya. Way to take my whole response and focus on one sentance fragment. My point is people who can afford to own their own, aren't interested in chartering. It's apples and oranges. Maybe people who would ordinarily buy a card will charter, or people who were on the fence about bying a share would charter. That's too bad for us, but it represents an economic decision by those people. NetJets survives on people who want to own, not just use an airplane once and a while. If the model is broken, it needs to be fixed for those people, not the folks who are only using 10 to 15 hours a year. Thats my point.

Not necessarily.

The factors making fractional ownership the best value are highly dependent on a company or individual's needs. If one only does 50 hours of out-and-backs a year from their home base, charter is probably the best financial option, and if somebody flies 350+ hours per year from their home base then their own flight department is probably the best financial option.

If a company has three offices spread out over multiple states, and needs multiple staff from each office to travel all over the place at the same time on a regular basis but not enough to justify the cost of multiple charters or multiple owned aircraft, then fractional can make LOTS of sense because you can utilize multiple airplanes at a single time while only using the hours available within a single share.

With a single quarter share, one could conceivably send multiple airplanes to multiple destinations out of a single location, or multiple locations to a single location, or any other conceivable pattern.

All three options (charter, fractional, and internal department) are viable depending on what one's NEEDS are.

There are also companies that own turboprops for short hops, but will by into a fractional for extra uplift, or jets for longer range trips.

Topgun, you seem to know a fair amount about the aviation industry, but you need to go back and do some more homework on how NJs makes money (here's a clue--its biggest margin is NOT aircraft sales). That's all the company information I'll divulge.

You mentioned in another thread that "All the fractionals are bucking for the same customers. The fractional owner is smart. This is not a time in this economy to take risk and sign up with a start up. Charter and fractionals are down 30%. Not the time for a new kid on the block." This is only one of the reasons NJs will survive in this environment. Also, I must say that I'm disappointed in the immaturity a self-proclaimed "retired O-5" like yourself is displaying in your posts about the demise/misfortune of fellow aviators' companies.

The difference is NJs isn't stooping to the levels of these "low-cost startups." We still pay industry-leading wages with industry-leading benefits. And with the adjustments NJs is making in this downturn, we're poised to come out even stronger than before. Don't worry--we'll be here to try to raise "industry-standard" pay and benefits for our fellow aviators for a long time coming.

Birdie, you obviously don't get it. Service is a HUGE differentiator in this industry. What you posted above only shows that you don't understand this. In another thread someone had to use an analogy of a lemonade stand to explain a concept to you. I'll try to use another easy-to-understand analogy. You don't go into Ruth's Chris and complain that they charge more than McDonald's (they both just serve a meal, right?). You are oversimplifying things. There are many things that separate competitors and pricing in any particular market. I'm not trying to talk down to you--but your posts are getting downright silly.

What happened to the guys you layed off?

A big difference though is that 121 legacy passengers don't have a vested interest in the airline they are flying. Granted, charter passengers don't either, but fractional ownership offers advantages over chartering that have existed all along plus it is a bit more dynamic than your analogy makes it out to be. Not saying that competition won't exist requiring companies to evolve but I don't believe it will deteriorate to the level of the legacies.