Has Netjets failed?? Berkshire sure doesn't think so, and if the model is so broken and inefficient, don't you think Buffett would have dropped us by now?
The company is simply undergoing a change in culture from entrepreneurial to corporate. It's all about the numbers now and filtering out the unnecessary expenditures. The only unfortunate part is that it entailed furloughs and other staff cuts in the process.

[quote=AirbusA320;771316]The worldest smartest man should of know better when he bought NetJets.

To him I say, "It's aviation, buddy."[/quote]

Exactly! I remember a couple of years ago someone from NJ did a pretty good analysis of career earnings between NJ and the Majors. At the time I said it was a good analysis with the exception of extrapolating a "snapshot" into a 30 year career.

Nothing stays the same in this industry for more than one or perhaps two contract cycles at most. For the guys on Furlough at NJ - hang tight. Just as the good times are not continuous - neither are the bad times. Some "Master of the universe" will see an opportunity to make some good coin at NJ and you guys may be back to work before you know it.

Plan for the worst but hope for the best!

Scoop

I mean I hope so. I'm rooting for you. Its just that I read that 40% of your flight hours are deadhead and you have to use a lot more charter than they expected to fill in availability.

[QUOTE=Scoop;771616]Well said Scoopy old boy !

Goal for most fractionals is deadhead of about 30% +/-. That's very do-able when times are good and the fleet is big. When the fleet shrinks and flying hours go do, the deadhead rate is bound to rise. It will go down when business picks up.

What's the general consensus (if there is one) among the furloughed and working ranks at NJ for best guess of time to recall? Seems like the frac business has picked up in the last 3-4 months.

Netjets pilots correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that they've ever done much better than 40% in a given year.

There's a pretty huge difference between 30% and 40% inclusive. Its not a 10% difference, its a 33% difference. For every hour of revenue flight, do you have to do 26 minutes of positioning or 40 minutes of positioning. Thats the difference.

I have worked at NJA for over 4 years now. I have never done more than 1/3 of my flight time in a year as ferry time- it is all broken down for us on the company website whenever we want to check our times. I would say around 40 percent of flights are ferry flights, but that the average is probably around 30 percent for time on the airframes since they do their best to make the ferry flights short. As far as what the model was built on, I'm sure Santulli built it on at least 40 percent time on airframe (probably even higher) since he started with a handful of airframes and he knew it was bound to be inefficient until he got real numbers of airframes. Overall the ferry time has gone down even in the short amount of time I've been with the company. Scheduling is continually improving (though they have their fair share of *** moments). There are definitely many things NetJets has done poorly, but most of that has been or is in the process of being changed now that we have a new regime running the show. I would say that the operations side of the coin (including all the ferry flights) hasn't been the problem.

I don't think the furloughed guys expect to be recalled anytime soon.... and the rest of us hope no more cuts are neccessary....

friend of mine got furloughed from NJI, he interviewed for a CL605 job in the Mid East (Qatar) and got the job. It pays very well, but his wife does not want to move there, she knows it could be 3-4 years before NJA calls him back. She said Asia would be fine, but not the Mid East (can't really blame her)

don't know what he's gonna do