Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Executives in the cockpit

They're in charge in the boardroom- why not in the air, too?

NEW YORK

When a meeting with clients runs late, Andy Davidson doesn't have to worry that his plane will leave without him. Instead of impatiently waiting in milelong security lines or silently waging war over a shared airplane armrest, Davidson can walk straight to his six-seater, climb into the cockpit and take off. Davidson, owner of a New York financial consulting business, is a member of a small but growing group of business executives who have taken their passion for flying and turned it into a more convenient - if less economical - form of transportation. Most of these executives buy or lease small planes, called single-engine pistons, with seating room equivalent to a family sedan and the ability to fly up to about 1,000 miles. With many airlines cutting back flights to smaller destinations, small-business owners and midlevel executives are realizing that flying themselves might be feasible - not to mention more fun.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the number of hours single-engine piston planes are flown each year is expected to rise 17 percent by 2020, with growth of about 1 percent per year. Although some of that increase may be because of pilots who fly for recreation, Hank Price of the FAA said the government anticipates business use of private aircraft will grow faster than leisure use.

Getting a private pilot's license takes time. The average is about six months, with 70 hours of flying time.

Anecdotal evidence seems to confirm that more businessmen are seeing personal aviation as a transportation option. Flying clubs, where pilots can share ownership of a plane or get more training, are filling up with executives. One Atlanta club called Airshares Elite, founded in 1999, caters specifically to business executives.

Airports have started to recognize the importance of the business executive pilot. Clark County, Nev., recently spent $30-million remodeling Henderson Executive Airport, outside of Las Vegas, to appeal to executives.

Flying smaller planes - by the executives or the pilots they hire - has become so popular that it has begun to contribute to the nation's air traffic and congestion.

But certainly, the benefits of private-plane travel are all too evident to anyone who's been bumped from an overbooked flight or waited for takeoff at rush hour. Executive pilot Steven Hall, managing director of his executive compensation consulting firm, said he leaves his house 30 to 40 minutes before he plans to take off rather than the two hours he budgets to go through security lines for a commercial flight. He said private planes, which leave from smaller airports, are not subject to the same delays in departures and arrivals as commercial flights at major airports.

"Most of us who travel on business can tell stories of sitting on the ground for four hours waiting for the plane to be cleared for takeoff for what was supposed to be a 90-minute flight," Hall said.

Davidson agreed, saying although the time in the air is about the same or slightly longer in a private plane, flying yourself allows you to set your schedule and makes for a much more relaxing trip.

"Any time I have to go on a commercial flight, it's a depressing feeling," Davidson said. "Between the check-in and the delays and the cattle-car feel of it, I think the whole experience has gone downhill."

Davidson began flying after a friend took him on a small plane flight to East Hampton, New York.

"Until that moment it didn't really occur to me that people could be pilots," he said. "I thought only pilots could be pilots."

Davidson got his license and after leaving Merrill Lynch & Co. in 1992 to start a consulting group, he bought a plane to visit clients. He upgraded to a larger six-seater Baron several years later and uses it frequently for business.

"Just getting there becomes an enjoyable part of the travel," he said.

Davidson pays for that enjoyment. He estimated he spends about $50,000 a year on flying - including the cost of housing a plane in a hangar and maintaining it. That's probably about $20,000 more than he would spend on commercial flights per year.

[Last modified October 18, 2007, 00:35:44]