Flying High

With aviation costs rocketing it has become increasingly important to reduce capital expenditure while retaining executive travel requirements. Steve O’Neill, founder and CEO of CitationShares, explains how.

In 2000, I started CitationShares with a group of friends. We had six employees, three aircraft and worked out of a hangar at Westchester County Airport. We sold fractional interests in King Airs and operated exclusively in the Northeast United States. A lot has changed since then; as a division of Cessna Aircraft Company, we now operate Citation aircraft exclusively with a fleet of 82 Bravos, CJ3s, XLSs and Sovereigns. Our workforce is comprised of 650 employees and our principle product lines have expanded from only selling fractional shares to jet cards and whole aircraft management offerings.

While our operation has undergone dramatic changes, our entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to our customers has not. We continue to provide our customers with the safety, value and flexibility they expect, and in the economic climate we face today, we are more conscious of that than ever.

One of the primary targets of criticism today has been the corporate jet. Many companies are frowned upon for owning a private aircraft and consequently, are being forced to divest their asset, which will seriously impact the efficient movement of executives who travel regularly. Our hope is that this trend eventually slows but in the meantime, companies that operate aircraft will have to carefully evaluate how they are being utilized. With that in mind, CitationShares has developed a strategy to assist corporations weather this economic storm. Our goal was to develop innovative, cost-effective programs that allow companies to continue using private aircraft but in a more sensible and efficient way.

One such program is our Supplemental Lift program, which helps corporations reduce capital expenditures and operating costs while still meeting the travel requirements of their executives. The program gives them access to all aircraft in our fleet, with the flexibility to select the most cost-effective aircraft for each mission. The program includes all-inclusive, one-way pricing, with discounted rates that are 12 percent less than CitationShares list prices.

Here’s an example of how this program provides a benefit. If a company provides transportation for their directors to attend board meetings, chances are they will have to fly a deadhead leg to pick a director up. After the meeting, the director returns home and the aircraft flies back empty. If two hours of flight time are required each way, eight hours would have been put on the aircraft and it would have been tied up for two or three days. With eight meetings a year, they would put 64 hours on their aircraft, which would fly empty half that time, for just one director.

We created the Supplemental Lift program to fly one-way trips most efficiently. In this case, we could provide transportation for each director on whatever Citation model is appropriate, and the company would be billed only for the four hours the director is aboard the aircraft. This could result in substantial savings for a company, while still meeting their private travel needs.

Our objective is not to replace corporate flight departments; rather it is to work hand-in-hand with them to become a sensible addition to it. Through the Supplemental Lift program, companies don’t own the aircraft, CitationShares does. Companies don’t invest in these aircraft, they remain on our books, and billing is based on a simple pay-as-you-fly basis. We aim to reduce costs, complement an existing fleet, and provide executives with privacy and convenience.

Despite the intense scrutiny companies with corporate aircraft are facing, there is still a need for private jet travel to maximize efficiency for those who travel regularly to conduct business. Those who fly privately have long understood the benefits – the flexibility, the access to remote airports, the time savings and the privacy that commercial airline-flying cannot provide. CitationShares remains committed to supporting our customers with innovative solutions that meet their private travel needs and providing them with the tools they need to make intelligent and cost-effective decisions for themselves and their companies.