Type of private jet operations
From the customer point of view, choosing to charter or to buy a private jet is not always easy: there are many consideration that needs to be done: how many hours do you intend to fly, how many passengers usually use the aircraft, where it will be based, if you want to go fo a new one or a refurbished one, what type of performances you are looking for.
There are different options that allows you to fly private without buying a single screw of the airplane, if you don’t want to.
Form the crew point of view, the type of operation flown also changes the hiring process, the job and the lifestyle. Here’s why:
Owners operations.
Owner operation is when the aircraft is own by an individual or a business and used mainly by the same customers: the owner, the owner and the family, the owner and the business partner, the owner and some family friends. Basically, the crew will fly always with the same customers and they are the private crew of Mr and Mrs XXX .
The recruitment of the crew is made trough the cooperation between the Aircraft Management Operator, the Lead Captain and/or the Lead flight attendant at the beginning. They create a pool of suitable candidates who are professionally skilled for the position. Those candidates will then be invited for a test flight on board the jet.
During the trial flight, the owner will observe how he/she feels like having you on board, how you talk to them, if you are proactive, if you are silent. Basically the judgment is pretty instinctive and based on gut feelings.
The owner will always have the last word about the recruitment. But the good thing is that once you are in, you are basically part of their family.
This type of operation are usually very quiet and predictable, because the owners fly according to a calendar events and season.
Charter operations.
Typically run by big organisations, they basically rent the jet to a third part (customer) anytime they need it. It’s like they buy a flight ticket, where in this case includes the full aircraft and crew from A to B.
From the crew point of view, you will be flying every time with a different customer. This type of operation can be very chaotic and absolutely unpredictable, because the aircraft can be chartered basically any time when on ground with a minimum of 3 h notice. Tips for the crew are very common in this type of operations.
Frequent customers can decide to go for special packages which are called jet hours. For example, they buy and pay in advance 100 hours to be flown in a year time. To pay back their loyalty, the price is more competitive compared to buy them one by one.
The frequent flyers customers simply book the aircraft when is needed.
Fractional Ownership.
This type of operation is basically something in between full ownership and charter. Instead of buying the 100% of the ownership of a jet ( a Global can cost more than 65 million $) they buy a portion or a percentage of it. So the aircraft ownership is divided into 16 (or less) different shares which belongs to 16 different owners, who are entitled to fly on the whole fleet, or the whole fleet of the same type on a 5 years contract, renewable.
Imagine you have a fleet composed by 10 Global 7500, and you have 16 different owners for each one of them, means you have 160 customers who will be flying on your fleet all the time. The investment required by them is much less compare to the full ownership, and they can still be called aircraft owners.
From the crew point of view, you will meet every time a different customer but in fact they are all…. owners.
They can also decide to buy two shares of the aircraft (owner of 2/16 of the airplane), and of course, the more they buy, the more they gain. Free hours, special VIP catering, discounts on the next share….
Private Jet Coach can explain you the advantages and disadvantages of all 3 type of operations, as well as the dynamics that are behind the recruiting for each one of them in order to prepare you even better for your next career step.