Aircraft Renting Archives - Golf Hotel Whiskey

JetSetVets: The ultimate private-jet, ride-along-vet & concierge-pet service

Both CNBC and the Daily Mail have run an AP story profiling JetSetVets, America’s only private-jet, ride-along-vet, concierge-pet service that was founded by celebrity veterinarian Dr. Cindy Bressler who has a house call practice in New York and the Hamptons. She’s also partnered with Los Angeles and Beverly Hills veterinarian Patrick Mahaney and Blue Star Jets, a New York-based private jet brokerage that promises to have a small, medium, large or jumbo jets ready to go anywhere in the world in less than four hours (they were even the subject of a conversation between Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps).

The vets will dispense medicine, change dressings, monitor IVs and drips and handle any in-flight medical care required by a pet as well as provide alternative services such as acupuncture, massage and laser treatments. The company will also prepare animals for trips, apply for travel documents, provide an on-flight chef to prepare specialty meals and work with veterinary hospitals when needed in an emergency.

The article goes on to describe how the cat of one New York client was diagnosed with cancer and needed radiation available only in Colorado. So the client, his assistant, the ailing cat and its feline companion plus Dr. Bressler made the trip there, but the cat’s VIP treatment did not stop there:

At the hotel, the cat’s owner had the presidential suite remodeled to resemble his New York apartment and hired the hotel chef to cook his pet gourmet meals when chemotherapy and radiation treatments zapped its appetite. The owner even had his cat’s litter airlifted to Colorado so it would be familiar.

After 10 days with the cat, Dr. Bressler returned to New York.

As you can imagine, the JetSetVets service comes with a pretty hefty price tag as renting a jet can cost between $1,000 and $12,000 an hour while vets Bressler and Mahaney charge $200 an hour. And then there are other extras like pet nurses, pet chefs, pet medical equipment, pet drugs and other pet related services plus added jet-related costs that aren’t included in these figures. In other words, you need to really love your pet and really be rich to use JetSetVets!

The Super Bowl of private jet rentals

On Sunday, the Super Bowl for American football was held in Indianapolis (Indiana) and already before the game, there were predictions that this year’s Super Bowl would break all records – for the number of private jets arriving to ferry sports fans to the game. Specifically, the Wall Street Journal’s Wealth Report editor Robert Frank went on WSJ’s Mean Street to say that 600 private jets went to the Super Bowl two years ago, 700 last year and that 900 were expected to show up this year.

The reason? Besides the fact that there is limited commercial service to Indianapolis, the New York Giants were playing and of course, they would have an incredibly wealthy fan base of hedge fund managers and Wall Street types who can afford to take a private jet to the game.

However and with so many unused private jets lying around due to the recession along with plenty of anti-private jet sentiment, seat prices on a private jet to the Super Bowl could be purchased for the 1 1/2 hour flight from NYC for only $1,500 each way.

The catch? Since no Wall Streeter wants to be caught dead having to spend Sunday night in Indianapolis, there were predictions of at least 1 to 2 or even 3 hour delays on Sunday night to clear all those private jets for take-off. Hence, we wonder if the private jet companies (or those renting them) have factored that into prices!

More people are searching for private jets online

Dan Robles has written a very interesting post on Plane Conversations about using data from Google Think Insights to determine that more and more people are searching the Internet on terms such as private jet, jet charter, jet charter cost, VIP travel etc. Specifically, here is the data that Dan found from Google Think Insights:

Plus these related searches:

(Note: All the data is from January 2008 and December 2011 and for the USA)

So what does this tell us about the state of the private jet or business jet market along with the economy? One way to look at things is that people just happen to be using the internet more to find information about renting private jets. On the other hand, the data could also suggest that more people are also interested in renting private jets as well because after all, there are plenty of good reasons to do so given the state of commercial aviation (e.g. delays, security hassles, lack of flying options to smaller markets etc.).

For his part, Dan noted that Social Flights has long suggested that there are opportunities to increase private charter shuttle services between key locations as well as for companies to share private aircraft scheduled to fly between regions. He also concluded that search term trends are important because they can indicate the intentions of the market as well as new opportunities to serve it.

At the very least, the Google data does look interesting and bodes well for the private jet market in the USA.

What questions should you ask before renting an aircraft from a private owner?

If you ever rent or have thought of renting an aircraft from a private person, Tobin Fricke has posted several excellent questions that you should be asking on the Ask a Flight Instructor website. His questions were the following:

• Before renting a plane from a private person, what should we discuss and what should I check? Of course, I would want to verify the airworthiness of the plane. What sort of things do we need to agree upon?
• What sort of insurance is necessary?
• Does renting a plane from someone (exchange of $ for airplane time) trigger the requirement for a 100-hour inspection (operation for hire)?
• What is a good way to find someone (other than a flight school) with an airplane to rent?

Jon responded with a lengthy answer based upon his own experiences. He began by first noting that you should have a contract that, at a minimum, covers the following items:

how much the owner is charging you per hour
whether that’s billed by the clock, hobbs or tach
whether it’s a wet or dry rate (and if it’s a wet rate, how is reimbursement for fuel handled)
how often will you be billed (leave a check at the end of every flight or get a statement at the end of the month)
how is maintenance handled if something happens away from home (who pays, at what point do you need the owner’s blessing, etc)

He then added that you should go through the logbooks and make sure they contain the current annual for the airframe, engine(s) and the propeller(s) as well as current entries for the pitot-static system, transponder and ELT. And if the owner won’t show you the logbooks, don’t even consider renting the aircraft.

Commenter John D. Collins then pointed out that some aircraft insurance policies will specifically prohibit the renting of or instruction in an airplane. In other words, you need to make sure that you don’t run afoul of such insurance policies.

Matthew Waugh also added that the insurance questions are critical as there are two things to keep in mind here:

Is the aircraft OWNER insured?
Are YOU also insured?

Commenter Jon then responded by noting that from his own personal experience, everyone will look for someone else to blame when something goes wrong and that will include the insurance company. Hence, you better make sure that every “I” is dotted and that every “T” is crossed to avoid things getting nasty or expensive should something go wrong. He also added that you should think very seriously about getting renter’s insurance that covers whatever an insurance company could try and come after you for.

Hence and if you are planning to rent an aircraft from a private owner, this entire thread containing all the response to Tobin’s question on the Ask a Flight Instructor website is a must read.

What killed general aviation for the masses?

Paul Bertorelli has written a thought provoking post for the AVwebinsider blog about the general aviation recession and how Wonder Bread is to blame for it. In case you do not see the connection between the two, Paul’s point is simple: Wonder Bread was invented as a mass produced version of bread that ultimately did to the local bakery shop what China (along with technology and productivity gains) has done to the consumer electronics and many other industries for that matter. In other words, a far cheaper product that could be mass produced became available and this product gutted the competition (along with everyone’s wages).

Paul then noted that in general aviation, there was a time when a “small contractor, a garage owner or a school teacher” could actually own and fly an airplane (I can attest to this as my father used to fly as a hobby into the early 1980s). During that time, the middle class also had more disposable income but today this class of owner and buyer is largely priced out of the market due to stagnant wages and escalating aircraft costs. In fact, Paul pointed out that:

When I got active in flying again in 1975, the local Cessna Pilot Center rented a 172 for $16 an hour, wet. Run that through an inflation calculator and it’s the equivalent of $63 today. Now it may be possible to find a 172 somewhere near that rate, but it’s more likely to be $135 to $150. Paradoxically, the flightschool or FBO may barely make money even at that rate.
One reason for this is the high cost of new aircraft. In 1975, a Cessna 172M cost about $25,000 or $98,000 in today’s dollars. Yet a new Skyhawk costs two and half times that or about $270,000. The LSA market has chopped the high peak price off certified aircraft, but at $130,000 typically, they’re hardly cheap. Rental rates are in the $100 range, wet.

Paul then commented that while its easy to blame the aircraft industry, he has been to plenty of airplane factories and he can’t see how they could “achieve efficiencies sufficient to lower prices substantially while remaining in business.” Paul’s partial solution (besides somehow addressing the trends impacting the economy as a whole) is to have multi-member partnerships. In other words, its cheaper for four pilots to own and operate an aircraft than one pilot.

Since Paul’s post as already attracted a large number of comments from readers about the costs of owning and operating aircraft, we would also love to hear your opinions as to how general aviation can once again be made affordable to greater numbers of would-be pilots.

Price consideration factors when renting an aircraft

If your are like most private pilots or are considering taking up flight lessons, you probably cannot afford to own your own aircraft. After all, owning an aircraft involves not only significant upfront cost but also maintenance cost and not to mention the cost of fuel when the plane is flown (And all of this comes after you have invested a significant amount of money and time to obtain a pilot’s license which must also be maintained).

Hence, Vincent of Plastic Pilot has recently posted an entry well worth reading about the five major factors he believes you should consider when evaluating an aircraft rental price. The factors he listed and goes into further detail about include the following:

Dry or wet (In other words, with or without fuel)?

Engine time or flight time?

To the minute, or to the tenth of hour?

What about instruction?

Fees, fees and fees…

Vincent mentions that he has rented aircraft from several different organizations and has never experienced any problems. However, he states that he has never rented an aircraft directly from an owner due to the potential risk of a maintenance issue or even an accident that will inevitably lead to legal questions.

All of Vincent’s suggestions are excellent. However, are there any other factors that you consider or pilots should be aware of when renting an aircraft?