Corporate flying and the cost of fuel

Josh7

Well-Known Member
My question is what are corporate flight departments doing to handle the out of control fuel prices? Simply charging more for flights? Cutting jobs?
 
I don't fly corporate, but charter and owner trips. We are actually staying pretty busy. I don't know anything about the billing, but Jet A is up to $7.00 a gallon in some places and our planes are flying as much as ever!
 
We are flying more. In a down economy management wants to spend more time in the field making sure the company is running as well as possible.

We haven't cut down on flights, but we have cut down on empty legs (which means more overnights). We are also paying more attention to what FBOs we use (cheapest fuel wins), and tankering fuel from home when possible, and flying slower (.76 cruise).

We are not in the business of flying airplanes. Our department is never in the "profit" section of the P&L. So the question is how much do we cost vs. the value we provide. That is somewhat intangible but we do our very best to provide value to our internal "customers".

Fingers crossed that they don't downsize, but anything is possible.
 
I don't think you'll see a reduction in flying with the companies who rely heavily on their corporate airplanes. We haven't changed the way we operate - the company adjusts just like you and me when it comes to driving our cars. I've come to the conclusion that our company couldn't do what it does without our airplanes. A fractional wouldn't work either, so while it is always possible to show up and not have a job, I do feel quite secure with my job.

We've started tankering as much fuel as we can (which isn't much) and using contract fuel at the places we can. Fuel in MKE the other day was $8.29/gal. The contract price was only :)eek:)$7.06/gal, but after it was all said and done we saved around $850. Do that once a week and after a year you've saved almost $45,000.
 
If a company has a small flight department, then moving the aircraft to a smaller airport would seem best. Here at AKR Jet A is only $5.50 when CLE is $7.38. Having aircraft at CLE would just be dumb.

Instead of going into MKE you could have gone into MWC where Jet A is $2 less ($6.39). Wonder what type of contract price you could get from the FBO there! I know MWC has a short runway for jet aircraft, but there are larger runways with around the area with similar lower prices.

I know some flight departments are larger and can't just move, but some companies only have one or two aircraft which could easily move locations.
 
If a company has a small flight department, then moving the aircraft to a smaller airport would seem best. Here at AKR Jet A is only $5.50 when CLE is $7.38. Having aircraft at CLE would just be dumb.

I don't want to de-rail the thread but that's simply amazing to me. 100LL was $6.97 a gallon at AUS last week.

Unfortunately, around here, there aren't many convenient places to move a corporate jet to.
 
I don't want to de-rail the thread but that's simply amazing to me. 100LL was $6.97 a gallon at AUS last week.

Unfortunately, around here, there aren't many convenient places to move a corporate jet to.

Ouch. That's no fun.
 
Speaking of fuel, I heard that Signature was going to start matching prices on the field... anyone know if this is true? I would still shy away from that place, but currious none-the-less.
 
It seems that 90% of our clients are oil and gas companies so they are loving the fuel prices. ;)
 
I'm sure our company isn't alone in operating it's own fuel farm and buying wholesale for discount.
 
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