BA609 costs
What about scheduled city to city VIP transport? Assuming the 609 could reach a fixed wing scheduled operator's utilization (~3000hrs) then it would still have to charge about twice the business class fare.
This is assuming the 6 pax VIP configuration which I've sat in and I believe is the limit with regard to what people not accustomed to small aircraft would feel comfortable in-comfortable enough that is to justify the steep price.
The insurance figures I read above were enormous compared to what I'm used to seeing. Light Business jets are something like 0.20% for hull and $100m liability.
My estimation of fuel costs, (with $3.00/gal) are about $1.35/nm.
If it were to go into charter and operate leaving a 20% EBIT for the operator, than the prices are as follows:
1000hrs-$5,700/hr
600hrs-$8,700/hr
That's enormously prohibitive.
And BTW, this is with the latest acquisition price I've been told..."no more than $16 million".
So the only real solution for revenue service seems to be to put it on a schedule, in dense routes, and at twice the fares of current airline business class prices.
So the question comes down to whether passengers would be willing to pay prices this steep in order to avoid the entire airport/airline infrastructure.
And all this, assuming you could fly the aircraft for 3000hrs per year...