A VLJ is NOT a business model, it’s a business tool just like any other aircraft used commercially.
Nope it is an airplane
Good grief guys - stay in your comfort zone on the flightdeck. Lord help the operation if you get into the boardroom.
That made me smile LGW... Too many already have
The only way a VLJ might possibly work is if the operation was tacked on to an existing operation so the overhead is not solely borne by the VLJ operation.
Exactly. That is why a company like :LEA is able to make it work. All new companies like Blink, AirTaxi, Ambeo all dreamt about lower prices by increasing utilisation. But they all forgot two things:
- demand is limited and has a few peaks and you cannot stimultate people enough to fly latter or on another day as it contradicts the "on demand" part of the business and the required flexibility that warrants the premium paid by any customer
- You are competing with a (new!) aircraft that bear the full cost of ownership and depreciation against privately owned aircraft that fly at variable cost plus limited contribution to overhead
And even worse: they all were naive in believing the costings the manufacturers send them (kudos to the aircraft sales people, they did a great job
)