Positioning flights

[SpringHeeledJack]

Forgive the 'spotterish' nature of my question, however I felt that the best place to find out would be from the horse's mouth so to say. Bizjets for charter need to fly empty legs so as to be in place (A) to take passengers to place (B) and that's understandable, however I have noticed on many occasions these positioning flights are as short as 10mins to go to an airfield perhaps only 10-20miles away, if that. Examples are Seattle area, London area, Paris area, LA area etc. I realise in this market customer is king, but is it really necessary to do these very short hops as they must cost more than a little to the operators and it must put strain on the sector profit margin at the least ? For such short distances a good car service would be good enough one would hope.

Contrarily what are the longest distances that an aircraft would be flown empty to position for a charter and apart from a NetJets would this be viable in the long run ? Thanks for any replies.

[First.officer]

Ah, wouldn't worry too much about the cost to the company concerned (in respect of positioning flights to/from airfields), as I think in the main the positioning cost will have been included in any price quotation given, and subsequently paid by charterer.....short hops of 10 mins etc., whilst agreed are easily do-able by car and alike, at the end of the day, it's all about convenience for the end user, and that's why it happens....

F/o

[Above The Clouds]

Our shortest positioning flight is 6 to 7 mins and longest is 5 hours that we do regularly cost never seems to come into the equation.

[SpringHeeledJack]

Thanks for the replies chaps. Obviously there is a difference between a privately operated aircraft for one principle passenger(s) and cost is irrelevant for the most part, but is this the case for charter aircraft up to a point ? Even a 10 minute flight will have a block time of an hour or more what with preflight and post flight checks etc.

[what next]

Even a 10 minute flight will have a block time of an hour or more what with preflight and post flight checks etc.

No. A ten minute flight has a block time of maybe 20 minutes. Block time counts between the moment when the aircraft leaves it's parking position under own power to the moment when it comes to a full stop at the destination. What you mean is "crew working time" which can be much more than one hour for a ten minute flight... But working time has no commercial value when aircrew are concerned, therefore it is not counted.

[SpringHeeledJack]

Indeed, thanks for the correction, that's what I meant to say :ok:

[x933]

Other thing to bear in mind is the airport may geographically be only 20mi away - but the the drive time could be considerably more.

For the sake of argument, take Biggin Hill. Quite a few city types live fairly local to EGKB (within 30-45min). But it's a 90min drive to Farnborough or even worse to Luton. At the light jet end of the market your average punter may well say "pfft, i'll drive" - but once you start getting into the bigger stuff - midsize and upwards - one can afford to have one's jet come and meet them.

For aircraft owners, hangarage can play a big part as well. I know of at least 5 aircraft based at Farnborough/Stansted where there is guaranteed hangarage available, yet they live in (or have business in) North London and regularly fly from Luton (where hangarage isn't guaranteed).

[Booglebox]

We once positioned an aircraft from NHT to LHR, as we had dropped off some pax there, and then we had to pick up some different pax who were arriving on a commercial flight. Great circle distance is about 4NM :E as F/o says, it's all about convenience.
Any positioning flight is viable if the client pays for it... and then you can earn some pocket money by selling the empty leg, too. Hurrah!

[Globally Challenged]

SVFR from Biggin to Northolt was a highlight

[dallas]

We were quoted a difference of £6k between a pax drop off at Luton or home base at Stansted. We gave the client the option - an interested broker should.

[SSOGL]

Airfield operational hours play a factor too on determining if a positioning leg needs to be carried out or not. PAX want to depart London at 23:00, but aircraft is at Biggin Hill is going to mean a positioning sector up to Luton or Stansted just as an example.

[604guy]

Three points for consideration that I often deal with:

1) I've done positioning flights of 9 - 11 minutes. For the pax to do the drive between the same two points, 5.5 - 6 hours.
2) For the most part, the biggest issue for the folks that sit in the back is their total travel time. This often means the closer the aircraft can be located to their actual point of departure (office/home etc) to their actual destination (office/home etc) the more efficient the entire movement exercise is. If you calculate the cost/worth per hour of many of these people to the shareholders then the cost of repositioning an aircraft becomes chump change.
3) For some people and in some locales, security of surface travel is a consideration. So, if that mode can be reduced in those instances, then that's what happens.

[Tray Surfer]

I have done a positioning flight of 11 minutes…

There was no space to keep the aircraft on the ramp at the airport the pax were using, so we had to move the aircraft to a small regional airport just outside the city. Meant a quick 11 minute flight to the principal city to prepare for pax flight home.

Was amazing the take off on a Falcon 900 with no pax, no luggage, not a massive amount of fuel etc… Was like a blinking rocket! :ok::D:ok: