Reality Check

[CitationJet]

Was speaking with an operator (a good one) who remarked how in the last 15 years or so, charter has all but dried up, and very few organisations or individuals would even contemplate chartering an aircraft for interstate or intrastate travel.

Recently private hired a B-58 from same operator (who in turn x-hires it). Nice panel etc, but shredded seats and seat covers. The pax I carry are prime candidates to use aircraft for charter or even to learn to fly. When they arrive at the airport they step from a current year Porsche Boxter, or BMW or Benz. What sort of impression does it create for would-be customers when they are presented with seemingly run-down and neglected aircraft. Is it any wonder there is no charter industry anymore.

Your thoughts?

[Ref + 10]

Did you go out and check the plane out before chartering it? You always get what you pay for!

[DOA]

Your choice. pay for a taxi and what do you expect.

b-58 why? personally wouldn't

[Wizofoz]

CJ

When Ansett folded I desperatley wanted to stay in Aviation. One avenue I explored was investing in a GA company and flying for them as an owner. One prominent bussiness was in fact selling shares at the time.

A rep showed me over their fleet. Tatty interiors, peeling paint, cracked plastic fittings. The years rolled away and I remembered what GA charter was all about. The kicker was their business plan
was to chase more corporate/ high end business. Hadn't they been on an airliner in the past decade?

One thing GA doesn't seem to get is that not everything is totally cost driven. The beat up old heaps (by the way, the SAME beat up old heaps which were beat up old heaps when I flew them 15 years ago!!) that you haul freight with cannot be the same ones you carry high value clients in.

Business flying is booming in the States, and people are willing to pay a premium to recieve a premium service. I don't think Australian GA fully grasps that concept.

[bitter balance]

Wizofoz, in the US the market is considerably bigger and the airlines (even before 9/11) were plagued by a lack of on time performance. Time management (how much is your time worth) is the big sell in biz aviation. In Oz, there is little market and the airlines cater for the premium bum very well. Charter aircraft make most of their living from contracts before the walk in, hence the freighter/pax a-c.

This doesn't excuse tatty aircraft (which is very unprofessional) but does explain why people don't maintain fleets of wizz bangs looking for walk in trade.

[Wizofoz]

BB,

You are quite right of course. Even when the US airlines are on time, hub and spoke operations and the size and security requirements of US airports make travelling between two non hubs (which may both be large centers) is a pain in the ###e.

Australia will never even have a proportionally equivilent business aviation sector.

My point is what premium aviation we might have is strangled by the "Cheapest possible" mentality of most GA operators.

[bitter balance]

Wizofoz, I agree, the cheap as chips mentality is killing GA, but I don't think its coming from the operators (well, not most anyway). I don't know one operator who wouldn't put on shiny nice equipment if the customers would pay the $$$.

[429 CJ]

It all comes down to $$.

Some operators are 'cheaper' than others, but the good ones usually have the best looking (inside and out) a/c, meaning that those who charge a fair price for what they do will for the most part make (and keep) those a/c looking tip top inside and out. You'd never rent a hire car (or pay top dollar for one), with a ripped interior or bald tyres, a hoodlining hanging down, or bangs and scatches and peeling paint would you? The charter customer expects the same from us.

I guess I've gotten used to the leather seats, new carpet, clear and clean windows and bright shiny paint in most of the a/c that goes along with the organisation that I am involved with..... I'm lucky I guess. :)

[Jamair]

Absolutely!

Another thread touched on this topic - comparing GA CHTR to Helicopter CHTR - you won't find too many B206s et al with the sort of interiors that are all too common in fixed wing GA. I wouldn't expect my pax to have faith in and pay for a dirty ill-kept aircraft.

If the bucks are spent to keep the mechanicals in top order, keeping the cosmetics up is a drop in the bucket - but the customer doesn't look at the logs or under the cowls to see the nice shiny $50K new engine, all they see is the passenger compartment, so logic says to keep it clean and in good repair.

Cheers.

[Ref + 10]

429 CJ is right. Renting a car is a good comparison. A company that rents out new, clean and well maintained cars is obviously going to do better than a company that has old, dirty cars that cough down the road. The down side is the cost of the new cars! With the exchange rate virtually ruling out most operators buying new aircraft from the States, the result is always going to be recycled, old, shabby looking planes.

CJ, the company you work for obviously has means that have been generated outside of aviation! Flying around in a newly decked out aircraft with new paint is always nice but something that is becoming more and more of a rarity in Australian General Aviation.

Bitter Balance,

Wouldn't it be great if an operator has the foresight and financial ability to get their aircraft looking good before a customer came along!? If you stay ahead of the game surely it's easier to stay there than to be playing catch up from the outset.

[Chimbu chuckles]

Ref+10,

Old doesn't have to eqaul 'recycled shabby looking planes'.

You're right that between exchange rates and the product liability insurance chunk(probably half the cost) new aeroplanes are economically out of the question for the vast majority of operators.

A new paint job, interior and a spruce up of the panel can make all the difference though.

What is the REAL difference between a new build B58 and a 1978 model?

For 1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of a new build Baron you can have a 20 year old one with 6000 hour on the airframe that looks and flys like a new one.

There is just no excuse!

Only the pilot should be able to tell how old an aircraft is...not the pax.

Chuck.

[bushy]

The real problem with GA is that too many people are only in it to make a quick buck, or dodge tax. Aircraft wheeler dealers operate charter companies to keep aeroplanes busy until they sell them. They sell them before the engine overhauls come due, and so their charter rates are artificially low. They do not do the major maintenance. Most of the pilots are only in it to get hours to go somewhere else. GA will not be any good until people treat it seriously and take a long term view. Australia desperately needs a good GA industry to serve the outback people,and help develope the mining exploration.

Outback aviator

[High Altitude]

Ref + 10 I can assure you that the said operator has no outside financial inputs. Its more a matter of getting aircraft to a state and keeping them like it.

Where we operate is probably one of the most challenging climates to keep aircraft looking good, the beating sun, dirt strips and amount of work the aircraft do make it hard but not impossible.

First impressions count when it comes to what an aircraft look like. Turn back the years to Executive Air Charter in Darwin, all of the aircraft were old however they all had the shinny white and black paint work...

The cosmetic side of an aircraft is the cheapest and easiest to keep looking good, mind you at $16,000 for a set of Baron windows?????

HA.

[Ref + 10]

Chuck, I agree with all you said but all too often these days aircraft aren't shiny and clean with neat interiors. It's just the way it seems to be. In my humble experience at least :(

HA, the "outside financial influence" I referred to was 429 CJ's reference to new planes. My experience has again been that the new aircraft I have come across over the last seven years or so, have all belonged to airlines or business people with jets/turbo-props. New planes are a rarity in GA.

I worked in one of those "beating sun, dirt strip" environments too but I never learnt to sew which made repairing the ripped seats pretty tough. I did my best to keep my plane presentable though, as I think all pilots with a bit of pride do.

Ref

[gaunty]

CitationJet
Great thread and you should get onto WizofOz buy one of your namesakes and get on with it.

All of the above are the reasons that GA is in the funk hole it is.

And we are still only talking about it.:p

Wizofoz got it exactly in one. The owners of most of these outfits seem to think that it is all to do with flying aircraft.:rolleyes:

[High Altitude]

Gaunty,

FLYING THE AIRCRAFT IS THE EASY BIT..........

[Wizofoz]

Thanks Gaunty, but a CJ is a LITTLE out of my price bracket! Take off a Zero and we might be talking! Can you make a living with a nice 421?

[gaunty]

Nup,

Whilst they are a great aircraft for business use, I think I just recently put the mockers on them as a charter vehicle.

[U2]

The unfortunate thing about Australian aviation is that all our hardware comes from western countries. Considering that the majority of aviation occurs in the U.S.A. I wonder if Inida or
Pakistan make any affordable light aircraft, etc! It is insane to pay millions of dollars for a new light aircraft from the U.S.A. Even a C206 at .5 M is too expensive.

It is good that Gippsland are making aircraft for the Australian market, but they are still too expensive for the Australian market.
Maybe if they designed modern or indigenous style aircraft rather than hybrid american aircraft, they may prosper.

U2

[Centaurus]

Saw a four bar Aztec captain the other day. Sunnies over his forehead to match. My goodness he looked a real cool dude waiting for his horse racing punters to turn up. Pity about the poor old battered Aztec though but I guess the punters would be so blinded by his big gold wings and watch that they wouldn't notice anything else. Yup! That's GA for you.

[drexel]

I think if you took a panel off almost any GA aircraft in
Aus and showed it to one of the older LAMEs on the airport
he could probably give you a story for each of the ten different layers
of paint the AC has had in its long life.
Where as the seats and interior normaly speak for themselves.
I hate it when i give the saftey brief to the passangers and show
them the opperation of the doors but they inevetabley focus on the door trims that are falling off and the bits of uppolstery that are missing.
Its always good to inspire confidence in people not normaly associated with
GA. and they dont even know what that green stain on the wing is.

[Towering Q]

Nothing raises their eyebrows quite like the 'hundred mile an hour tape' holding the wing strut fairing together.:eek:

[drexel]

where would GA be without silicone and hundred mile an hour tape .

[the wizard of auz]

And what, may I ask, is wrong with hundred mile an hour tape TQ?, sheesh I've seen worse. If ya really wanna raise some eyebrows try fifty mile an hour tape..............it comes off as you rotate and really gets em going. :D :D

[Ski Guru]

hey drexel get back to work, fix that door trim:D

[bushy]

Gaunty. What do you mean when you say you "just put the mockers on" the C421 as a charter vehicle? Surely the C421 meets charter standards, and has been used for charter for decades. Please explain.

[Dale Harris]

Hey wiz, does that mean that when I was hanging ***** on you about your 310 and hundred mile an hour tape I was a lot closer to the truth that even I suspected???????? Come to think of it, you did seem to protest just a little too much!!!!!!! Hahahahahahah :D :D :D P.s. Hope she's going alright........



BUSHY, You'll be sorry you asked, trust me.........!!!

[Highbypass]

Has anyone noticed or mentioned here (I haven't read the whole lot.......too busy......(GA???)) that charter aircraft are either pretty but run like a bucket, or ugly and go very well with all the good gear? I know the Aztec that Centaurus is talking about. It's in the ugly and uncomfortable catagory but goes like the clappers........

......................H.:cool: