Business Aviation Is More Than You See on TV

Business Aviation Education from Aargus Air Charter                                                                                  Volume 1, Post 18

Based on what you see in the movies and on television, you’d reasonably assume all business aircraft were luxuriously appointed, 14-passenger large cabin jets. But did you know that the vast majority of business aircraft seat six passengers in a cabin roughly the size of a large SUV and fly average trips of less than 1,000 miles?

I’ll bet you also thought that only major corporations use business aviation. It turns out that Fortune 500 companies fly about 3 percent of the approximately 15,000 business aircraft registered in the U.S. Small companies operate the majority of business aircraft. Most companies (59 percent) operating business aircraft have fewer than 500 employees, and seven in 10 have less than 1,000 employees.

TV and movies would also have you believe that only the President or CEO of the company uses the business jet, with most of the seats going empty. The facts are quite different. Most business aviation flights involve time-critical trips by sales, technical and middle management employees, not trips by top executives.

How does this information change your thinking about business aviation? What have you taken for granted about business aviation, based on television, books, and movies? What questions do you have and what assumptions can we confirm or clarify?

Facts in this post are from the 2010 NBAA Fact Book available online at http://noplanenogain.org