You audit your financial services. You also call in consultants to update you on processes and practices. But what do you do when it comes to aviation related issues? How do you ensure that your aviation function, whatever that might be for you, whether charter, fractional, a partnership or whole ownership, or even airline utilization, with or without a travel agency, is optimal for your company?
You might reply to these questions by saying that you have made a key senior leader responsible for travel. But is that one of the person’s areas of expertise? Your company may not only spend a lot of money paying for aviation services, but you can also spend a lot in inefficiency. How will you know? Some companies put a senior leader over logistics and travel. Others have logistics in manufacturing and travel in corporate services and business aviation falls there or under another key leader.
Travel/aviation needs the same business processes that you use for your other business decisions. Giving them due diligence and applying evaluative and ongoing analytical processes, helps assure that your ongoing needs are met and that your spends and benefits are optimized.
Just as you likely don’t give a group carte blanche to your finances, you should not with your air travel. Many considerations can benefit your bottom line by minimizing risks about which you may have never heard. The results and providing what you now may think are unthinkable solutions, which can play a key role in your profits. Studies of S&P 500 companies performed both pre and post 9/11, have shown that business aviation is a contributor to their success.
To find out what your optimal air travel solutions might be, I suggest that you engage in unbiased review and advice. So many business leaders have limited biased information on air travel. Aircraft, charter and fractional sales people, and even your in-house flight department, may be providing you solutions leaning to their best interest and not necessarily that of the overall enterprise performance.
Some companies have their own aircraft and flight department with only minimal communications with the company travel, security and safety functions. Optimally there should be thorough relations across the enterprise; HR, marketing, sales, manufacturing and even finance. By doing so, your company can maximize its effectiveness and efficiency with minimal risk. By utilizing business process and unbiased crosschecks you will have a more sustainable and transparent travel solution for your needs.
In the midst of on-going public skepticism of business aviation, the lack of integration with the enterprises that we serve has been our Achilles’ heel. Many business aviation functions are simply reapplying old habits, in this time that calls for out-of-the-box thinking.
For instance, when you hire your other business professionals in your company, you hire the best you can find. You do so with confidence that they will help your company to be the best in your market. At a time when the value that bizav can bring to your bottom line is most important, and under public scrutiny, reproducing history or maintaining status quo in the business aviation function is not what is needed.
Aviation functions need to be doing things you do in the rest of your company – finding new ways to optimize; communicating their value and needs in ways that you and your stakeholders understand and value. Companies engaged in air travel need aviation leadership and guidance. Good leadership and guidance that can relate the corporate air travel needs to the corporate strategies.
Your aviators need to be capable of representing your enterprise, with impressive finesse, to your clientele and market environments. Aviators are exposed to a myriad of people. Not only do crewmemebers have obvious interaction with passengers, but the people on the ground have contact as the passengers pass throught the facility. The people on the ground also have exposure to those who might be meeting or picking up the passengers. The aviation function can be the first face of your company.
Other areas of the enterprise need to understand the value in following air travel strategies and how their practices can tie in to added effectiveness, efficiency and risk minimization. By getting internal buy-in and support your ability to develop a sustainable and transparently existing aviation function are reinforced, or even empowered.
Whether you are just getting started in business aviation, or are already utilizing some facet of it, bring in people who have good judgment, who fit your corporate profile and who are versed in understanding the challenges facing business aviation today. Simply hiring people who have flown the aircraft you are about to fly or have managed operations like yours is short sighted.
Understand the importance of focusing on the higher values when hiring aviators. Get help with this. A good aviator can tell you that experience in the exact same aircraft or type operation you are going to fly is not always the best measure. A sufficiently experienced aviator with high values and standards can easily be trained for your airplane.
Diversity among your aviation function is as valuable as it is anywhere in your company. A diverse workforce of aviators may mean you get prior military, airline, or civilian aviators that speak many languages and have talents that fulfill all the the necessary team components for a well rounded and healthy team.
You need quality professionals who can bring you a maximized return on your investment. They should be brought in and indoctrinated to your company and groomed to represent your company. These people may be representing your company when you least expect it; and to very influential parties.
Make sure that you have taken the same care as you would hiring your senior sales individuals. If you do this, you will be amazed at the ability of your aviation function to become sustainable, transparent and a big bottom-line contributor.
Fly With One Pilot or Two?
Many, if not most, of the business aviation operations in the world are single pilot, or could be performed single pilot. The question is, “when is it best to add another pilot?” The bottom-line answer is, “most of the time.” But like most answers in business, it depends. Consider the demise of JFK Jr. who was known to take a second pilot, but on a night he did not, he perished (See: JFK Jr NTSB report).
Whether you can fly with only one pilot first depends on the governmental certification body, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). If their certification requires two pilots for the design of the aircraft; then, you must comply regardless. However, aircraft under 12,500 pounds, including the new VLJs (Very Light Jets) are single-pilot certificated. That does not mean that you should fly only single-piloted.
Flying a simplified single-engine airplane in a rural environment can be safe and even joyful. But when you look at the flying around cities and combine the mission with business, I issue strict caution. Some people assume that today’s technically advanced aircraft make it safer to fly single-pilot – again CAUTION! There are a number of issues to consider.
The operation of some sophisticated avionics during flight is likened to taking driving on the cellphone to the steroidal level. Whether the advanced equipment is a benefit or hindrance depends heavily on the capabilities of the pilot. Does the pilot fly quite often and is he or she well versed in the aircraft, its avionics, systems and the air traffic environment? Is the pilot performing business at the stops; how much is the go/no-go decision being affected by external pressures – this is very important!
Corporate pilots, for instance, flying $50 million aircraft especially feel external pressure. More than once, I have heard quotes and comments along the lines of, “why have we spent $xxM to have an airplane to go where we want to go, when we/I want to go, only to be now told we can’t go?” That is real pressure on a pilot. That, I’m afraid, is not far removed from what we might hear of the demise of the Polish leadership that perished earlier this year – in a multi-piloted transport (See: Polish Plane Crash Pilot Was Under Pressure, TVN Says, Bloomberg, July 14, 2010).
Just as businesses have evolved from single-proprietorship’s into sophisticated regional, national or even global businesses, aircraft and the air-system have evolved. You understand the advantages of teams and the synergy brought about by multiple minds. Well, it is no different in modern aviation. So, why would you put your “team” in the back of a plane with only one pilot up front?
Airlines Versus Business Aviation
Business travel choice is about the value – the most bang for your buck. You are in business to make money. You are not in business to merely focus on the least cost. If that were the case you would not have a computer with which to read this and you would not make much money in today’s world. We have learned to leverage. Whether it is leveraging a loan, a deal or property, the idea is to use all that we can to make as much as we can – tell me I’m wrong.
This does not mean leveraging blindly. Leveraging is done by balancing something against its risks, but to know the risks you must know the hazards. If you know, or can get access to, what the hazards are you can analyze the risk and balance that against the costs and make your decision.
But with regard to air travel, “do you know what you don’t know,” to steal an argument from my fellow aviator and Forbes: Wheels Up blogger Susan Friedenberg. You are likely a non-aviator and are busy running a business or an aspect of a business. There are people associated with aviation, like myself and even some of my peers writing for Forbes: Wheels Up, who have groomed themselves to provide professional expertise to help you maximize your air travel experience.
That experience can encompass many parts of aviation, but knowing which part to use, when and how, that is where we come in. We can help your staff understand when each mode is appropriate for your needs – and some of us do so in a very unbiased fashion with no ties to sales other than our own services.
By traveling on your own schedule, with next to no pre and post flight process time, taking you closer to where you need to go, and on a flight where you can have the ultimate climate for whatever you need – online work, phone calls, face-to-face meetings with your travel group… Frankly put, yes, the airlines can be cheaper – but what is the total value and how does it compare to what bizav can provide you? Which mode will help you make more money for a given mission?
A risk management professional commented on LinkedIn about the risks of bizav compared to the airlines. I am engaged in debating this person to come past that perception. Many times airlines are more risky than bizav. The workplace of the airlines is not what it used to be. That is how you get two pilots over-flying their destination and another two not understanding the challenge of in-flight icing and appropriate recovering techniques. To be fair, not all of business aviation is up to par either – bemoaning safety concepts and known industry best practices. My point, is for you to seek unbiased and appropriate advice and make sure you get the most for your air travel spend with the least risk.
I can’t tell you how many times over the years that I have witnessed business people try to push a flight to occur. It does not take much experience for an aviator to become subject to these challenges. The real hazard is an aviator giving into the pressure. This pressure might be regarding only a single mission, but it may be a long-term mild pressure that erodes their safety standards.
A single mission may get compromised simply by a powerful passenger who may repeatedly question or push for the mission. The longer-term mild pressure might manifest in a few ways. It may be that the flight operation has been providing missions that are more hazardous than initially thought, or than is now understood by industry experience. In these cases, the aviators may have become narrowly focused and not in tune with changing industry understandings and or standards, or best practices. Other times, this long-term pressure may be political in nature.
If the politics of the company or the aviation function, puts pressure on the group, or an individual aviator, it can have an adverse affect on aviator decision making. Aviators who might otherwise be positive trend setters can succumb to a negatively charged political house and eventually find their standards soften or more severely eroded.
My point is, you don’t want this. You are not in a life or death battle. You are working to make money. Just as you would not want your accounting to fall victim to people turning to compromised practices, you definitely don’t want the aircraft that fly you, your staff and your guests to be compromised either.
It is up to you, as senior leadership, to understand this much about aviation – that even though the aviators provide service via state-of-the-art technology they are no different than any other business unit. They need healthy leadership and management, and they need you to support them to make the safest decisions that they can make for you and your company. When you provide them this healthy combination you will not only guaranty your safety, you will find what you find with any other healthy business unit – the group will find even more ways to provide value to the company, helping it make more money with less risk.
Not only does the use of business aviation still make sense in 2010, regardless of any recent media perception, it could be of more value to a business now than ever before. Companies that have been operating their own aircraft for 30 and 40 years know that in challenging times, bizav can make more of a difference.
Some of these companies will actually fight harder to protect their aircraft during times of cut-backs. During these times, aircraft can enable a company to do more with less! To business leaders not familiar with business aviation, this can seem unthinkable. But to those who have witnessed the value bizav brings, they know that what I am saying is true. The use of business aviation can help a company crawl out of tough times ahead of the crowd.
Another advantage of present times is the reduced cost of getting into business aviation. The aircraft market has dramatically discounted prices; training prices and insurance prices are down. There are also many ways to arrange a company’s position in, or use of, aircraft, including tax incentives.
You don’t have to jump in over your head. You just have to reach a little. So do some research. Call some of us in to talk with you. Go see what others are doing with their aircraft. You will be amazed at how the cost turns to value if you use the aircraft as a tool for your business.
Given the first half of my life was related to the U.S. military, I was motivated to read the Rolling Stone article that has stimulated the firing of one of two U.S. generals in 50 years. With due respect to the gravity of the topics of the article, I could not help but draw a parallel with business aviation. What clicked with me was that the counterinsurgency (COIN) military strategy is working to create cultural shift in Afghanistan and other countries — the same thing that many of us in business aviation are trying to do with businesses and public perception. In fact, the reason that some of us are contributing to this Wheels Up blog is to help get the necessary support from business leaders to make bizav more sustainable by creating a cultural shift in the understanding of business aviation and what bizav does.
A specific example of a cultural shift within business aviation is that of formalizing safety. Only within the last ten years have flight departments formally engaged in safety programs. How could that be given the enterprises that they served have not only been involved in, but are certified by formal safety programs. The idea that the vehicles responsible for keeping valuable people on valuable missions safe at high speeds and altitudes, could be void of such protocols, only exemplifies the gaps in the relationship between the corporate flight function and the senior leadership.
Just as our military strategists have observed over many years of experience, bizav strategists have learned that the ultimate key to our success is executive leadership understanding. Their level of support is necessary to get bizav to the next levels of performance and success. Businesses really need the use of business aviation in order to meet the demands of this world. But in order to compete business aviation needs to be understood and needs to be performing at presentable levels.
Just as General McChrystal has been stabbed by the popular media, so too has business aviation. So, it is time for a leadership change and to continue with the pursuit of the mission. BizAv helps businesses make money faster and safer. Modern business aviation uses strategy and cognitive understanding to pursue and attain the highest levels of performance. Senior leadership plays an important role ensuring proper leadership and leadership development, resources allocations and other aspects that are already understood and applied elsewhere in the enterprise. All that is needed now is application to business aviation.
Why Bizav Integration Adds Value
Integration of your business aviation function is one of the most important things you can do to maximize the function’s value to your company. Many bizav operations hang on the boss’s trust of the senior aviation leader. This is a naïve, and potentially destructive, and even dangerous, tact. When your company first required a senior financial leader, was she, or he, given carte blanche? Or, given the responsibility with the understanding of the checks and double checks that would occur? Your $2M or $200M flight department leader should be handled no differently. I will caution you to get appropriate advice in implementing the integration. A cold, or sudden, integration can cause as many problems as it should cure or prevent.
By requiring functional interaction with the remainder of the company, the aviation department will be exposed to challenges of its existence and processes and will find its appropriate fit in the company – yes, if at all. If you properly manage the integration and provide sufficient information regarding the past and presently understood value of the operation, this will result in a sustainable ongoing optimization of the service, as well as a growing understanding of the future value the flying will provide. As you have likely discovered with social media, with bizav you are likely to find untapped value just waiting to turn into profits.
It is also not enough to say that your aviation function hasn’t had an accident in thirty something years. Just as you already know it is not simply enough to say that you haven’t had a work-stop loss in ‘x’ number of days. Certifications, state-of-the-art equipment, and well-paid aviators are not enough to prove your level of safety and whether you are appropriately managing your level of risk. You may have in-fighting, low morale, and other organizational culture issues that other areas of your company rid themselves of 30 years ago. But because this operation was allowed to exist, sequester at the airport and managed by its own, your senior leadership never realized the aviators were left out of the equation.
Your aviation operation deserves this attention. With it you can fly your company to successes others will only ponder. You will do so with the utmost of effectiveness, efficiency and minimized risk, that you could even defend on the hill – as Lee Iacocca did in the ‘80s. “The corporate jet is not a perk. It’s a necessity. Believe me, it would be a lot nicer to fly first class in a commercial airplane with a friendly stewardess serving us drinks. But the company jet is a great time‐saver – and stress saver as well.” (Iacocca & Novak, Iacocca: An Autobiography, 1984. p. 257)
Your Hidden BizAv Resources
As an executive making decisions about your business’s use of bizav, don’t overlook the resources at your fingertips. Do not assume that you are getting all of the information that you need. As you likely often remind yourself as a business leader, your information gets filtered. It gets filtered when it comes to aviation, too. In fact, it is safe to say that aviation information often gets more filtered for you. How can you be confident then that you are making the best decisions regarding your bizav use?
You must keep in mind how business aviation has developed – and compensate for it. Initially, biz-aircraft were truly only for the most elite. With decades of use, business aviation became known for the value it provided and the success it ultimately brought the businesses; hence the thousands of business aircraft around our country now.
So, you can understand that aviators who were first brought into BizAv with the most elite were treated as staff to be seen-and-not-heard. The pilots referred to themselves as “glorified limo drivers” – some still do. This is an unhealthy posture and limits communication; sometimes devastatingly so. Imagine a pilot giving in to a boss even when the pilot knows better about a point important to safety.
Even though your aviators may not have been in the business back then, they may have been groomed by that mentality and been left with that understanding. It is up to you as the senior leader to be aware of this and compensate. You may very well have people already on staff who know better and are aware of world-class best practices. Use them. Seek them out.
Integrate your bizav operations fully, as you do with any other healthy business unit. Give the people the attention and training that will give you the most ROI. Do not train them only on aviation matters. Train them in team concepts. Develop their leadership and managerial abilities and business prowess. Do not be schmoozed by the glamour and glitz of the high-tech equipment and the experience of the aviation leadership. Realize that the operation is comprised of people who still need managing. Your senior level involvement can make a consequential difference in the ROI and level of risk associated with your bizav activities.
Restoring BizAv Functionality
The use of business aviation is just as advantageous today as it was last year, the year before, or ten or twenty years ago. The reason businesses are having trouble re-engaging its use is because of the lack of functional business process. In other words, decision makers understood the value of what they were doing flying around in these aircraft but failed to ensure that the parties responsible for operating the function were making it sustainable for the company.
Corporate flight operations all over the country work hard to provide the company with on-demand safe air travel. The trouble is they never saw the reasons to engage with the rest of the company. Many of the people in these operations have avoided interacting with any more of the company than absolutely necessary. Now, when the media has unfairly castigated the industry, the participants do not have the wherewithal to combat the issues on the same scale. As a result of this deficiency, flight departments are succumbing to the negative public perception threat posed to the company leadership. The leaders are then taking the path of least resistance and curtailing this type of flying.
This curtailment of bizav use by businesses is hurting productivity on an economic scale. There are measures companies can take to put business aviation on a sustainable track for the sake of their bottom line. First is to develop an air travel strategy. To do this right, enlist the aid of professionals who are versed at both sides of the equation, business and aviation. Next, integrate the operation throughout the enterprise and develop internal value tracking. By these combined efforts you will maximize the effectiveness of the bizav value proposition and create a knowledge base with which to evaluate the net value of the services. As was noted in the NEXA Advisors 2009 study of S&P 500 companies, you will likely find that your company will prosper by the appropriate use of business aviation services.
