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June 26, 2009 by ElJetJUNE SETS FREE UPGRADE RECORD AT ELJET
June 26, 2009 by ElJet
The month of June has set a new record for ElJet client upgrades.
Sample upgrade this month.
Cross Country 1995 Hawker 800 to brand new Challenger 300.
Cross Country 1999 Hawker 1000 to 2004 Gulfstream G450.
Cross Country 1987 Citation SII to 2007 Hawker 400XP.
At ElJet we are constantly working to get you the best possible aircraft for your money.
For your next trip please call us at 888-355-3538.
Chicago and Las Vegas – On Sale – Summer Specials
June 24, 2009 by ElJet
Jet Charter Chicago
Wow its summer already. Well its time to take some time off and relax.
ElJet is offering incredible one-way and empty leg deals to Chicago and Las Vegas this summer. Book a round-trip to these two destinations and catering is on us.
Find out about our unique Vegas room and limo specials.
Visit www.ellejet.com or call us at 888-355-3538.
Las Vegas Charter Specials
June 9, 2009 by ElJetElJet Summer Specials
June 6, 2009 by ElJet
Typical Jet Charter
Whether you are looking for fun in the sun or a nice quiet mountain getaway. ElJet is offering incredible deals this summer to you favorite locations.
Sample Itineraries – Jet Charter
San Francisco, CA – Las Vegas, NV
Anywhere from North America to Europe
Prices start as low as $5,000 on a brand new light jet.
Visit www.ellejet.com or call our expert travel portfolio managers at 888-355-3538.
Santa Monica Large Aircraft Ban Blocked
June 4, 2009 by ElJetSource: http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/santa-monica-large-aircraft-ban-blocked/
June 2, 2009
Airports The City of Santa Monica’s longstanding effort to ban Category C and D aircraft from operating into Santa Monica Airport
Jet Charter Santa Monica
was again blocked last month, this time by an FAA hearing officer who ruled on the FAA Part 16 dispute between the city and the FAA. “The ordinance unreasonably and unjustly discriminates against classes of aeronautical activity, and, thus, is inconsistent with the city’s obligations under Assurance 22 of the grant agreements between the FAA and the city,” the officer noted.
When Business Aviation Rebounds
June 2, 2009 by ElJetRead Full Article Here: Click Here
Monday, May 25, 2009
- Analysis by: Jim Haynes
- Analysis of: When Business Aviation Rebounds www.aviationweek.com
- Source: www.glgroup.com
- Implications:
- Recently a group of “luminaries and experts” were assembled by the editors of Business & Commercial Aviation magazine to discuss the outlook for business aviation. Most are longtime friends for whom I have a great deal of respect. Reflecting on the past, the group glanced at their crystal balls for a look at the future. The report of the meeting was titled When Business Aviation Rebounds. The key word is When, and not If.
- Analysis:
- The common thread found in most, if not all, of the comments by the participants was Change, a word we heard a lot last year during the presidential campaign. I don’t believe the change in business aviation will be as dramatic as some in Congress and the Administration have implied with careless remarks made in hearings and speeches. Business aviation change will happen not because of government edict, but because of the necessity that business be more efficient in order to survive in a world economy that is growing at very low rate – lower than anything we have seen in many years.
The airlines are becoming more efficient by cutting back or eliminating service to many small markets and communities, and decreasing the number size of their fleet. This is a bullish trend for business aviation. In the weeks and months after 9/11 when the airlines were in lockdown and security requirements made airline travel, if not impossible, extremely unpleasant, business aviation had its finest hour. Every business jet on a charter certificate was booked. The backlog of new orders for new business aircraft grew for seven straight years. New aircraft from very light jets to the very long-range business jets were developed. Over 6,330 new business jets were delivered in these seven years, more than were delivered in the previous 18 years.
As I write this in late May, the OEMs are projecting deliveries of about 800 business jets in 2009, down from 1,139 in 2008. The Teal Group, a major aerospace research company, believes that new business jet deliveries won’t start to recover until 2012. Then their forecast calls for a five-year recovery period with a 10 percent per year growth rate starting in 2012. Teal estimates the production of 12,768 business aircraft over the next 10 years.
While the industry is working through this down cycle, business jets have not been grounded. Flight hours may be off 20%, but the fleet is still growing, and aging. As the stigma of business aviation wears thin, and it will, and the economy improves, and it will, hours flown will increase. The other two industry drivers, age and size, will continue to grow.
Inefficient manufactures and service providers will consolidate and right size. Innovation will create better products and services. The recovery will provide opportunities not yet even dreamed of. My friend Dick Van Gemert, one of the luminaries, said “someplace in this manure pile is a pony.” He is right.
Oprah: It’s Great to Have a Private Jet – (We Agree)
May 11, 2009 by ElJetStory Link Click Here
The private-jet industry may have finally found its savior.
During a speech to Duke University’s graduating class, Oprah talked about the secrets and joys of success. Among them: owning a mansion and a jet.
“It’s great to have a nice home. It’s great to have nice homes! It’s great to have a nice home that just escaped the fire in Santa Barbara,” she told the students. “It’s great to have a private jet. Anyone that tells you that having your own private jet isn’t great is lying to you.”
She went on to explain that “you haven’t completed the circle of success until you help someone else move to a higher ground and get to a better place.”
The golden nugget here is the jet part. In these times of hair-shirt capitalitsm and envy politics, the wealthy have been going to great lengths to pretend they don’t enjoy luxury or want nice stuff. If Oprah were like most of the faux-populist rich today, she would have said something like, “I don’t need private jets, in fact I’m happier flying commercial and living in a small house. I like the simple life.” Of course, she would be lying.
But she didn’t. She told the truth, which is that flying in a private jet is one of the great material perks that money can buy. (Talk to anyone who used to be rich and they will say one thing they really miss is the jet. Apparently Oprah’s ride is a $42 million custom-build Global Express XRS built by Bombardier Aerospace).
For the past few months, the private-jet industry has been mounting an enormous public-relations campaign to get people to fly private again. It will take a recovery and wealth creation to really turn the business around. Perhaps for the public-relations part, it should forget all the boring arguments about jobs and productivity and efficiency and run a picture of Oprah with one simple line: “It’s Great to Have a Private Jet.”
Deals of a Lifetime – Barrons
May 5, 2009 by ElJetFrom Barrons to see full article click here.
HE SKIES HAVE NEVER BEEN SO TURBULENT for private jets. First came the awful economy, then the public-relations disaster that unfolded when Detroit’s Big
Three CEOs flew their jets to Washington to plead for bailouts. Result: a sharp descent for private aviation — and a huge tailwind for bargain hunters.
Whether you are looking to charter a jet, buy one or pick up a fractional interest, prices are down anywhere from 20% to 50% from a couple of years ago. “Where are the deals in this market? I’d say, ‘Where are they not?’” says Bryan Comstock, president of Jeteffect, a Los Angeles-based brokerage of used aircraft. “There has been an across-the-board price drop on everything.”
Contrary to the populist sentiments of the day, flying aboard your own jet can still be a smart way to travel (see story, “In Defense of Your Own Plane“). That is especially true if you are a busy, well-compensated executive who needs to make the most of travel time. And yes, there are still busy people out there. Here, then, is a guide to the deals of a lifetime.
Charter Flights
A major drawback to chartering jets back in the old days — a few months ago — was that, unlike fractional ownership and jet-card programs, it didn’t provide “guaranteed availability.” A jet simply might not be there when you needed it. But that has changed dramatically, and it is easy to see why: The volume of charter flights was off 47% in February from a year ago, according to Cincinnati-based Aviation Research Group/U.S. That has not only eliminated jet-availability problems but produced huge price cuts.
To read the rest of this article please click here.
Officials consider cost cuts and new fees for Van Nuys Airport
May 5, 2009 by ElJetFrom the LA Times: Click here for link.
The airport agency, looking for ways to trim a projected $9-million deficit, is considering renewing landing fees, reducing staff and charging tenants a ‘debt recovery’ fee.
Years of red ink at the busiest general aviation airport in the world are prompting Los Angeles officials to consider cost-cutting measures and new fees for tenants at Van Nuys Airport, where mismanaged leases and landing fees have cost the airfield millions of dollars.
This is the first time that Los Angeles World Airports has moved to eliminate perennial deficits at the popular facility, home to a range of aviation businesses and more than 700 aircraft — a mix of meticulously restored warplanes, humble propeller planes and luxurious corporate jets.
“There is no excuse for deficits at an airport that is for private use,” said Alan Rothenberg, president of the Board of Airport Commissioners. “Whether hobbyist or corporate jet owner, they should be paying us at least enough to break even.”
Los Angeles officials are looking into renewing landing fees and hitting tenants with a “debt recovery” charge to help close an annual budget deficit that could run as high as $9 million this year — one of the largest gaps since the early 1990s.
Airport commissioners already have raised from 3 cents to 11 cents a fee on every gallon of aviation fuel delivered at the San Fernando Valley airport — a charge that had not been increased since 1979.
Rothenberg said the board began scrutinizing Van Nuys after commissioners learned last year that budget deficits have persisted for decades. Records dating to 1992 show the gaps have ranged from $549,000 to $9.3 million a year.
Former and current airport officials blame the situation on poor management by past administrators and sweetheart deals for some tenants helped by City Council members. They note that major revenue-generating projects have been delayed, and Van Nuys has never been a priority at Los Angeles World Airports, which has been preoccupied with LAX and Ontario International Airport.
In the past, Van Nuys’ budgets have been balanced with revenue — landing fees, terminal rent and concession earnings — from Los Angeles International Airport. The practice has gone unopposed by airlines, which have tolerated the subsidy on the theory that Van Nuys’ low fees attract smaller planes that would otherwise clog busy LAX.
Airport officials say they now want to put Van Nuys on a more businesslike footing and to offset the current economic recession that has reduced flights and passengers across the airport system, including LAX and Ontario, where cost-cutting is underway.
In addition, Rothenberg said the belt tightening could benefit the multibillion-dollar effort to modernize LAX by increasing the amount of debt the airport can take on. If the Van Nuys deficit can be erased, he said, the airport could save enough revenue to pay off almost $100 million in bonds to finance LAX improvements.
Airport commissioners discussed the deficits and possible remedies on Monday when they met at Van Nuys Airport, where the prospect of raising fees and imposing new charges during a severe economic recession has become controversial.
More than a dozen tenants, from private pilots to large charter operators, warn that the approach could backfire by adding to the economic woes of companies that have lost 30% to 40% of their business during the downturn.
“We need to realize that we are in a recession and that more people are going to leave,” said Jim Hansen, owner of Western Jet Aviation, a maintenance facility. “They have their cost factors and the airport is running in the red. But we need to all work together to figure out how to help people survive here.”
Critics of the fuel fee increase, for example, say it could motivate pilots and aircraft owners to refuel at airports with lower prices, hence reducing business for Van Nuys suppliers and lowering revenue from the fee — a projected $1.8 million a year.
There is an overall concern that new charges could drive aircraft away and contribute to a decline in flight activity that has been underway largely due to a long-term decline in general aviation nationally. From 1999 to 2008, landings and takeoffs at Van Nuys have dropped from almost 600,000 a year to about 387,000.
Tenants say they also oppose additional fees because they have been hit by retroactive rent increases going back to 1990 to make up for the airport agency’s failure to reevaluate leases and adjust rents as required every five years.
Audits by the city controller and outside consultants during the last 10 years show that Van Nuys did not raise rents from 1990 to 2003 and leased land for non-aviation purposes without the required approval of the Federal Aviation Administration. The controller concluded that the mismanagement resulted in the loss of at least $24.5 million.
Subsequent audits indicate that Van Nuys is better managing its leases today and bringing rents into line with market values, though more work needs to be done.
“It’s disgraceful,” Rothenberg said. “The airport failed to update its leases, and the tenants benefited from this neglect.”
To help reduce the red ink, Los Angeles World Airports is considering a major overhaul of a landing fee that was initiated in the early 1990s but was never seriously enforced. A 1999 audit by the KH Consulting Group said a landing fee similar to one at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey could raise almost $4 million a year.
Over the years, Van Nuys failed to earn landing fees on hundreds of thousands of flights. Airport officials said they collected about $46,000 during 2007 and 2008 from no more than four companies, including Clay Lacy Aviation and Skybird Aviation-Jet Charter.
A new KH Consulting audit released in December stated that the program is so poorly administered that it has likely created an inequitable situation for aircraft owners and charter companies.
“There will be understandable embarrassment in making a public admission of the problem,” auditors wrote. “This public admission is much preferred, however, to the continuation of the current situation in which some pay, some do not, and no one seems to know what the actual situation is.”
Gina Marie Lindsey, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, said landing fees have been “a hassle” to administer because it is difficult to track private aircraft. Nevertheless, officials are reevaluating the program.
If approved, Lindsey contends the landing fee and other charges should not chase businesses and aircraft away as tenants contend. “We are not pricing ourselves out of the market,” she said. “Van Nuys will remain a very popular airport.”
Instead of new charges, tenants say the airport should reduce expenses and create economic incentives to attract business and keep existing tenants from closing their operations or relocating to cheaper airfields.
Robert Rodine, a financial consultant who co-chairs the aviation committee of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., contends that Van Nuys can cut its staff from 99 to 50, saving about $4 million a year. Comparable airports, he noted, operate with far fewer workers than Van Nuys.
Airport officials say they are considering alternative solutions, such as cutting costs, reducing staff and establishing a state-sanctioned “enterprise zone” at the airport. The program provides government assistance and tax breaks for businesses in economically depressed areas.
“No one is going to be Draconian,” Rothenberg said. “We have to be mindful of the impact of the actions we take, but we cannot sit back and do nothing in the face of a continuing deficit.”
