Identified Flying Objects Over Phoenix

January 27, 2008

Travel Bug

By JOE SHARKEY

PHOENIX — IT may be too late now, but if you moved quickly the other day you could have booked a three-night stay over Super Bowl weekend at the Ramada Limited Airport North in Phoenix for a cool $2,382.78.

You read that right. A Ramada wants $2,382.78 for three nights during the Super Bowl.

The swankier hotels and resorts in the Phoenix area, of course, have been booked for months, or even years, for next Sunday’s game. But the astonishing room rates that even roadside properties are demanding say something about the three-day spectacle the Super Bowl has become. Whatever it is to most of the 70,000 or so fans who will be there, it’s corporate America’s Mardi Gras, no expense spared, to the businesses that cater to them.

Consider the private jets. The Arizona skies will be full of them next weekend, as corporations and well-heeled individuals head to Phoenix with clients or colleagues in tow.

As of Friday, about 400 private jets had already made arrangements to fly in. Private-jet schedulers say that this is the most ever, and that an epic traffic jam could ensue in the skies.

“We’re getting booked like crazy,” said Steven M. Hankin, the chief executive of Sentient Jets, a big private-jet charter company that is booking Super Bowl weekend luxury packages. “We’re seeing a significant increase in demand for flights to Phoenix, more than we have for previous Super Bowls,” and a 50 percent increase from the event last year. A mere $9,399 gets you a 50-yard-line ticket, four nights in a four-star hotel, transportation to the stadium and other perks (private jet not included).

NetJets, the largest operator of fractional-share jet ownership programs, has a worldwide fleet of more than 700 private jets of all sizes. “We are forecasting 300 flights in and out of Phoenix,” at Sky Harbor and six area general-aviation airports, said Richard T. Santulli, the NetJets chief executive.

Luxury packagers and private-jet companies were ecstatic last weekend when the New York Giants and the New England Patriots emerged as the two Super Bowl contestants.

“The Giants in particular have a huge corporate fan base,” said Robert Tuchman, the founder of TSE Sports and Entertainment, a company in New York that arranges high-end corporate hospitality packages to events like the Super Bowl, the U. S. Open and the Kentucky Derby. “And 99 percent of our clients are corporations that are looking to entertain clients at these events.”

Many of those companies already have their own jets, although event planners will also arrange charters. Mr. Tuchman’s company has a basic $6,000 package that includes four nights at a four-star hotel, a game ticket, ground transportation and a spot in a celebrity golf tournament.

But hotels, golf tournaments, ground transportation, celebrity-studded parties and the like are easy enough to arrange in a major resort area. The biggest Super Bowl challenge, some organizers say, will be getting all those private jets in and out.

Nathan McKelvey is the chief executive of Jets.com, which has access to a fleet of 19 aircraft, mostly big ones like Gulfstream 4s. In general, he said, the cost for 10 hours of flying on a big private jet will run roughly $60,000, plus tax.

“The customers are mostly corporations entertaining clients,” he said.

In an interview last week, Marlene Purswell, senior vice president for operations at LegFind.com, a Jets.com online subsidiary that arranges jet trips, said Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport and several smaller airports in the area were still tabulating just how many flights to expect.

Two days before the conference championship games last Sunday, one of two major private terminals at Sky Harbor, Swift Aviation, had already logged requests for 490 arrivals and departures.

“And I’m sure there’s going to be a big spike in that number,” Ms. Purswell said.

TO prepare for the biggest traffic jam — Sunday night, when all those private jets try to depart at once — NetJets, Swift Aviation and several others are planning to set up reception centers and lounges to entertain private-jet passengers experiencing long waits. “We already know we’ll get a whole bunch of people arriving at once, and it will take some time to get those airplanes out,” she said.

From The Helium Report

Presidential Planes: The Candidates and their Private Jets

http://www.heliumreport.com/archives/969-presidential-planes-how-the-candidates-jet-on-the-campaign-trail

Written by Alec Rosekrans 01/18/2008

As the 2008 Presidential election heats up, you just may have noticed a proliferation of criss-crossing private jet contrails in the skies above our nation. The presidential candidates (and their ample staffs) are scurrying across the country from stump speeches in high school gymnasiums on one coast, to $10,000-a-plate fundraising dinners at the homes of wealthy supporters on the other, often in the same day. In the age of the 24-hour news cycle, private jets have become the unsung workhorses of U.S. presidential politics.So just how are the candidates getting around? In the campaign’s early stages, small- to mid-size jets seem to be the rule. Senator John Edwards has been frequently seen alighting from a Hawker 800. Former Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Hillary Clinton have both favored a number of Gulfstream models (rumor has it that Mrs. Clinton demands no less than a G-III.).

Senator Barack Obama relies on charters for his travel needs, though such flights aren’t without incident. Last November his chartered Gulfstream II landed in Des Moines, Iowa. The problem? It was supposed to land in Cedar City, some 100 miles away, where the Senator was expected at an event. In January, another chartered Gulfstream II carrying Obama and campaign staffers clipped the wing of a parked Cessna at Chicago’s Midway Airport as the candidate was returning to his home base after a campaign swing through Nevada.

During the final stages of the election, the front-runners typically adopt an official campaign jet, a wide-bodied model decorated with the candidate’s standard-issue red, white and blue logo. The Clinton camp made the switch in January and chartered a Boeing 737-800 to better accommodate the large staff, and slew of reporters, traveling with her campaign. On the first trip, Clinton dubbed the plane “Hill Force One.” Make no mistake, the candidate always sits in first class; the reporters on the other hand make due with coach.

Given the high cost of private jet travel, traveling expenses represent a significant portion of most campaign budgets. The Center for Responsive Politics has found that in the early stages of the 2008 campaign, travel amounted to seven percent of the total amount spent by candidates. That percentage is likely to go up now that a much exploited loop hole, which allowed candidates to fly on the corporate jets of their wealthy donors for the price of first class ticket, has been closed by Congress. Some candidates, like former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, have chosen to continue flying on their friends’ corporate jets, reimbursing them at the full market rate for the flight.

How do the candidates’ private aviation choices stack up value-wise against the potential options? A candidate traversing the nation ahead of the primaries would quickly burn through a jet card that sells flight time in 25 hour blocks, but fractional ownership could fit their needs. Then again, the surest bet might be to own an aircraft outright, like potential candidate Michael Bloomberg. If the billionaire mayor decides to toss his hat into the race, we’ll likely see his Dassault Falcon 900 descending in the next primary state.