NetJets Europe is different. Its 900 pilots - trained by Berkshire Hathaway owned FlightSafety International Inc. - only fly for the company. The average captain has flown for 5,000 hours and only flies in that aircraft type.
Earlier this year one online charter company announced that they had more jets available to them than NetJets Europe, the largest business jet operator on the continent.
The comparison is unfair. NetJets Europe is not a charter operator. Charter companies claim that for the majority of flights they are much cheaper, and that customers are entitled to question where their monthly management fees are going. But in the charter market there is no consistency. You get the aircraft, pilots and crew that are available that day.
NetJets Europe is different. Its 900 pilots - trained by Berkshire Hathaway owned FlightSafety International Inc. - only fly for the company. The average captain has flown for 5,000 hours and only flies in that aircraft type (a big difference to charter where pilots may frequently switch aircraft).
NetJets Europe has a fleet of 150 aircraft. Apart from a core fleet owned by the company itself these aircraft are owned by customers and only available for them. Outsiders cannot charter any of these aircraft. And the company needs this flexibility - some 40% of flights are booked the same day.
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The main difference between them and the charter companies is service - a constant and consistent service.
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Tom Porter , Journalist, Corporate Jet Investor .
Its operations centre in Lisbon is an exercise in quality control. Customer teams are arranged by language rather than by country to ensure convenience and speed with bookings, and are available 24 hours a day.
(NetJets Europe says that cultural stereotypes are reflected in customer behaviour - the Italians are more likely to be late than German customers and the British change their itineraries with remarkable frequency)
Every aspect of NetJets Europe's operations is controlled here, from maintenance control, flight dispatch and scheduling to ground operations and catering. Everything is kept in-house including pilot training - pilots have specialist simulator training for flying into mountainous airports like Sion, Chambery and Innsbruck.
They also keep records of passengers here. The cabin crew take notes regarding customer preferences. If one likes sushi, for example, but does not eat the eel roll they make sure next time there is an alternative. If a customer has left their car at an airport in the middle of winter, NetJets staff will make sure their heater is on when their plane taxies over.
The customer gets their preferred newspaper each time they fly, with the supplements they have no interest in taken out. A consumables corporation entertaining clients will see only its brand on board.
Corporations are important customers, with the biggest of them flying several hundred hours per year. Ten corporations account for 10% of NetJets Europe's profits - one even uses NetJets as a back-up, to follow their own jets around in case there is a problem.
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It is about giving passengers the same experience each time they fly, but catered for them - which is something charter cannot provide
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Chris Janaway, Director of Crew Management., NetJets Europe.
The last few years have been tough for NetJets Europe and NetJets Inc., the US sister company. Together the two companies lost $711 million in 2009 (although much of this is write-offs it did not include interest paid to NetJets Inc.'s parent Berkshire Hathaway).
In 2010 NetJets Europe managed to cut Eu100 million ($135 million) from its costs but it says it did this without having to cut customer service. Chief Operating Officer Mark Wilson says NetJets Europe was profitable in 2010, and with "cautious optimism" he expects it to be profitable in 2011. Sales of fractional shares have been increasing over the last year, and the next fleet renewal is. It will soon start marketing the planes from Bombardier and Embraer.
Wilson does not see a return to the rapid growth of the last 10 years. He is wary of those who come into the market trying to make a ‘big splash' by under-pricing and don't last. "We want to be sustainable," he says.
Corporate Jet Investor
www.corporatejetinvestor.com
Author: Tom Porter
Nov 28, 2011