Yes, it Can Be Done! It Just Hasn’t Been Done YET!
The Real and actual market for the business of business aviation goes far beyond what anyone in Business aviation thinks it is or can even imagine it to be.
More importantly, all the infrastructure is already in place to take it –and own it all.
Now I understand that the business of business aviation is made up of wannabes and Dunning Kruger types who think they already know everything without ever bothering to learn anything about aviation. So, what is the point in listening to me? Well, being genuinely profitable, making money legitimately, and being successful are a few reasons.
I am not a Dunning Kruger wannabe, but a proven, fully rated pilot, and the creator of two globally known and proven aviation companies. One is going strong after 54 years with the other still operating 34 years later.
And then there is the fact that I have proven I know how to make serious money logically in business aviation without the dodge.
Meantime, the Dunning Kruger specimens are telling everyone they are doing multiples of billions in business aviation right now today without ever differentiating between gross and net? And in aviation, that is important, some might say a bit illusory.
I know business aviation at every level, and I can say with specificity, that the way it operates today, business aviation simply cannot be profitable for everyone involved. Aircraft owners are notably at the end of the food chain as they predictably know nothing about aviation, except that they would like to make money from their aircraft, and therefore are willing to believe everything and anything they are being told regarding what might be in it for them.
Fractional, piggyback charter, aircraft management companies, shares, cards; they do not own their airplanes. Why would they? That would be crazy when their customers are already responsible owners of the airplanes. That leaves operators to just focus on making money for themselves at the owners’ expense. Think that is too much? Explain Piggyback chartering, fractional, cards etc. Anyone see a pattern?
While it is a lot easier to understand how to do it right, right does not make any money for aircraft owners in today’s way of operating. For some, it is easier to manipulate financial records to “improve” financial results using a multitude of tactics, especially for the Dunning Kruger aircraft owner.
If you say you are doing multi billions in business right now, today, is that gross or net? Is gross income used to sound good in order to fake it? Or is net income really just the turd in the punchbowl? That is why most aviation operators want to talk about their gross income, instead of their net profits. It is New Speak for Double Think.
There is not one aviation business that even approaches, or can conceive of, what I am talking about for several reasons.
- They cannot conceive of anything that is not already a standard operating system or model. The “going-along-to-get-along” archetypal is their current and only mantra.
- “All” the current models of business aviation that exist today, are and have been, completely wrong since 1962 that I know of.
- The innovators of these flawed systems are either pilots (who do not care or know anything about the business side), or MBAs (that know nothing about the inventive, creative, or entrepreneurial side) of aviation. Or worse yet, there are the trust fund babies (TFBs) that are consistently involved in the development of business aviation with standard and predictable results (yawn). I have seen this from my first days of involvement with business aviation. My first job around airplanes was in Van Nuys CA washing planes and pumping gas. The person who owned the company, the wannabe “Big Shot” in aviation who I was working for, was an heir to the well-known sewing machine company (you know, a top-of-the-line TFB). And he bet everything he had in his trust fund on the Piaggio-Douglas, PD 808. His only logic was that Douglas never built a bad airplane. Except for one, the PD 808.
- Total lack of knowledge, or understanding about how and why aviation works, is exactly why the business of business aviation does not work, nor will it ever work for everyone in that daisy chain.
- Other brilliant ideas for business aviation consist of Cards, Fractional or time-sharing, Piggyback charter where some operators make money while the aircraft owner always loses money. And there are dozens of other insipid ideas that operators think could work, but in reality, they cannot, do not, and will never work. They’re just more dinosaurs waiting to go extinct.
Now, I could go on and on about the failings of business aviation, but that just gets boring, redundant, depressing, and annoying.
So, let’s talk about what could be. How about a system where everyone involved makes money, from operators, to brokers, to the company? And most importantly, especially for the aircraft owners! Why not develop THAT? And yes, THAT can be and SHOULD be done, and will EVENTUALLY be done, by SOMEONE.
We are not talking about just making enough money so you can say you made some money, or got another loan, but making real money, billions and billions in EBITA.
You can be a current or existing operator, or even a newbie, or a wannabe wanting to do exactly what I am talking about, make money in business aviation, a LOT of money. However, there is this one little and essential condition; you want to do it right. But you do not have a clue how that can or will work. If you did, you’d be doing it now, wouldn’t you?
As I possess the natural and proven skills for flying, I was requested by the Federal Reserve Bank to build them a system that would deliver $850 billion a week of cancelled checks on time every time in 1969, They came to me because I was delivering my materials for a Cleveland bank on time 99.75%, while a major (well-known) airline was only making it 44% of the time. So, I did that for them in 1969 under the name of Midwest Air Charter, which became known as Airborne and is known today as DHL. Then in 1988, while I was Chief pilot for Mercedes Benz North America, I created and co-founded with Rick Haskins Jet Support Services Inc., aka JSSI.
Prior to JSSI there was nothing like JSSI, but in 1988/89 I developed the concept and made it work, and it is still there today, although a farce of its former construct, but it is there (I left the company in the 90’s before anymore innovations could be implemented).
So, is there a better way to make aviation work? Absolutely! And I know exactly what the solutions and formulas are-with my system. A new or existing company will make billions in real profits in aviation without being just another modified financial services company, or other babbling barf.
Yes, a real aviation company operating in aviation that makes billions, not just for operators, but for owners and everyone involved is doable. It is simple. It has a low overhead. it works. And its components have been proven. Twice.
Want to learn about it, great will need an NDA and we can go from there. Contact me at www.rick.eriksen@cox.net
