London Ashford airport-based Atlantic Bridge Aviation Group (ABA) has launched an intelligent software program called Flight Plan that is designed to comprehensively analyse a client's travel patterns in order to identify the most cost-effective option for them. These options include scheduled airline travel, ad hoc charter of an executive aircraft, block hours purchase, fractional ownership or full ownership and operation.

The operator has spent more than three months developing Flight Plan, which MD Jonathan Gordon says is guaranteed to deliver an unbiased and accurate recommendation to suit each corporate individual's needs.

“We conduct an interview with the client, preferably face-to-face although it could be done by phone, where we work our way through a series of questions,” he says. “At the end of the process the answers provided will enable the program to identify the recommended form of travel and the net cost or saving to be made. All forms of travel are shown and compared to our AirShare fractional ownership scheme. We take into account how many times you travel each year, the average length of trip, average number of days away on each trip, and average number of passengers travelling. We also examine the size of the primary passenger's total salary and remuneration package and, as appropriate, any other passengers' salary packages so that we can calculate lost productivity during the time it takes to complete a journey, all in complete confidentiality.”

Besides AirShare, the ABA Group includes an AOC operation that has two divisions, Lydd Air which performs scheduled services, and World Executive Airways which offers executive charter.

“I guess what prompted the production of Flight Plan was an association which I had with US magazine Business and Commercial Aviation back in the late 80s and early 90s when it published a very well-researched series called Management Mobility,” Gordon adds. “It was looking at the Fortune 500 companies in the States, analysing which ones had a flight department and the ones that utilised corporate air transport. It was able to show that, without question, those companies that used in-house air transport enjoyed a tangible improvement in their profitability that they could show was a result of savings of productivity.

“Flight Plan is a way of objectively looking at a client's travel requirements. The computer software is designed to take into account all the things that would make up a journey, either for an individual wanting to go from A to B using major international airports, or using a corporate means of air travel from an airport closer to where they live or where they work. Or, by using smaller airports, to be dropped off somewhere closer to where they really want to get to.”

Gordon cites studies illustrating that an average US top executive senior management worker brings in at least four times the value of their salary in terms of productivity. As package value increases, so does the multiple of productivity, as he explains: “Someone who is on $10 million a year would be bringing a huge level of productivity into the company. We try to guide clients through productivity, because there is a difference between Americans and the British in terms of mindset and modesty. When you talk to British executives and ask them what they think their productivity factor is, you have to tease it out of them a little bit. But generally speaking those same rules would apply. If you have someone on a jet who is on £300,000 a year with a productivity multiplier of five, and 2,000 productive hours in a year, he can start to save four or five hours per return journey by travelling on a corporate jet. The retention of productivity when factored into the cost of flying in a private jet will really start to make a big difference. In most cases for these types of individuals, there is actually a saving in the year rather than a cost.”

Flight Plan loads in roughly 15 to 20 pieces of lead data to conduct the analysis. If the client is better off travelling by scheduled airline, the system will illustrate this. Gordon is also keen to promote his fractional offer AirShare, whereby eight shares are sold in an aircraft.

“The Flight Plan program will recommend what the optimum number of shares is for the person to own, and in what type of aircraft.” When flying on the scheme, clients are charged the direct operating cost plus 15 per cent, and ABA protects the client against any unforeseen engineering bills. “If there is a faulty engine, they are covered,” promises Gordon. “This is why we charge the contingency. They also pay a management fee, which represents the fixed cost of what it takes us to run the AOC. Unlike some other schemes, our fractional fleet operates under an AOC so anyone can travel; the shareholder doesn't actually have to be on board the aircraft.

“The sort of package that starts to make sense of corporate air travel is an executive who is on about £150,000 a year, with a productivity multiplier of four and just one of them travelling. That then starts to point to the fractional or block bookings on aircraft like the Chieftain. The program will withstand any accountant looking at it and has been designed to do so."