The Enlightened Personal Traveler
The Gift of Time

Written and Produced by Mark Patiky

If you’re like most people, the last thing you’ll have time for this holiday season is a holiday. Between your business demands and family commitments, coordinating a vacation and getting there commercially has never been more exhausting. So it’s not surprising that the most wonderful time of the year is also one of the most stressful.

How about a getaway on your own schedule? You’re in luck. With access to a private plane, you can take the vacation of a lifetime any time you’d like. And today, quality private air travel is more accessible and affordable than ever before.

“[Having the plane] is a game changer when it comes to vacationing with family,” says Dan Doherty, a commercial real estate developer, father of three and a CitationShares fractional shareowner. “You’re able to go at the times and to the locations you choose. And you’re able to do it in a convenient and efficient manner without layovers or delays.”

On a recent family vacation, one California entrepreneur likewise experienced the pleasures of flying privately. “We arrived, got on board and took off.” His family’s direct flight to Nassau in the Bahamas took a pleasant four and a half hours. Not so for his friends, who went by airline. They had to leave the night before in order to accommodate the eleven-hour commercial schedule.

Today, tens of thousands of businesses and individuals have discovered the amazing benefits that only access to a private plane can offer. And, with access to more than 5,000 airports across the nation that serve local communities with amazing efficiency, private aircraft are touching down in the backyard of every lifestyle. This new generation of personal and business travelers can fly directly to even the most out-of-the-way places. They are living large in small towns, turning vacant vacation homes into permanent residences, enjoying time with loved ones and finding that travel has never been quicker, easier, more productive or more satisfying.

Enjoy Life’s Rich Pleasures
With the ability to fly out and back in just one day, one Midwest insurance executive organizes regular golf outings for his clients at exclusive courses like Sand Hills in Mullen, Nebr., and Bandon Dunes on the Oregon coast — places where airline service is not exactly up to par. Another retired executive takes fellow anglers on frequent excursions to a remote Bahamian fishing paradise that would be virtually impossible to reach via commercial airlines. And one Santa Monica, Calif.-based realtor pilots her own Cirrus personal aircraft directly to her dream home in the Sierras, transforming hours of treacherous mountain driving into a quick, safe hour and a half aloft.

“[Having the plane] is a game changer
when it comes to vacationing with family.”

Dan Doherty, Commercial Real Estate Developer

Imagine where you could go if getting there was never an obstacle. “I found that I was creating hundreds of hours to put back in my life,” says an East Coast entrepreneur who discovered private aviation’s key benefit. “More time to spend with the family has always been priceless, but now it’s also affordable,” he adds.

The Enlightened Personal Traveler is your guide to the many exciting opportunities that private aviation has to offer. It details the wide variety of options that open up the skies for every budget and showcases real people who have discovered the secret to regaining control over their increasingly hectic lives. From jet cards and fractional shares that allow you to work smarter and play harder to new small planes that literally put you in the driver’s seat, access to a private aircraft ensures that you’ll always have time for the things that matter most. This is the dawn of a new era. And now, more than ever, life’s great adventures are awaiting you.

Fractional Ownership:
Part of a Plane, All of the Gain

By delivering all of the time-saving and productivity advantages of a business aircraft at a fraction of the cost of full ownership, fractional ownership and jet cards are making private travel more affordable than ever.

Although NetJets formulated the original fractional ownership model — it remains the largest provider with the broadest global coverage and most diverse fleet of aircraft — nuances, enhancements and varied aircraft choices make each of the major fractional ownership providers and their jet card programs amazingly unique. From a safety, security and service perspective, these companies also have impressive records.

The fractional concept is simple: You invest in a fractional share, then pay monthly management fees plus a per-flight-hour charge, but only for time spent aboard. You enjoy the full advantages and tax benefits of owning an aircraft, yet endure none of the management headaches. And unlike having a plane of your own, you gain the service of an entire fleet. Your airplane is virtually anywhere and everywhere all the time. From Portland, Ore., to Portland, Me., your plane is but a phone call away.

CitationShares
For Dan Doherty, owner of Eastern Real Estate LLC in the Boston area, the idea of flying privately was once but a dream. CitationShares’ fractional ownership program, Citelines, made it practical.

Now, with his CitationShares Sovereign, Doherty is working on projects across the country. “I show up and the plane is there as promised. We’ve never had a [disappointment]. That’s what I’m paying for. It really makes travel much more efficient.” Departing from Beverly Airport north of Boston, he recently visited three properties in Florida and was home with his family the same night. “That is worth a lot to me,” he emphasizes. “And from a family perspective, I am much more willing to take my wife and three young children on a long trip because I eliminate all the potential disruptions that [commercial travel] poses. Try booking airline tickets for five around school holidays, particularly with winter airline delays,” he says. “Now I make that meeting. I take that vacation or unplanned four-day weekend with the family. I meet with that prospect. That’s really the difference.”

Doherty also likes CitationShares’ value-added programs like Impromptu, which allows customers to fly on planes making positioning flights at vastly reduced fees and with no deduction of program hours; and Jaunt, which allows customers to purchase incremental flight hours at reduced rates.

CitationShares also offers its fully refundable Vector JetCard with all the expenses included in one simple hourly cost, something Doherty finds attractive for supplementing his hours as he uses his aircraft increasingly.

Avantair
With a Houston-headquartered car dealership and a dozen stores throughout Texas, Ramsay Gillman, chairman of Gillman Car Company, was juggling long distances and difficult commercial airline schedules. So he bought his own jet, which saved him precious time, but the operational concerns were demanding. Then he discovered Avantair fractional ownership, sold his plane, and hasn’t looked back.

With a 100-hour share in a turboprop Piaggio Avanti, Gillman is flying high, traveling fast and economically, and living life to the fullest. “The Avanti has a lot of features that I didn’t have before,” he says, citing a more spacious stand-up cabin, fully enclosed lavatory, turboprop fuel efficiency and outstanding performance. That means he can land on shorter runways closer to the dealerships. “It’s given me a lot more flexibility,” he says. With Avantair, he has also used two planes simultaneously to take one group of managers to meetings in Dallas and another to New Orleans.

The personal benefits are also considerable. Departing from local Sugarland Airport in Houston, minutes from his home but an hour’s drive from the nearest airline gate, Gillman travels to his second residence in Aspen nonstop in about two and a half hours. Without the plane, he says, “it just wouldn’t be practical to have a second home there.”

“This really is fractional,” says one owner. “It’s a fraction of what other jets cost.” But Avantair Chief Executive Officer and Founder Steve Santo’s pioneering approach goes even further, as Avantair offers a highly popular all-inclusive monthly billing plan that simplifies budgeting and eliminates some of the annoying complexities of fractional ownership.

Another feature for those who desire a great no-commitment way to sample Avantair benefits or for those with more modest flight needs is the 25-hour Avantair Edge Card, which offers the same convenience, safety, performance and comfort as a fractional share.

Jet Cards: A Perfect Fit For Your Budget and Your Pocket

Jet card programs — the hot new way to fly — blend the pay-as-you-go flexibility of charter with the consistency, safety and reliability of fractional ownership. Trips are priced on a fixed hourly cost and a one-way basis without any positioning or empty leg charges. One card, one payment, one call and your jet is guaranteed anytime, anywhere with all the advantages of ownership and none of the obligations. And since most companies offer a full refund on any unused hours, this is one decision that even the most tentative consumer can handle.

Marquis Jet
Marquis Jet broke new ground by combining jet card benefits with the quality, advantages and service of NetJets’ fractional ownership. With a single payment, Marquis Jet Card owners simply buy 25 hours of flight time, gaining access to any of ten different NetJets aircraft types in the U.S. Like NetJets owners, Marquis Jet Card owners have the same guarantee of aircraft availability anytime, anywhere in the nation, in addition to the freedom to interchange for larger or smaller aircraft.

Since NetJets is the only international fractional provider with independent fleets based in Europe and the Middle East, a comprehensive interchange program additionally allows Marquis Jet Card owners to seamlessly coordinate a commercial flight to Europe with continuing service aboard their NetJets aircraft.

Single aircraft cards as well as combo cards that split hours between two different aircraft are both available, but since cardholders can also exchange hours for other aircraft that better suit specific trips, the entire fleet fits in the palm of your hand.

With a Marquis Jet Card, jetting to his favorite vacation destinations is a snap for Orlando, Fla.-based custom homebuilder Brad Hughes. With family and friends aboard his Falcon 2000, he can leave Orlando in the morning and be schussing down the ski slopes near his Utah home by early afternoon. “The vacation starts immediately when we get to the airport,” he explains. The same trip by airline is a challenging, full travel day, especially with a large group including two young children, baggage and skis — and that’s assuming the rare possibility of no delays.

Recently, he and five others chose a smaller jet for the short, no-hassle day trip to Nassau in the Bahamas to research an investment property. The easy flight was a deal maker. “I don’t know if we would have purchased property [there] if we didn’t have a private airplane. It wouldn’t have been worth the time,” says Hughes. The same goes for a property he’s developing in Waynesville, N.C. “Because we can fly [direct], it saves probably four hours each way,” he notes.

“My plane has given me the opportunity to run my business the way I need to
and still spend as much quality time as possible with my family.”

Southeast-Based Homebuilder

Your Turn to Take to the Skies

Paul Aaron, at age 63, experienced the dream of a lifetime. Although he didn’t know how to fly, he bought his first airplane — a single-engine Cirrus SR22 — and within no time he was cruising the skies at speeds of up to 260 mph.

“Earlier in my life, I either didn’t have the money or didn’t have the time, so I never got around to taking lessons,” confides Aaron, who has homes in Omaha, Nebr., and Big Sur, Calif. “By the time I had both, I started to be concerned about whether I was too old to be flying.” Fortunately a good friend assured him it’s never too late to learn.

Now with 230 hours under his belt in his first year, Aaron is exceptionally prepared to take on the challenges of real-world flying. It is all possible thanks to the industry-leading Cirrus Access program, which pairs new owners with a highly trained flight instructor who serves as mentor, teacher and personal pilot for a full year.

Your pilot/instructor is “there full time for your every need,” says Aaron. It means that one can easily fit in flight training on the way to the next business meeting, leisure activity or family event. The flights are intense learning opportunities under a wide range of conditions that most student pilots never experience.

Aaron’s new-generation, piston-powered Cirrus SR22, with its high-tech design, luxury-car interior and incomparable safety features including a ballistic aircraft parachute plus a sophisticated all-digital advanced cockpit, is bringing a wave of new pilots to the skies. Reasonable acquisition and operating costs were driving factors in his purchase decision, Aaron notes. But what really sold him was Cirrus Access, which made it practical for him to buy first with no waiting to enjoy all the benefits.

Yet another innovative development likely to further alter one’s view on travel is the new Cirrus SJ50. This affordable single-engine jet presents an entirely new option that completely redefines personal travel. Slated for delivery in 2010, this remarkable small jet will seat five, cruise at speeds of up to 345 mph and present the latest technological advances for safety, efficiency and comfort.

The New Era of Personal Mobility

A new era is dawning as newest-generation, low-cost, high-tech aircraft are coming to market. Whether used for business or pleasure, these new private aircraft will transform the lives of growing numbers of travelers. Now getting there really is half the fun. “I decided that it was time to stop worrying about scheduling so much, or worrying about getting to the airport two hours in advance,” says Avantair fractional owner Steve Shepard. With his own plane, all those familiar commercial airline hassles have been replaced by “simplicity, comfort and ease,” he says. Another Southeast-based homebuilder notes, “My plane has given me the opportunity to run my business the way I need to and still spend as much quality time as possible with my family. To me, that’s huge.”

“There’s no stress,” adds the CEO of a major West Coast retailer. “We drive to the airport, get out of the car and walk right onto the plane. The next thing we know, we’re at our destination. I never enjoyed travel until now.”

Reward Yourself — Live It Up
The price tag of private aviation may be higher than that for commercial air travel, but for a growing number of people who have experienced the stress of traveling via commercial airlines, the benefits far outweigh the costs. “Time and comfort are worth more to me than money,” says an auto leasing company executive. “Life is too short to take all that abuse flying commercially. To me, this is really worth it.”

Now you, too, can join the thousands of savvy travelers like these who have discovered the secret to enjoying both the destination and the journey. So don’t wait. Get on board. Then sit back, relax and enjoy your life. The future of personal travel is arriving at an airport near you. Welcome aboard.

Written and Produced by Mark Patiky  •  markpatiky@cox.net

Associate Writer: Shawna Gale

Editor: Allison Lurker

Designer: Jon Prinsky