Travel$ense User's Guide (PDF, 139 MB) - NBAA

TRAVEL$ENSEpersonnel of $65,000 annual salary (approximately $32.50 per hour), have atime value to their company of approximately $124 per hour.AIR TRAVEL TIME SAVINGS RESULTING FROM DIRECT FLIGHTS145Under the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, scheduled airlines in the UnitedStates were given virtually unlimited operating rights in terms of the marketthey may enter and the routes they may fly. This has resulted in changes ofscheduled airline service patterns and increased competition. Once an airlineselects a market and routes, however, competitive economics dictate that it beoperated efficiently and profitably. To do so, most airlines have adopted a huband spoke system, which allows different markets and routes to cross feed.While this concept improves traffic volumes and increases efficiency, it createstraffic congestion at the selected hubs. Congestion then intensifies duringperiods of poor flying weather when terminal gates, airport runways andenroute air space become saturated from weather-related delays. On the otherhand, business aircraft avoid the hubs when their origin and destination airportsare other than hubs. When their destination is a hub city, they often can avoidthe airline hub airports and use noncongested reliever airports.A large majority of business aircraft operations are direct, nonstop flights fromorigin to destination. In contrast, most trips on scheduled airlines to typicalbusiness destinations involve connections through hubs and often requirechanging to a commuter flight. A study of the business aircraft operations of amajor decentralized corporation examined the flight logs of a large sample ofexecutive aircraft flights, ranging from under 100 to over 2,000 miles, andcompared actual flight times with the best published routings available onscheduled airline service to the same destinations.With respect to routing matters only, the average savings achieved from usingbusiness aircraft compared with the scheduled airlines were as follows:• under 500 miles one hour per round trip,• 500 to 1,500 miles one hour and 30 minutes per round trip,• over 1,500 miles two hours and 30 minutes per round trip.The actual times recorded for these sample business trips included all effects ofweather, air traffic control and other factors that affect flight time.Additionally, however, the scheduled airline trip time is subject to a number ofcommon sources of delay and interruptions, which are not reflected in thesecomparisons.For example, airline passengers going from Tucson, AZ, to New Orleans with aconnection at the Dallas-Ft. Worth hub may find their connecting flight fromDallas to New Orleans delayed because of weather conditions at San Francisco,Copyright © 1999, National Business Aviation Association, Inc.