-In terms of the careers offered by corporate aviation organizations on the management side, there a fewer options than with the airlines. Many departments do employ dispatchers or flight followers, and these employees often perform other duties including crew scheduling and more. With most corporate departments having small fleets and fairly low numbers of employees, there is less specialization. Corporate flight departments don't have the same requirements that 121, or even 135 operators due in terms of employing a safety department, maintenance and maintenance control, dispatch, and so on, so they tend to assign these types of duties to pilots and other employees as secondary duties.
-Corporate flight departments can certainly save companies money when used efficiently and intelligently. While the direct costs associated with the corporate travel may be higher at face value, the big picture can be different. When considering the value of time, whether for high-level management, experienced operations management, or even highly skilled frontline employees, a company can save money by getting their key employees where they need to be at a moment's notice, without having to rely on airline schedules.
-A corporate flight department I had the opportunity to visit and learn about is FedEx. Located at their airline hub and nearby their corporate headquarters in Memphis, the department is home to a large number of aircraft. FedEx has 3 or more Learjets, several Challenger 600 and 300s, and two Bombardier Globals used primarily by senior executives. The smaller jets are widely utilized, from flying emergency parts and mechanics to stranded FedEx Express aircraft, to carrying operational managers to important sites throughout FedEx's global network, to the more traditional flying of high level managers to meetings, events, and so on. As for management hiring, they employ a handful of management personnel, primarily in the maintenance and flight following side. These tend to come internally from the airline side of the business, but are generally experienced in their areas and have a high level of expertise.
A link to the National Business Aviation Association's "Business Aviation Factbook": http://www.nbaa.org/business-aviation/fact-book/
What a great experience to see the FedEx flight department. Yes, you're right that some departments employ flight follower/dispatch types, but many do not. This is actually an opportunity because often the company is unaware of the many benefits of employing such positions.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy reading your blog because it gives more insight into the Management side of the house. Also I like the things you said about how the companies save money I didn’t think of some of those. I also didn't know about the jets that FedEx had that was interesting.
ReplyDeleteI also found it interesting to see that FedEx has a corporate side to their aviation department. It does make sense in that a broken part on one of their freight aircraft could cost millions in lost revenue. With a company as large as FedEx that literally travels to all parts of the world it makes sense that they would have corporate aircraft
ReplyDeleteI as well found that FedEx had a corporate side to their aviation department and found it very interesting and insightful. Since they are operating aircraft anyways why not have a corporate aircraft or two.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed hearing the actual truth about corporate aviation and what their employees have to deal with. The secondary position or as you would say dual roles within the company. From a pilot's aspect, that might not be something they are willing to take on as a duty.
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