Charter airlines join list of industries hit by business cutbacks

LOS ANGELES -- Charter airlines that had hoped to capitalize on cutbacks in commercial flights find themselves caught in a recessionary pinch as businesses scale back their travel budgets.

With customized flight plans, air charters planned to step into the gap left as cash-strapped commercial airlines scratched less-popular flights and canceled unprofitable routes.

But other industries have also been looking to save money as they became swept up in the year-old recession. And that has impacted business travel, which is the bread-and-butter of many on-demand air charters.

"Across the industry, business has slowed down," said Steve Lassetter, president and COO of Sun Air Jets based at Camarillo Airport. "It's been worse in other parts of the country, but our economy is more diverse here."

For businesses where a face-to-face meeting or personal appearance is critical, a charter flight can make the difference between making or blowing a big deal.

"The pluses of going charter are total convenience, the ease and speed of travel, and the total anonymity," said John Fons, charter manager for MC Aviation Corp., based at Van Nuys Airport.

"This is ideal for people who believe that time is money. A businessman can go to several places in one day whereas coordinating with commercial, the trip might take three to four days."

That was exactly the situation described by Lassetter, a 25-year pilot who recently arranged a charter trip from Camarillo to Amarillo, Texas, then on to an airport in suburban Denver.

"If you went on the airlines, you would could go out of Burbank, to Dallas, Dallas to Amarillo, back to Dallas and on to Denver and then rent a car," said Lassetter. "Whereas we went straight to where they needed to go. Charter is like a taxicab with wings."

Crucial business engagements, family emergencies and seasonal travel, like ski season or Hawaii for Christmas, are some of the reasons people opt for jet charter flights.

"There's no way to characterize the passengers," Fons said, "except that they have the money and they expect convenience and efficiency."

According to the National Air Transportation Association, it's a challenge to compile statistics on the charter industry because most of the 3,000-or-so companies are small and privately held.

Dozens of charters service Southern California, flying in and out of airports in Van Nuys -- one of the nation's busiest general-aviation facilities -- Burbank, Camarillo, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oxnard, Pacoima, Santa Monica and Ventura.

Chartering a roundtrip from Van Nuys to Teterborough, N.J., can cost a whopping $30,000. But for a company CEO traveling with six colleagues, that might be the cost of seven first-class tickets on a commercial airline.

Fons said that the charter fare factors in the price of jet fuel, the salaries of the crew, miscellaneous fees -- and the cost of a luxurious aircraft.

"It is more expensive to go on charter," Lassetter conceded. "But you do get exclusive use of a multimillion-dollar machine."