CitationShares Prospers With Regional Approach

"I am happy not to have as many airplanes on order as some of my competitors," says Steve O'Neill, CEO of the CitationShares fractional ownership program.

When Cessna and TAG Aviation established CitationShares in July 2000, the stock market was still strong and airplanes were hard to come by. Able to get their hands on just seven aircraft, managers decided on a regional niche approach that with the economic downturn has proven to be a brilliant strategy-year-old CitationShares boasted of signing its 100th customer this past July; it now has well more than 150, O'Neill told Show News.

The operator has 21 aircraft flying now and by the end of next year will have a fleet of about 50 Cessna Citation CJ1s, Bravos and Excels, as well as its King Air B200s and King Air C90s.

"We are applying regional products to a regional operating area," O'Neill says. "We don't expect that people will buy CJs and Bravos and try to fly them coast to coast." CitationShares has as yet formulated no plans to expand beyond its east-of-the-Rockies (and Colorado) sales area, nor to buy bigger and longer-range aircraft. "One or two or three airplanes sitting on the ramp unsold can kill a good year in this business," O'Neill says.

"We're not trying to be all things to all people."

By Rich Piellisch