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On the Record with
DAVE HURLEY, CEO, PRIVATAIR
Doing What the Airlines Don't Do Best
PrivatAir CEO Dave Hurley says he didn't know what ACMI was until
recently, but that when he learned that he could sell it, ACMI meant
a new era of success for PrivatAir.
 ACMI stands for aircraft,
crew, maintenance and insurance. Hurley's finding that it's something
airlines are willing to buy.
PrivatAir and Lufthansa are enjoying an occupancy rate of some
64 percent since the German carrier began selling tickets for a
six-days-a-week Dusseldorf-Newark service in a 44-seat Boeing Business
Jet operated by PrivatAir. The cost of a ticket is about the same
as business class on a standard, multi-class jet.
"Passengers are willing to pay a little bit more for much better
service," Hurley says.
"We frankly do not know how to sell tickets," he admits.
"This is a great marriage where we don't get into an area we
haven't been involved with, and the airline can take advantage of
the fact that we've spent $53 million [on a deluxe airplane]."
Counting PrivatAir's other BBJs (and its 757), "We've invested
$300 million in large airplanes with very few passenger seats,"
he notes. Similar service could thus easily be established between
New York and London, or New York and Geneva, or both, Hurley says.
As for business thus far in 2002, "I didn't think it would
be as robust as it is," Hurley says.
"On balance, we are about 18 percent ahead of last year in
terms of traffic," he told Show News on the eve of NBAA
Orlando. "We're significantly higher in revenue," he says.
Even the tour business, in which an agency called Intrav takes
travelers to places like Machu Picchu, or to golf courses around
the world in PrivatAir BBJs, is prospering again following a precipitous
falloff post-9/11. But security concerns, including the hiring of
a new U.S. Privatair security chief, Hurley says, have boosted annual
costs by $300,000 to $400,000.
PrivatAir Celebrates Its Silver Anniversary
Switzerland-based PrivatAir is celebrating its 25th anniversary
at NBAA 2002. The company now has annual turnover in excess of $100
million, and notes that its 300-plus employees manage some 50 aircraft,
ranging in size from a Beech King Air to an executive Boeing 757,
with a fleet of Boeing Business Jets to boot.
Among PrivatAir's many milestones since its establishment by the
Swiss Latsis Group (still its owner) are:
- acquisition of its first Boeing 737 in 1979;
- acquisition of its first Boeing 757 and Gulfstream IV in 1989;
- receipt of Swiss Air Operator Certificate in June 1995;
- order of two Boeing Business Jets in June 1998 (the first commercial
operator to do so);
- acquisition of a third BBJ in December 1999;
- acquisition of Flight Services Group in the United States and
Transair's ground handling services at Le Bourget Paris completed
in December 2000;
- ETOPS 180 minutes and FAA 129 Foreign Carrier approvals in March
2001; and
- completion of Building C3 private terminal at the Geneva International
Airport in February 2002.
PrivatAir made its 44-seat, all-executive Boeing 737-300 available
for charter in July. It's here in Orlando at NBAA.
White Plains to Casa de Campo, Nonstop?
PrivatAir is eyeing the old General Electric hangar and ancillary
building at White Plains, N.Y., for what could eventually be an
all-new, dedicated terminal for corporate flyers that would mirror
the company's new facility in Geneva, says CEO Dave Hurley.
If PrivatAir does decide to go forward at HPN, it will likely
start with a seasonal operation for vacation travel, connecting
the New York suburb with the Dominican Republic resort of Casa de
Campo, using the firm's 44-seat 737-300. Hurley says the trip, which
takes some 12 hours door-to-door via Miami on regular carriers,
can be pared down to about three hours and 40 minutes using a direct
flight.
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