With just three weeks left in the Concorde era, NetJets Europe
is moving to fill the gap with a marketing campaign aimed at people
and companies who were Concorde regulars, says NetJets evp Kevin
Russell. "People were spending $5,500 each way to fly Concorde,
and they did it because they put value on their time," says
Russell. "It's the one thing you can't buy more of."
NetJets is not about to start an airline, says Russell. "We're
not selling seats. It's fractional ownership, because that's what
we do," he says. Rather, NetJets is looking to sell smaller
rather than larger shares in Gulfstream V and IV-SP aircraft-down
to one-sixteenth of an airplane, or 50 occupied hours-to a select
group of transatlantic customers. Results so far have been encouraging,
says Russell. "Good response feeds on good response,"
he says. "Successful people tend to hang together."
A Gulfstream is not as fast as a Concorde, but NetJets saves the
customer time on the ground-Russell is talking about flights between
Teterboro and Northolt, 45 minutes from the City of London-and
makes time in the air productive. Door-to-door, the NetJets way
could be 30-35% faster.
A supersonic business jet would be faster still. "There's activity out
there," says Russell, who has been briefed on a number of supersonic
projects under strict confidentiality agreements. But Russell does
sum up NetJets' basic requirements for a supersonic. "It has
to be transatlantic, because that's where the market is. It has
to be able to do Mach speeds overland. It's got to have creature
comforts comparable to the modern-day tube. And it has to be affordable."
