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Comment by cascom | Hacker News Reader

What’s funny is that if time is really the motivator, there are so many more cost efficient ways of gaining time then corporate aviation. And most of the people who use corporate aviation, haven’t optimized their time in other parts of their lives E.g. have a personal trainer come to your house everyday (as opposed to going to the gym), get a personal chef to cook your meals, move closer to work (or have work move closer to you),etc.

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>most of the people who use corporate aviation, haven’t optimized their time in other parts of their lives

Everyone I know who flies private optimized their time way beyond what you described. Is your experience different?

Definitely - 95% of the people I know who fly private don’t have chauffeurs (for example) - which would be a much greater time savings over the course of the year.

I think it just shows that either a. The time argument is a rationalization or b. It’s socially more acceptable to spend money largely out of sight on corporate aviation, rather than having people in your everyday life see an enormous household staff

I wouldn't put having a chauffeur in the same category as flying private. Sure, having someone else drive you around allows you to make phone calls, check email in the back seat. But flying private allows you to set your schedule and not wait around for the next flight out.

There is a video (and I believe it's linked in this thread) about a Walmart exec visiting stores across the country. It's likely in some small to medium sized town with a regional airport. If they meet with the team from 9-12 and the next flight out isn't until 5pm, they are wasting that time waiting. Instead they fly their plane in, meet, fly out at 12:15 and are in the next town with the next manager in 45 minutes.

That's exactly why Walmart maintains a fleet, they can fit more meetings in 1 day and also return them back home without overnight stays in multiple cities. The faster communication and responsiveness of execs to regional issues more than makes up for the cost.

Flying a charter jet is the equivalent of hiring a cab for a trip or a town car for a day. I guarantee you that 99% of people who fly private do that -- several hundred times a year.

It's just that a $500 town car for the day is more practical than having a chauffeur fly with you to Hong Kong, Bali or Cannes...

> And most of the people who use corporate aviation, haven’t optimized their time in other parts of their lives E.g. have a personal trainer come to your house everyday (as opposed to going to the gym), get a personal chef to cook your meals, move closer to work (or have work move closer to you),etc.

What makes you think this? I would have thought the bar for getting a personal trainer or a housekeeper is far far lower than the bar for people getting corporate aviation? Many middle class people manage to afford a personal trainer and housekeeper.

Personal experience - I’m talking about the mass rich people with m >$20m <$500m in the US that are the target market for fractional jet ownership. Sure they might have a personal trainer (at their gym) or a house keeper or two that does their cooking, but few have a real personal chef or a chauffeur etc.

Put another way, corporate aviation costs several thousand dollars per hour of time saved, and most people that use it have not exhausted time savings that are easier to come by

It's also possible they care more about some hours than others -- everyone needs some downtime, so hiring a professional knitter it wouldn't help at all. Whereas saving hours on the crunch day when you're chasing a deal is worth a lot more.

That said I think there's also something in the social acceptability of services being higher than that for servants.

It’s a huge pain in the ass to hire a chauffeur. At that point you’ll probably need a full time PA to manage your staff.

It’s hard to find the time to hire people.

I was just telling Bill that the last time I saw him in the grocery store on his way to the gym.

Seems factless. Some of the CEOs I've encountered like this DO heavily do that. So much so they open new offices in the cities where they have homes.

Also fair to mention that it's not as much of a time savings too but convenience they can afford. But they mainly by time on NetJets, and not the jet.

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