This can be a challenge, but when it works, everyone benefits.
“Our 135 certificate gives us the flex-ibility to use the aircraft for charter rev-enue flights,” Hill added. “We like hav-ing that option. The contract buying benefits alone are substantial. And when we do charter, we figure that we defray our fixed costs of operating the aircraft by about $300 per hour,” which, while not changing the world, adds up.

“We certainly don’t make money in a conventional sense. But it allows us some flexibility with what we do with the airplane, and it allows us to keep it flying when we hit slow periods, and I think it makes us better business aircraft operators.”
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Low aircraft utilization rates can be bolstered by charter revenue flying.

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Successfully dovetailing company and customer needs may be the greatest challenge facing operators with 135 certificates.

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Flightcrews of companies with 135 certificates may be “on call” more hours than normal corporate operators.

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Charter certificates may be shared with other companies.

Production/Engineering Teams

Here’s a novel idea:

Just inTime
Centralize a lean engineering force and leverage that talent by boosting their mobility and efficiency.

It’s a big country. Nebraska is a big part of it. How big is Nebraska? The west side of the state is in one time zone, the east side in another.
The capital of Nebraska (that’s Lincoln for you Jeopardy fans) is on the east side. More than 30 years ago, the State of Nebraska turned to aircraft as the logical solution to state-wide travel needs, not the least of which is travel to, well, a few “less-traveled” towns.
Bill Lyon, deputy director of opera-tions for the Department of Aeronautics for the State, offers this simple equa-tion: “To travel across Nebraska, it takes a day’s driving. If we have a day’s work to do, it takes a third day to get home. With the aircraft, we can go out, do a day’s work, and be home in the same day. We’re able to eliminate a lot of motel and travel expenses but most importantly we’re able to save and better utilize the time of our employees.”
All the state’s agencies use the state’s aircraft. This includes doctors, lawyers, airport and road engineers (like those pictured), health and human service workers and a governor who, as a bona-fide state employee, is a frequent flyer. But it’s employees at the medical center in Omaha that are the primary users, regularly flying to rural medical clinics.

“Most of the state’s engineers are based in Lincoln, and they use the aircraft to complete work around the state,” says Lyon. “We also will charter aircraft out of another city, rather than ‘deadhead’ a state airplane for a trip. For Nebraska, this accounts for about 10 percent of state aviation opera-tions.”
　
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