Just fly like you drive.
No, I don’t mean running stop signs and cursing the Prius in the left lane. I’m talking about making the most of your car, and time spent on the road.
Think how much time you save by going to New Seasons in the same trip you go to Rite-Aid, with more time savings still if you drop off a kid at an activity along the way. Compared to making a round trip from home for each activity, do you double your driving productivity with each stop? Maybe not double, but intuitively, your productivity increase exponentially with each stop added, simply by reducing wasted time.
Can you enjoy the same time savings if you go by bus, as well? Also intuitively, you can’t. There’s actually a diseconomy of scale, because with each stop, you’re subject to a fixed timetable. Er, just like the airlines, maybe? The diseconomy gets worse the farther your destination is from the bus stop, too, right? And your timeline would head for the rubbish bin if the bus was late on any segment except for the last one.
Comparing airline (bus) travel with private flying (S-Class, including chauffeur) produces an identical dynamic.
Suppose you have a 9am client meeting in Carmel the same day you interview a PR agency in Sausalito. On the airlines, that would be a PDX—SFO—MRY—(stopover )—SFO—(stopover)—PDX nightmare. With more than 60 minutes spent on each location, doing this trip in one day is actually impossible within the constraints of an airline timetable. You’d be stuck doing an overnight that does nothing for your bottom line, let alone your family life.
Starting this one-day itinerary in a private airplane, you’ll top off your coffee in the lobby at Atlantic PDX at 6:34am, or whenever you arrive, and proceed to enjoy a catered breakfast on your way to Monterey. When you’re done in Monterey, return a few voicemails while your plane waits to take you 25 minutes north to the Novato airport, enjoying your catered lunch as the Presidio slips by at over five miles per minute. When your prospective agency has addressed your final concern, you point toward Portland, less than 100 minutes away, answering a few emails along the way.
Up until now, you could be forgiven for thinking that flying privately is a luxurious perk more for ostentation than any practical use. But if dramatically improving your productivity builds enterprise value visible on your bottom line, and through dry leasing you can get flying S-Class service at Uber prices (about $4 per mile), you’re now enabled to fly like you drive—and you may keep your shoes on.
“Once you’ve flown [privately], returning to commercial flights is like going back to holding hands.” – Warren Buffett, Berkshire Letters 2006