In my daily work of helping folks buy and fly their airplanes I am often posed with the following question: Tim, can I make money if I buy an airplane and lease it back for air charter?

The motivation behind your question is easily revealed; you are looking for a reason to buy that airplane that you have been thinking about for a long time. You have already rationalized for yourself that having your own airplane would energize your personal and business endeavors. You have thought  to yourself: “my company would be more productive; we could fly to a new city everyday meeting those hard to reach clients face to face. Together we could look at and discuss their problems and reach a solution that will benefit both their and my Company at the same time. Then I could jump back in my airplane and be home in time for dinner with my family and tuck my little ones in bed. Then the next day I could get up and do it all over again”.

And I am sure you have thought about how you could use the airplane for holiday and vacation flights with you family. Having your own airplane would make it possible to routinely whisk your bride

away for a romantic weekend in the Hamptons or to a remote Caribbean island.   If only you could get me to answer “yes” and even better, prove it on paper with some simple, easily understood math.  The truth is, there was a time in my life when I quickly would answer “yes” and, given my motivation, the math was simple to show on paper.  But there was a problem with what I used to say back then; a problem not easily seen on paper.

The problem was me. I was a young man and a young pilot. As a young pilot there were two things that I wanted most, to fly airplanes and to make a lot of money doing it. And as a young man I still thought the whole world should revolve around me. So coming from this prospective it was easy for me to say “yes” and all I had to do was convince someone to buy an airplane and I would start flying it. I was successful and I got what I wanted but I really didn’t have enough concern if the airplane owner was getting what he had hoped for or if he was losing money along the way. Sad to see it written down in my own words, but there it is, for me and all to see.

One thing that we are guaranteed in life is change. As we go through our lives we can only hope that life will change us for the better. As I have traveled through my own life there have been many events that have caused me to change. Holding my son in my arms for the first time was one of them. That was the first time in my life that I realized that there was something in this world more important than myself. All of the sudden I realized that each of us are here to help and to serve the other.  There would be many more reminders along my way. I began to see more as I aged and hopefully became a little wiser. Now, as I’m getting older I find myself looking back over my life maybe even more than I look ahead. For me; through reviewing my memories, both the good and the not so good ones, I am able to sift out an occasional nugget of wisdom and apply it to my present day.  My heart has changed from a young pilot ready to fly your airplane to that of a servant. Though our bank accounts usually differ in size, I began to realize that my clients and I were much more alike than I had earlier thought. I have come to respect my clients more, their families more, and their finances more.

So today when I am posed with this question you are going to get a completely different answer from me. Oh, and I have quit trying to show you the math on paper because the true answer can’t really be shown on paper. For me, and probably for you too, it’s more of a philosophical answer and so far I haven’t really figured out how to put that part of the equation down on paper. You see the real answer isn’t so much in a dollars and cents figure as it is in a how you spend your life. How do you put down on paper that feeling of getting home on time to have dinner with your wife and family? How important is it in money to tuck your children in at night. What’s it worth to have your whole family safely together on your own airplane headed to the Caribbean for a week of fun or to Grandma’s house for the holidays?

By now you have to be saying to yourself, Tim, what has all of this to do with whether or not I can make money by leasing an airplane?  You are getting way off track.

Well now that I have set the stage to show you where my answer is coming from let me finally tell you what I say. You might be surprised to hear that I don’t say “no” but I don’t say “yes” either. Today I say “well, it depends”.

It depends on what kind of airplane you buy; it depends on how often you fly in it and where you fly it. It depends on how often it needs maintenance and who maintains it. It depends on which management company you choose and how often they charter it.

But I will always answer your question this way and stand behind these words. “Leasing an airplane that you have already decided to buy to the right management company for use on their air charter certificate will lower your cost and will increase your joy of ownership”.

At Special Services we are a simple “family orientated” group of twelve seasoned professionals. We work each day to see to it that you enjoy your airplane and the benefits that come with it. We work with a seamless work ethic that sees to it that your airplane is flown regularly bringing in that income to lower your cost of ownership. And whenever you are ready to fly, we make sure that your airplane is prepped and ready for that next business trip or “whisk away” for the weekend.

All of our lives we spend asking questions. I look forward to exploring the aircraft ownership question with you.

 

Timothy R McConnell

Director of Aviation Accounts