Take flight
There’s a sound business case for buying or hiring your own plane — and then there’s how much fun they can be.
You might think of private jets as the sleek, chic and salaciously expensive playthings of the über-mega-rich, but they’re actually much more than that. According to Mick Doohan — living legend of motorcycle racing, five-time world champion and these days the man you need to talk to in Australia if you want to buy, borrow or sell a personal aircraft — they are also something Dr Who would appreciate.
“It’s a time machine, basically,” Doohan says, chatting by phone from his Monaco home. “Really, what a private aircraft gives you is time: it’s the freedom to fly on your schedule and to save time with things like check-in, and the simple fact that you’re not waiting for the aircraft, the aircraft is waiting for you.
“In certain parts of the world it’s just straight out of the plane, into your car and taxi off the runway and away you go; it’s a five-minute time lag between landing and being on the road, and the same on the way out. Once corporations and high-net-worth individuals experience the freedom it provides, and the increased productivity it enables, they question why they’ve never used the product before. That’s why the growth over the past decade has been quite strong, even in Australia, although everything is under the radar here, you hear nothing of it.”
The 52-year-old president of global player Jetcraft International for Australia and New Zealand is quite right when he calls private jets “the silent part of aviation”. It’s not a form of flying that most of us often engage with, so it comes as a shock to hear that there are more than 22,000 corporate aircraft in the world, with around 12,000 of those in the biggest market, the US.
In money terms, we are talking big bucks, with Jetcraft International alone shifting 93 jets last year, at a value of $US1.4 billion ($1.9bn).
In Australia there are around 180 registered corporate aircraft — including two that Doohan’s own company, Global Jet International, can rent to you from as little as $3500 an hour. That’s quite a few when you consider there are only 300 in all of China (that’s Mick’s estimate, and he expects serious growth in the region).
You may also have missed the fact that Australia now has more than 20 private-jet terminals, including two that Doohan’s company runs, called Platinum Business Aviation Centres — one at Essendon in Melbourne and another on the Gold Coast.
Money is flowing into this market not because people want to flash their cash, but because it’s seen as a more efficient way of making the stuff. “Surveys have shown that executives are around 20 per cent more productive in a private aircraft than they are flying commercially, because they can be getting real work done while they travel, in a private environment, and running on their own schedule,” Doohan says.
“When you break down the wage of a highly paid CEO and put it into an hourly fee, and you’ve got them sitting at an airport waiting for a plane and waiting at the other end, as opposed to being on their own aircraft, especially with a full executive team, conducting their meetings on the way — it’s a no-brainer when you weigh up the cost per mile.
“In Australia there are a few private owners, but most of them are purely set out for corporate use, and some companies have more than one. There are a few aircraft like ours that are just set for charter use, and then there are a few farmers who use them to get around to their properties.”
If that sounds slightly extravagant for cockies, consider that Doohan reckons he can get you into your own private jet for less than the price of a one-bedroom flat in the nicer parts of Sydney, or a flashy motor yacht.
“I think a lot of people don’t realise that the cost to actually purchase your own aircraft is not that high, but it’s more productive than a boat, because it’s a business tool rather than just something for fun — an aircraft actually pays for itself with the increased productivity and the time you’ve saved,” Doohan says. “You’re looking at anything from around $1m to name your price. If you wanted a small, entry-level aircraft to run around the east coast of Australia, you’re probably looking at between the $1m and $2m mark for a reasonable, safe, small jet. Or if you look at the new Honda Jet, that’s a beautiful little aircraft, it’s retailing around $US4.8m. Or you could step up to the Challenger 650, which is around $31m.”
Get Doohan going, of course, and it’s remarkable how quickly the prices start sounding like phone numbers, because the trend in the private-jet market is for bigger and better aircraft, things like Boeing Business Jets, which are basically normal commercial aircraft that have been bought and specified for private use.
“People want more space, bigger cabins and longer range, and if you’re flying up to 14 hours or more in the air, between New York and Sydney or Melbourne and Dubai on a weekly basis, people want more amenities, they want galleys, showers, bedrooms, space to work out — you don’t want to be just sitting in a tube for that long,” Doohan says, as casually as if he’s discussing buying a car with more leg room.
“We’ve got a few BBJs here in Australia, with every chance of another one coming in within the next few months. And we have got a Boeing 787-9 sitting for sale in Switzerland, which could be sold to a private [citizen] but we’re dealing with a head of state at the moment. A BBJ, with full interior, unless you just want to pitch a tent, is probably around $US80m to $US90m. But that 787, once completed, will be about $US350m.”
If that sounds a bit steep, the very bottom end of private-jet travel can involve chartering one of Doohan’s two Australian-based aircraft: a Challenger 604, which can fly to London with two stops or Sydney-Singapore direct, at $7500 an hour; and a Bombardier Global XRS, which can fly Melbourne-Hawaii-New York for $11,000 an hour. Both aircraft are heavily booked and are used both for business and for the well-heeled to pop to Tahiti or Fiji for holidays.
What Doohan doesn’t mention, with all his talk of productivity increases and time savings, is just how fabulous private-jet travel genuinely is. Your humble correspondent was lucky enough to fly across Europe a few years ago in a chartered jet, complete with caviar, champagne, a stewardess from central casting and swivelling leather seats that made you feel like a Bond villain, and the experience was so uplifting it felt like you were at 10,000m before you’d even taken off.
Surprisingly, Doohan, an adrenaline junkie of some repute, never flies his own private jets from the pilot’s seat. “I got my licence years ago for fixed wing, but I’ve never used it since I completed the flying exam because it just never really interested me,” he says. “It just didn’t excite me as much as I thought it would; it’s more of an A-to-B scenario.
“I prefer flying helicopters, they’re more fun, they’re like a bike in the sky — plus a helicopter is like the ultimate off-road vehicle. With a plane you need a runway and a destination, but with a helicopter, in countries like Australia, as long as you have a landowner’s permission you are legally allowed to land wherever you like.
“So for me, it’s a handy business tool, and we use it to do fishing trips, Tasmanian trips, to see the Kimberley. There’s just no better way to see a destination, at slow speed and visually.”
So, if you’d now like to buy a chopper instead of a private jet, well — no doubt Doohan can help you with that, too.
