Why organisations fly their own workforce

An organisation that leases an aircraft has agreed to pay for a seat whether or not anyone sits in it, instead of paying a fare only when someone flies. At face value that is a strange decision. The ones that do make it for some combination of eight reasons, and each reason carries a limit worth knowing before the lease is signed.

1. Safety: where the ground is the risk

Some journeys are dangerous on the ground. Winter roads in Alaska and the Canadian north, convoy routes in parts of Africa and the Middle East, a river crossing in the wet season. A contracted air or sea leg replaces the dangerous part of the journey with one the organisation chooses, runs with an operator it has selected, and can see from end to end.

The limit: aviation carries its own risk, and a lease moves the duty of care onto the organisation rather than away from it. The operator's maintenance regime and safety case become the organisation's business, which is the point.

2. Availability: where no schedule goes

A mine, a plant, an offshore installation or a camp is usually where no scheduled service goes, or goes twice a week at an hour that suits nobody. A leased aircraft or a chartered vessel runs when the rotation needs it, to the strip or the jetty nearest the work, from the towns the crews live in.

The limit: a schedule you own is a schedule you must fill, and the capacity you buy is the capacity you have. The roster and the aircraft are planned together or not at all.

3. Time: the flying is the short part

On a scheduled service the flying is the short part. The hours the terminal asks for before departure, the connection through a hub, the layover that decides the day and the drive at the far end add up to a working day lost in each direction, paid for by the organisation and taken from the traveller.

A wine company with sites at both ends of Cook Strait moved its people between them through a hub, with the connection deciding the day and the fares deciding the budget. A weekly leased nine-seat aircraft did it as one direct flight.

The limit: the time saved is real only if the aircraft leaves when the people are ready, so the schedule follows the rotation and not the other way round.

4. Money: a lease beats fares only when it is full

A fare is paid per seat flown. A lease is paid per hour or per month whether the seats are full or empty. So the cost of a seat flown depends on how many of the seats are filled, and the arithmetic is unforgiving: at 40% utilisation, the industry average for comparable small fleets, each seat flown carries more than twice the cost it carries at 90%, because the lease costs the same either way. Whether that beats the fare depends on the route and the contract, and the organisation can do the sum. The sum turns on one variable it controls.

That variable is not the aircraft. It is the policy that allocates the seats, the booking window that stages demand, the penalty that keeps a booked traveller turning up, and the go-show that refills a seat when one comes free. The decision to lease is a decision to ration by policy, and an organisation that will not say no cannot make a lease pay. The basis for the two figures is on the benchmarks page; the seven elements of the rule are in the seat allocation guide.

There is a second saving, quieter than the first. A lease is paid in two parts, a fixed charge and a variable charge for the hours flown, and the hours come from the crew's flight log. When the log is a record rather than a form typed up later, the monthly account for the lease can be produced from it: the organisation pays for the hours its own record shows were flown, the operator is paid without a reconciliation argument, and a contract both sides settle from the same record can be written more flexibly than one settled from invoices. This has run in the humanitarian air services the founders have worked in; the mechanism is set out on the humanitarian page.

The limit is the whole point: the saving is made by the people who say no, not by the aircraft.

5. Risk: when the system you do not control stops

In April 2020 airline passenger traffic fell by 94% on the year before, by IATA's count, and it stopped because borders closed and schedules were cut, not because aircraft could not fly. Organisations with their own aircraft kept crews moving under permits; those that depended on a schedule waited for it to come back. Strikes, airline failures and route cuts do the same on a smaller scale every year.

The limit: a lease does not put you above the regulator. Airspace closures and border rules bind a leased aircraft too. What it gives you is a decision you take, with an operator who answers to you, rather than one taken for you.

6. Flexibility: the aircraft fits the operation

A nine-seat PC-12 or a Caravan reaches the strip the work is near; a fifty-seat Dash 8 moves a crew change in one lift. Either leaves when the crew is ready and takes the late change a scheduled booking would charge for or refuse. Check-in is at the aircraft, and it closes when the operator closes the manifest. On a scheduled domestic service the counter closes half an hour before departure, and the person standing there with a bag is not on the flight.

The limit: flexibility for one traveller is disruption for the others, which is why the booking window and the priority order exist. The aircraft is flexible; the rule has to be steady.

7. Reliability: the decision to go is taken where you can see it

On a scheduled service the decision to cancel a flight is taken somewhere else, for reasons the passenger never sees, and so are the rules the passenger travels under. On a network airline one fault travels: a late departure in another city reaches yours by the afternoon. A point-to-point aircraft has no network to fail.

On your own aircraft the decision to go or not go is the pilot's and the dispatcher's, taken under a safety case you have agreed with your operator, and the reason is in the record. Operators differ in how they fly weather and in how they decide, and when you lease, the choice of operator and its dispatch record is yours. Rotational workers know the weather they fly in and they want to get home; the passenger who is nervous of flying needs the same decision explained, not hidden. The rules are yours too, and they change only when you change them.

The limit: the choice of operator is a decision you answer for, which is why its record matters more than its aircraft.

8. Duty of care: one manifest

When the organisation runs the transport it knows who is on board, where the aircraft is and when it landed, from one record rather than from booking references forwarded by email. Duty of care on a scheduled service is assembled afterwards from the airline's record and the traveller's; on your own aircraft it is the manifest.

The limit: the manifest is only as good as the booking record behind it, which is why the booking has to be the only way onto the aircraft.

What the traveller gets

Most of this is written for the organisation. The traveller feels it differently: no queue, no two hours in a terminal and, on an aircraft this size, no search, a briefing for nine people who fly every week, and, when the weather is in doubt, a decision to go or not that comes with its reason. Where staff live on site, the same aircraft carries their families on quota: the school run and the trip to town on the company's schedule, which is a retention reason as much as a transport one. Champagne on a beer budget.

The price of it is the policy. A seat with no fare has to be rationed somehow, and sometimes the answer is no: a priority above yours, a quota used up, a booking window not yet open, a displacement when a medevac takes the aircraft. What a fair rule owes you is on the page for travellers.

What a lease asks of the organisation

A rule that says who gets the seat, a record that says who took it, a desk that applies both the same way to everyone, and, for business travel, an approval that is an appointed officer's authority rather than a payment. The seat allocation guide sets out the seven elements of the rule and the three checks a booking passes; the policy template writes them down; the glossary holds the terms.

Common questions

Is leasing an aircraft cheaper than buying airline tickets?

Only when the seats are filled. A lease is paid whether the seats are used or not, so the cost of each seat flown falls as utilisation rises: at 40% utilisation, the industry average for comparable small fleets, each seat flown carries more than twice the cost it carries at 90%. Whether that beats the fare depends on the route and the contract, and the sum turns on one variable the organisation controls, the policy that fills the seats. The basis for the figures is on the benchmarks page.

When does an organisation charter or lease an aircraft instead of flying commercial?

When the ground route is unsafe, when no scheduled service reaches the site, when the airport and the connections cost a working day each way, when the aircraft can be filled, when the scheduled system is a risk the operation cannot carry, when the schedule has to follow the rotation, when it needs to see why a flight goes or does not, or when it needs to know who is on board. Usually some combination of the eight, and each has its limit.

Why do mining and oil and gas companies fly their own workers?

Because the work is where no schedule goes and the rotation sets the timetable: crews change on a fixed cycle at a strip or a jetty near the site, often from towns the airlines do not connect, sometimes over ground that is not safe to drive. A leased or chartered aircraft, or a crew boat, runs to that cycle. The seat then has no fare, so the organisation needs a policy to decide who flies when demand exceeds the seats.

What does a leased aircraft need that an airline ticket does not?

A policy that says who gets the seat when there are more people than seats, since no fare rations it; a record of who booked, who flew and who did not; a desk that applies the rule the same way to everyone; and, for business travel, an approval that is an appointed officer's authority rather than a payment. Without those the lease flies half empty and the saving disappears. The seven elements of the rule are in the seat allocation guide.