Executive AirShares Thrives Selling Time-Shared Regional Airplanes

By Molly Mcmillin, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Jan. 31–Executive AirShares thrives selling time-shared regional airplanes

Executive AirShare, a company founded in Wichita that sells fractional aircraft ownership regionally, is growing. In the last two years, Executive AirShare’s sales have doubled, and company officials expect sales to increase another 50 percent to 100 percent this year.

“It really is a very good aviation market,” said Bob Taylor, Executive AirShare president.

The company is owned primarily by Taylor along with businessmen David Murfin, Paul Stephenson and Rob Patton.

Keith Plumb, executive vice president, attributes the growth to a strong economy. Difficulties in commercial travel also have stimulated business, he said.

And Executive AirShare has increased its marketing effort.

“We have three times as many prospective customers today as we did a year ago at this time,” Plumb said.

With headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., the company keeps its operations in Wichita, where all maintenance and scheduling is done. Nearly 40 percent of its business is from Wichita buyers.

Executive AirShare would like to build a hangar at Jabara Airport in northeast Wichita. That is in the planning stages, Taylor said.

The company added four aircraft in 2006 to expand its fleet to 12 late-model aircraft. It expects to add three or four planes this year.

It uses 20 pilots, which is up from eight two years ago and is expected to add three or four in the next 30 to 60 days, Plumb said.

The company allows buyers to purchase as little as one-sixteenth of an aircraft. Buyers, who also pay monthly expenses and hourly flight rates, get use of the aircraft for a set amount of flight days and flight hours per year.

The business differs from the national fractional ownership companies, Plumb and Taylor said.

For one, Executive AirShare operates regionally, a factor that helps keep prices lower than other fractional companies. It has bases in Wichita, Kansas City, Tulsa and Fort Worth, which it expanded into last year.

Plumb said future growth would be within 100 to 150 miles of its existing bases.

“We want to just grow regionally in markets that make sense,” he said.

And rather than using an aircraft to fly a customer to a destination and then go on to pick up other customers, its owners have the use of an aircraft for the entire day. That way if plans change, the flight time is flexible.

Customers fly in their own aircraft the majority of the time and get to know the pilots.

“It’s about as close as you can come to owning your own airplane,” Plumb said.

Reach Molly McMillin at 316-269-6708 or mmcmillin@wichitaeagle.com [mailto:mmcmillin@wichitaeagle.com].

—–

Copyright (c) 2007, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.