The Rise of Briefcase Barnstorming

THE fleet of scheduled airliners in the U.S. is the world's biggest. But there is another commercial air fleet almost ten times as large: the 10,000 aircraft owned by U.S. corporations. Altogether, some 8,000 companies have $200 million invested in planes and ground facilities, and spend about $75 million annually maintaining them. Last year company planes, in flying 370 million air miles, logged 3,250,000 hours flying time--more than all U.S. domestic airlines combined. Their three-year safety record was also remarkable: they have had only one fatality for every 200 million passenger miles (v. 1.6 on commercial airlines).

The astonishing growth of the corporate air fleet is a postwar phenomenon. To a great extent, it has also been the salvation of the private-plane industry. At war's end the private-plane market boomed briefly, buoyed by the belief that someday every man would fly around in his own plane almost as easily as he drove his car. The boom soon collapsed; private planes were not only high priced, but most owners found them impractical because of their short range, slow speed and high maintenance cost. Such planemakers as Piper, Cessna and Beech then smartly went after the new corporate market. The first purchases of many corporations had been war-surplus planes ranging from light trainers to C-47s and two-engine attack bombers. But most corporations found them either so costly to operate or so unsuited to their needs that planemakers had little trouble selling them new craft.

Company airplanes today are essential tools of industry, though some corporations are still so sensitive to the tendency of stockholders to equate planes with yachts that they will not put their names on their aircraft. But business has sprouted wings because it had to; the pace of business has stepped up immensely since the war, and a company plane can save an executive 30% in travel time. In it, he can hop around the country and still be home on weekends, an important factor in keeping a key man if his job requires almost continuous travel.

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The dispersion of industry is another big factor in the growth of corporate fleets. Before 1940, nearly half of all American industrial plants were in cities of more than 100,000 population; now only one-third are. Moreover, 30% of new plants established since 1940 are in towns of 10,000 or less, many of them off the commercial airline routes. While only 535 communities have air ports big enough for commercial flights, some 5,000 have airports accessible to company planes. In some cases, speedy travel in a company plane enables corporations to get the equivalent of two or three men's work out of one high-priced executive. They have also discovered that the company plane, put occasionally at the disposal of a high-salaried man for vacation jaunts, gives him a better incentive than any heavily taxed cash bonus.

Company planes are not all savings, however, and businessmen seldom like to talk about their upkeep. Operating costs for a company plane, in the air 600 hours a year, can run as high as 65-c- a passenger mile v. an average 5 1/2-c- on commercial flights. The cost can be much higher if a corporation does not dispatch the plane with all the care of a commercial airline, making sure it is in constant use. But businessmen can cite other kinds of economy, such as the case where a salesman, flown direct to a customer in a company plane, signed up a $1,000,000 order before his competition could get there on commercial lines. Planes also have become invaluable for rush deliveries. When Rynel Corp., a small Illinois metal-gear manufacturer, announced that rush orders would be delivered within 24 hours by company plane, its orders shot up from $30,000 to $300,000 in a single month.

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Briefcase barnstorming shows every sign of growing still more. What was once the "president's plane" has become a management taxi for practically everybody. And after a company buys one plane, perhaps a Piper Tri-Pacer, it often moves up to a larger Beech Twin-Bonanza. The second just about sells itself as corporations discover that they need different planes for different uses.

The biggest corporate fleet is General Motors, which has 25 planes of varying types. Sinclair Oil Corp. has twenty, and Ohio Oil Corp. has fifteen. The nation's oil companies go in for aircraft in a big way, since they must shift geologists and riggers from field to field.

Most business airplanes are still one-engine craft, but the trend is toward two-engine planes, especially designed for business use. Probably the biggest need is for a fast, dependable transport that can cruise at 250 to 300 m.p.h., carry eight to ten passengers up to 1,000 miles nonstop, and sell for about $250,000. Several planebuilders have such a dream ship on their drawing boards. When it comes off the boards, there will be a big line of buyers waiting to get it.

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