Brianflys - A Pilot’s Blog

Have to fly the airlines to get to your work destination?  Or perhaps to a vacation spot?  Well, prepare yourself for a system that has steadily become one of the worst experiences imaginable. 

But there is an option. General Aviation. Smaller planes that you can fly yourself or hire as a charter.  This isn’t just for the corporate elite or the rich and famous.  Ironically, the changes in the airline industry are making General Aviation more and more an attractive option.

“GA Serving America” describes some advantages of using GA aircraft compared to the airlines.  With the changes in the economy and the airline system, we can update this.  Here are my top 10 reasons for skipping the airlines and flying by general aviation.

10.  You are responsible for your flight (or work with a motivated charter crew). You have control over the flight, even if just working with a polite, responsive charter crew. No pilots cancelling flights because they are “too upset to fly”. No surly airline flight and cabin crew. You have to feel for them, though. They are suffering through reduced salaries and benefits, loss of job security, and overloaded flights full of delayed, abused, and frustrated passengers. 

9.  Best seats on the plane.  Usually every seat is a window seat and as the pilot, you have the very best seat on the house, with a grand view of the entire flight.  Fly a charter and you not be subjected to a middle seat.  As part of the growing ala-carte (lack of) service program, airlines are going to charge you a premium for aisle and window seats; up to $15 (so far…) over your base ticket price! And cell phones on flights may be in the future if the airlines can find a way to charge to use them!  Avoid this nonsense by flying yourself.

8.  You make the rules.  No idiotic “3-1-1″ rule limiting your toiletries.  No limits (or fees) on your baggage.  With airlines charging $15 and $25 per bag, the aircraft loading process will be a nightmare with overloaded overhead compartments and angry passengers who have to pay to check bags.  Skip it. Pack what you want, particularly if you are the pilot.  As long as you meet weight and balance requirements, you are good to go.

7.  You set the schedule.  Airlines are now moving to minimum overnight and weekend stays, which will severely impact the business community, not to mention the leisure traveler.  And the airlines are “cutting capacity”.  This means fewer flights to fewer destinations, and more dead time waiting for your flights or connections (and there will be connections as airlines slash direct flights).  Small GA aircraft may fly slower than airliners, but by the time you factor in the delays for security screening, flight delays, baggage and ground transportation delays, as well the new overnight stay requirements, you will find that GA saves you time and money.

6.  You pick the destination; from 20,000 GA airports and heliports, versus 30 big hub airline airports and a few hundred US airports with airline service. You have many more options. Depart closer to home.  Land closer to your destination.  Smaller airport provide faster, more personalized services.  Some still even offer a free ”crew car” to visiting pilots, where you just put some gas in it when you’re done for the next guy!

5.  Much more control over cost.  By flying GA aircraft, you have much more control over the cost of your flight.  You know the fixed cost of owning or renting the plane.  The rising price of fuel is affecting all of US transportation, and you have the flexibility to seek airports with lower cost fuel.  Most importantly, you avoid the wildly varying flight costs and surcharges that go into the ”profit” calculations used by the enormous airline industry. 

4.  An exciting journey, not a gauntlet.  Especially if you are flying yourself, you are able to experience all of the exciting and challenging aspects of planning and executing that perfect flight.  You can mold the flight times, destinations, aircraft used, and routing to your tastes.  Maybe take an interesting side-trip or visit friends or relatives.  Maybe introduce them to GA!  Flying the airlines is a mind-numbing gauntlet that must be survived to get where you are going.  Time otherwise wasted.  Where you seek a book, magazine, movie or work (if you have room to even get the laptop opened), just to get through it; to just get the flight over...

3.  You are the highest priority.  As the pilot in command of your own plane or valued charter customer, the consideration of your needs is entirely different from the airlines.  You are priority Number One (with appropriate safety considerations, of course). The airlines may say that passengers are their top priority, but the reality is we are treated as “self-loading cargo” to be closely controlled and we represent a cost that must be minimized.  We are herded onto, strapped in, and herded off the airliners under the constant threat of federal offenses for any variance from the flight crew’s orders.  And all semblance of the joy of early era airline flight has disappeared because the airlines don’t know how to set reasonable prices; rather they engage in unsustainable and predatory pricing to desperately discourage new competition.

2.  General Aviation provides actual higher security.  As the pilot, you know who is on your flight (maybe just you).  If you have passengers, they are family, friends, or colleagues.  Your aircraft (usually a small piston engine GA aircraft) is proven to not have the potential for damage or terror compared with an airliner. GA airports and aircraft are secured by motivated, dedicated owners, operators, renters, and workers at the airport.  The biggest GA ”terror threat” today seems to be network television producers who insist on creating sensationalized ”news” by staging attempts to fool airport staff and sneak aboard general aviation aircraft.  Hopefully these idiots are prosecuted and punished as real terrorists! 

And #1.   No TSA “security theater”.  Much has already been written, including in a prior post on this blog, about the farce that is TSA and the current airline security kabuki theater. Grandmothers and infants detained and unreasonably searched.  Medal-winning military personnel (in uniform and with IDs) not allowed to keep their medals for the flight.  Lawmakers who cannot get off terrorist watch lists. Pictured items on teeshirts and tiny doll-sized plastic toys considered “security threats” and not allowed on flights.  Pierced nipples?  Come on!  Now it gets worse.  ID’s required for boarding (”Where are your travel papers…?”) or else you are subjected to secondary inspection.  And TSA personnel are now playing dress-up with new police-style uniforms, including a little tin badge “to convey authority and increase respect”.  Legitimate police are understandably concerned with this confusing and rife-for-abuse new uniform.   If TSA wants respect, fix your business, don’t just masquerade as law enforcement personnel.  Thankfully, when you fly your own airplane, you avoid this.  You unlock your aircraft, load your belongings and your passengers, fuel the aircraft, and fly away.  Relatively speaking..bliss!

Any other reasons I’m forgetting?