Member Article

Jonathan Gordon, MD of The ABA Group, on increasing productivity of corporate air travel

The Atlantic Bridge Aviation Group (ABA) has launched an ‘industry first’ intelligent software programme that can comprehensively analyse a client’s travel patterns and needs to identify the most cost-effective option.

Flight Plan takes into account scheduled airline travel, ad-hoc charter of an executive aircraft, block hours purchase, fractional ownership of an executive aircraft or full ownership and operation to ensure an unbiased and accurate recommendation to suit each corporate client’s needs.

The commercial and business aviation specialist, which is based at Lydd Airport, has unveiled the self-developed software allowing companies or individuals to access executive air transport through its fractional ownership programme, AirShare.

ABA’s managing director, Jonathan Gordon spoke to Bdaily about the strategy behind Flight Plan, his experiences running the show at Lydd and his honest opinion on Heathrow’s plans to expand.

“We have developed Flight Plan for clients who are interested in corporate air travel from chartered travel to fractional and full ownership.” Jonathan told me. “We conduct an interview with the client, preferably face-to-face or it could be done by phone, where we work our way through a series of questions.

“At the end of the Flight Plan process, the answers provided will enable the programme to identify the recommended form of travel and the net cost or saving to be made. All forms of travel are shown and compared to participating in our AirShare fractional ownership scheme.”

Along with AirShare, The ABA Group owns an active airline with two divisions; LyddAir, which is the scheduled service division, and World Executive Airways, the chartered division.

“We’re expecting a continuation of steady growth across both departments,” Jonathan continued. “In particular we are seeing an increase in demand for our corporate hospitality division as well as rush cargo, as a result of problems in the Channel Tunnel.

“We see Flight Plan as an extremely important tool allowing us to give clients an objective analysis as to what best suits their needs. We are unique in the sense that we offer three different services within our fractional programme, as well as Flight Plan, which is able to analyse, through a database, the clients’ preferences.

“The analysis is complete - it not only looks at our own charter within our own fleet and elsewhere, it also considers block bookings, fractional ownership and full ownership.”

Having worked with individuals working in businesses all over the world, Jonathan has found travelling to the biggest risk to productivity.

He said: “Twenty years ago, I had a strong relationship with Business and Commercial Aviation Magazine in the USA and, in an analysis of the Fortune 500 companies, they found that those which had access to a corporate flight department had an area of property directly allocated to it. They came up with a fairly simple rule - any executive on a package of $250,000 or more would have to have a productivity multiplier of four times package in order to be in that position.

“The higher you go, their productivity multiplier increases.”

“Based on that, if you have 2,000 productive hours in a year, it’s not difficult to calculate how much you would lose spending time standing in queues at Heathrow or Gatwick, checking in and collecting bags. On average, you save between 4-5 hours if you travel on a corporate aircraft, even on a slower aircraft.”

“The main thing about corporate air travel is the issue of time saving and productivity. Flight Plan melds this together into an objective analysis to provide the solution that is optimum for the client.”

Meanwhile, the ABA Group is planning expansion into new markets following unchartered growth in Europe and the USA.

“In the background of Atlantic Bridge, we used to be heavily into airport sales.” Jonathan added. “As the name suggests, we bridge the most vibrant market in the world - the USA with Europe. We’re currently pushing into the Middle and Far East with a large sales team.”

“There’s no obligation to proceed and we promise there are no hard sell tactics,” he adds.

As a ex-pilot and former boss of Lydd Airport, Jonathan is perfectly placed to comment upon the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport.

“Heathrow in its very genesis was an accident.” Jonathan said. “70 per cent of the time in the UK, the wind favours the westerly direction - the western flank of London, with runways aligned to go over the top of the city, is possibly the worst place to build a major airport.

“Since the majority of noise pollution is on approach, London feels the brunt of it. Building yet another runway aligned in the same direction increases air traffic.

“If you double the number of airplanes flying in a finite piece of aerospace, you quadruple the risk of collision - if you triple it, the risk goes up nine fold. The more airplanes flying within that space, the risk increases at the square of that number.

“The new build Madrid airport is the perfect example of how to combat this risk - by building the development outside of the city, you no longer have airplanes criss-crossing in a small airspace.

“70 per cent of all arrivals and departures take place towards the South East, and 80 per cent towards the South. Taking this into account, the better option would be to develop Gatwick as it is to the South of London and doesn’t affect the central part of the city at all.”

To learn more about Flight Plan and to arrange your free consultation, call Jonathan Gordon on 01797 322207, email jonathang@atlanticbridgeaviation.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .