Small Biz Jets in the News

There are two stories in today's New York Times on small business jets.

The first is that Honda announced yesterday at Oshkosh that it's going to build its 6-passenger jet.

The twin-engine, 6-passenger HondaJet will go on sale by 2010. It will be built in the United States, at a yet-to-be-determined location. Honda, which announced the jet at an air show in Oshkosh, Wis., said it would begin taking orders this fall.

To market the jet, Honda will form an alliance with Piper Aircraft, the 69-year-old manufacturer of a line of small planes starting with the Piper Cub, a pioneer in general aviation aircraft.

[...]

Honda officials estimated that the very light jet market would total about 200 planes a year and said it hoped it could capture a good chunk of those sales by stressing the plane’s unique features.

The HondaJet’s engines will be mounted over the wings, not over the tail as on many private jets. The plane will also make extensive use of composite materials instead of aluminum, which will make it lighter and permit it to use less fuel.

The HondaJet is expected to be 5 percent more efficient at cruising speed, said Michimasa Fujino, a vice president of Honda Research and Development Americas, who has led the jet’s development.

The second story is on the air taxi business model in which companies sell seats on planes like the forthcoming Eclipse 500 to get business travelers to and from quicker and more directly than by using the big carriers, but at a price premium.

For years, questions about the size of an air taxi market have been largely theoretical. But that will change this year, as Eclipse Aviation of Albuquerque begins building the Eclipse 500, a six-seat plane. The company expects the plane will receive its long-awaited certification from the Federal Aviation Administration as soon as this week.

With the Eclipse, two start-up airlines, Linear Air and DayJet, say they can ferry business travelers to hard-to-reach outposts with fewer frustrations — and get them home in time for dinner with their families.

“One of the first things they teach you in sales is to look for the pain,” said William E. Herp, chief executive of Linear Air, an air charter company that has ordered 30 Eclipse planes at a total cost of $50 million. “And there is a lot of pain out there among business travelers who are flying on commercial jets.”

[...]

The 33-foot Eclipse plane, which will cost $1.5 million, can carry two pilots and four passengers and fly at speeds of over 400 miles an hour. By comparison, a twin-engine Cessna CJ-1, a jet that also carries four passengers, costs about $4.3 million and can fly 448 miles an hour. Categorized as a very light jet at less than 10,000 pounds, the Eclipse offers comfort more akin to flying in a leather-appointed sport utility vehicle than a bigger corporate jet with a wet bar. There is also no bathroom — a fact that has caused some aviation industry veterans to pass up the plane for an air taxi service.

“The absence of a lavatory is going to be a problem,” said Robert L. Crandall, the retired chairman of American Airlines who is now chief executive of Pogo Jet, a start-up airline looking to get into the air taxi business in the Northeast.

[...]

Among the first to put the Eclipse into service will be Linear Air, founded in 2004 by Mr. Herp, an entrepreneur. His airline started as a charter service, flying wealthy travelers to Martha’s Vineyard from Boston and New York in Cessna turboprop planes. The company now also markets its services to small teams from consulting firms and other businesses who need to travel together to see clients or visit remote offices or factories. Because of the Eclipse’s faster speed, Mr. Herp said it made sense for him to expand his airline to Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“Eclipse is the game in town right now,” said Mr. Herp, speaking from the Albuquerque airport last week after visiting Eclipse’s production plant, where the company is assembling the first 10 Eclipse 500’s. Mr. Herp was enthusiastic about how Eclipse’s production was automated, unlike the more time-consuming construction methods used to make other private jets, and about how Eclipse, for the moment, had three production shifts running around the clock, seven days a week.

Both stories require registration or some workaround.