| JULY 2002 |
Sharing the Air
James Butler '80 navigates the highly political and scientific world of fractional aircraft ownership
By Eric BeteilleWe may never fly like the Jetsons, fluttering through the air in sporty two-seater bubbles, but a system pioneered with the help of James Butler '80 is revolutionizing personal travel, pushing it toward the space-age cartoon world of George, Jane and Astro.
Sellers of fractional aircraft ownership -- basically timeshare
in the air -- have a vision: small, private planes, piloted
on demand and 100 times more available than commercial airliners.
They sell blocks of time, say 50 hours a year, and provide pilots,
hangars, insurance and other amenities so travelers can fly
on a moment's notice.Fractional aircraft ownership is already available -- and working. In 1986, aircraft owners had sold exactly three fractional shares. By 2000 nearly 3,700 companies and individuals owned a piece of the sky, according to the National Business Aviation Association.
For these frequent fliers, fractional ownership saves time, by avoiding commercial airlines' routine delays in check-in, boarding and departure. More than one of every five flights departs 15 or more minutes late, according to aviation experts at The Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colo., and some airlines now require two- to four-hour advance arrivals.
Fractional ownership also reduces hassles by letting fliers avoid the hub-and-spoke system that puts passengers in cities they never intended to visit. Private jets serve 5,500 airports; commercial airlines serve 500, and 80 percent of commercial flights are routed through just 50 top airports.
One thing fractional aircraft ownership doesn't save is money. The dollars involved sound more like real-estate prices, from a tiny condominium (about $100,000) to more than a good-size mansion (upwards of $6 million), depending on plane size, number of hours and amenities.
In 1997, Butler founded Shaircraft Solutions (www.shaircraft.com) to help travelers get the best value from private aircraft ownership. The company's legal, financial, aviation and regulatory consultants function like real estate agents of the sky, negotiating between aircraft fleet owners and their prospective fractional owners.
Shaircraft serves leisure travelers, business travelers and corporate travel departments, including professional golfers Scott Hoch, Scott Verplank and Bob Tway, as well as media giant Clear Channel Communications. "Most fractional jet owners have not previously owned or chartered an aircraft," Butler explains. "People are coming from first-class air travel and buying into fairly expensive investments."
Among the motivations Butler hears from commercial fliers who are investigating fractional ownership for the first time: their time is too valuable, they don't want to wait at the airport, they don't want to fly commercial anymore. "People are looking for alternatives," Butler explains. "It's a no-brainer that this is the way you will want to travel."
Along with flier frustration over commercial airline hassles, public interest in Shaircraft has increased noticeably since Sept. 11. "The activity has been off the charts," Butler says, "with thousands of Web hits, calls from all over the country, media attention." Butler appeared recently on CNN and Fox News and was cited in articles by the Boston Globe, Washington Business Journal and Town & Country Magazine.
CC's 'Rigor of Thought'
No one has given Butler a roadmap for helping harried air travelers. The business model for the fractional aircraft industry is fledgling; it might eventually resemble regional bus systems or on-demand air taxi services or even the personal air mobility of the Jetsons. It's too soon to tell.So Butler has become something of a pioneer, trying to creep "service on demand" into one of the last industries to buck the trend. Most personal services -- shopping, banking, dining -- have shifted closer to 24-hour availability, responding to customer demand for increased flexibility. Not so with commercial flying, though, which continues to enforce rigid schedules, complex pricing schemes and inconvenient itineraries.
Want to book a great deal on a commercial flight from Los Angeles to New York? Better reserve 21 days ahead, be prepared to spend hours in St. Louis and pack extra clothes for a Saturday night stay. Butler mourns the loss of time and convenience for commercial airline travelers. "With the airlines," he told Town & Country, "the time you lose in transit can turn your seven-day vacation into a five-day vacation."
What inspired an entrepreneur to take on the entrenched habits of this established industry? It started with the "rigor of thought" he learned at CC, Butler explains, which gave him the educational foundation to carry him through two graduate programs and a legal career before opening Shaircraft. "You get to the point where you have a confidence in your judgment and an ability to look at new issues and have the confidence that you can figure them out," Butler explains.
Passing 'Muster' with Tim Fuller
Butler fondly remembers his CC law and political science classes providing an "explosion of ideas," especially in classes taught by Professor Timothy Fuller. "If you passed muster with Tim Fuller, you were really doing some good thinking, good writing," Butler says. "Any time you're in a class with a great teacher, it's not work."Fuller's rigorous thinking continued to inspire Butler as he completed a master's of science in government at the London School of Economics and studied law at University of Chicago. After finishing his law degree in 1985, Butler clerked for Bernard Decker, a U.S. district court judge famous for his involvement with attempts to prevent Nazi sympathizers from marching in Skokie, Ill. It was "heady stuff," Butler explains, "real-life cases with high stakes...a special place to be."
Butler then worked at Arnold & Porter, a law firm based in Washington DC that consistently ranks among the 100 largest in the U.S. "I couldn't have gone out on my own without the training and experience I gained there," he says, practicing law "at the top."
Starting his own law firm in 1992 gave Butler the chance to specialize in corporate transactions much like those in which Shaircraft engages today. His legal clients have included Philip Morris, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Olympian Dan Jansen and professional golfer John Daly. Butler also does pro bono legal work, including setting up a child and family care center for underprivileged children in Washington, D.C. He and his wife Laura Merrill '80 have two children, Lily and Ben.
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