Charter Flight Benefit

[Policarp]

Good question. I'm surprised some of the big money schools like Texas, A&M, Mich, etc don't already have one.

To keep it busy.....Air Louisiana could be chartered for private use in non peak periods. summer/fall. So it's not all expense......but also as a revenue source.

We go to smaller towns not close to major airports that require multiple.links to get to. Boone, San Marcos, Statesboro, Troy, Jonesboro etc,. Only GA State is a 1 flight and your are there.....no 2nd flight & no cross state bus trips. Fly in....play.....fly to next stop/home.

My motive????? I really like winning on the road. Our team seems to have benefitted from keeping travel.time minimalized.

How to solve cost......

We need to add aeronautics degrees. Flying and engineering/maintenance......that way plane storage/maintenance is an academic expense vs athletic.

[Cajunsmike]

Gotta do what your conference peers are doing, at least. Are they all chartering basketball flights? If so, then this is more of a necessity than a luxury.

I don’t know details of what other schools in the league do as far as travel goes. I recall hearing a year ago that 3 of the new league schools charter frequently. Those are James Madison, Marshall, and Old Dominion. Makes sense those 3 schools would do so due to their location and available resources.

[Cajunsmike]

We can’t afford to pay the NIL guy. How we going to buy a plane!? Lol

In all seriousness, aircraft storage and maintenance are extremely expensive. There’s a reason why most schools don’t have them.

Finding a donor who subsidizes our charter flights may be the way to go here. Could do it for WBB, VB, and diamond sports as well. Football charters to all away games of distance. I think they bus to ULM, USA, and USM within the league. All of those trips are around 4 hours or less. I don’t know if a person exists that would be willing to help with transportation costs for our athletes. I seriously doubt one does considering the state of our RCAF and NIL efforts. Perhaps a way could be found to combine the NIL and transportation subsidy ideas together.

[Duckster]

Zoom Zoom brought up Gonzaga earlier in the thread. Looked up an article from five years ago reporting Gonzaga schedules charter flights for men's and women's basketball. Maybe take the approach of using one of the fractional ownership corporate jets. Schedule the number of annual hours you can afford in advance.

[LouisianaB]

Tell me this. What is the cost of a bus trip to San Marcos versus a charter flight trip to San Marcos.

It’s useless to talk about whether something is beneficial without talking about numbers.

[CajunVic]

No method of flying will ever be found to be cost effective. Flying is a big boy’s sport. Not to say that there may not be collateral benefits, only those with p*h*u*c*k U $$$ usually get to realize such benefits. I don’t think we have discovered fans of Louisiana who could and would bankroll such on a consistent basis. jMO

[CajunVic]

I just did a contract for a king air and Lear jet. Rates were $2100 and $4200 an hour for these small planes.

[LouisianaB]

No method of flying will ever be found to be cost effective. Flying is a big boy’s sport. Not to say that there may not be collateral benefits, only those with p*h*u*c*k U $$$ usually get to realize such benefits. I don’t think we have discovered fans of Louisiana who could and would bankroll such on a consistent basis. jMO

Any benefit of chartering flights is worth something, if it exists. The question is how much that’s worth, and then back to the original question, how much more is it.

[CajunVic]

Any benefit of chartering flights is worth something, if it exists. The question is how much that’s worth, and then back to the original question, how much more is it.

A ____ load more

[cajun4life]

The largest of corporate jets only carry 13-20 passengers. Those planes cost up to $75M and roughly $15k per hour to operate.

We will never do anything as foolish as having a school aircraft.