Athena53

My company, a large multinational insurer, has a regular charter flight between the US HQ and a major US branch one week a month- from A to B Monday and back to B on Friday. This is a route that can't be done on commercial flights without a layover and I can tell you from personal experience that if you leave from Airport A on Friday at 5 PM on a commercial flight you WILL miss your connection and either get home at 1 AM or else spend the night in the hub city. (A is a small airport in a suburb on the Bos-Wash corridor.)

Plenty of people use this flight and I imagine we gain a lot of productivity. I just scheduled a flight home from City A leaving at noon on Friday because I will not put up with the possibility of a missed connection again. If I were on the charter back to City B I'd happily leave at 5 PM. My UK-based boss, who makes enough money that his company car is a Jaguar, flew commercial in one direction and charter in the other. He could not believe the difference. I'm sure we got more work out of him in the office than we did while he was hanging around in ORD.

I would not automatically assume that a company that uses charters is wasteful. What about the time wasted when all its highly-paid executibes are waiting with TSA lines, getting on and off planes, getting to the airport 2 hours early, and all the other time-wasting trappings of commercial travel? Even with Blackberries, cell phones and airport lounges, being in transit is not the same as being in the office.