From the editor: Wheels Up, on the move

With the purchase, Wheels Up gets 26 of TMC’s Hawker 400XPs. Add those to Wheels Up’s existing fleet of 72 Beechcraft King Air 350is, 15 Cessna Citation Excel/XLSs, and six Citation Xs, and Dichter now has 119 airplanes. To that, add 93 pilots and 125 employees.

Not bad for a company Dichter began only six years ago. Unlike large fractional-ownership firms that require customers to buy shares in airplanes in order to have them on call, Wheels Up bills its customers by the hour. This appeals to those not needing to fly a large number of hours or make a large number of trips. Dichter says that 80 percent of his customers fly between 10 and 50 hours per year. That’s not enough to justify buying an airplane, although Dichter says about 125 of his members do own their own airplanes, and use Wheels Up as supplemental transportation.

You can’t say Wheels Up isn’t pricey. Individuals have to ante up $17,500 to join, then pay $8,500 in annual dues, for example. The corporate rate is $29,500 down and $14,500 per year in dues. And that’s before any flight time. A King Air 350i runs $4,695 an hour for an individual member; an Excel is $7,695. If those prices seem excessive, it’s because they cover the cost of positioning flights to your location. It makes more sense for small groups of customers to fly together.

Most might swoon at those numbers, but there is a growing demand. Wheels Up has 5,000-plus members, according to Dichter, and there’s no sign the trend is letting up. The best deal within the pricing structure is Wheels Up’s “Hot Flights.” These are flights that would normally be deadhead or positioning flights with just the crew aboard. A Wheels Up app tells members whenever these flights pop up—which is all the time—and what routes they’ll be flying. Jump on a Hot Flight and you’ll pay a flat rate of just $295 an hour.

Most might swoon at those prices, but there is a growing demand. Wheels Up has 5,000-plus members, according to Dichter, and there’s no sign the trend is letting up.Maybe it’s the dismal, cattle-car trappings of airline travel these days; the need to go direct to smaller airports; or irregular, last-minute travel needs that prod travelers to sign on to Wheels Up or other outfits with fractional or shared-ownership business models.

AOPA headquarters is located in Maryland on the Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK)—a medium-size airport with a part-time tower, an ILS, several other approaches, a 5,200-foot-long runway, and a 3,600-foot-long runway for when the winds pick up out of the west. It’s about 40 miles from the center of Washington, D.C., and on a good day—a very good day—an hour’s drive away. It’s more or less perfect for those wanting to skip the costs and security procedures when landing at downtown D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Since about 10 years ago I’ve noticed more big-jet traffic and fractional flights stopping at FDK—mostly Challengers, Falcons, and Citation Xs.

For the past five years I’ve seen more and more King Air 350is with the Wheels Up logo parked on the ramp. A few weeks ago, while covering the Kentucky Derby, AOPA Pilot Senior Photographer Chris Rose and Senior Features Editor Julie Summers Walker spotted several Wheels Up airplanes—Hot Flights?—coming and going on the ramp at Indiana’s Clark County Airport and Bowman Field in Louisville. Maybe you’ve seen some at vacation destination airports you’ve frequented.

Fractional operations are relatively new. One of the biggest—NetJets—began life as a charter service in 1964. Now it has 750 airplanes worldwide, making 350,000 flights per year. But NetJets is primarily for those with the need to fly 50 or more hours a year. Wheels Up shows that there’s a market for those flying much less. Or, as Dichter likes to say, “We’re democratizing the entry level of business flying.”

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