Avia Aircraft has launched Australia's first aircraft fractional ownership scheme, Avia Airshares, using a single SR22 based at Moorabbin Airport.
Fractional ownership enables pilots to buy a share of a late-model aircraft based on the number of hours they expect to fly each year, with the aircraft managed by the company that runs the scheme.
The concept is quite common in the USA where business fliers use the scheme to enable them to fly point-to-point without having to deal with the associated hassles with managing an aircraft, such as hangarage and maintenance, and worrying about the usage levels.
Avia CEO Chris Butchers believes idea is well overdue for Australia.
"The problem many pilots face is that they could use an aircraft whether for business or personal use, but they find it very hard to justify utilisation, and therfore the cost.," he explained.
"Essentially we take the cost of say a $500,000 Cirrus and we break it down into shares. If full utilisation is going to be 600 hours, then a half share for $250K will get you 300 hours, or a $125K quarter share will get you 150 hours.
"That's a fantastic bargain compared to the full price and having the aircraft sitting in the hangar doing nothing when the one owner is not using it.
"It's taking the economic sense of group ownership [timeshare] and applying it to aircraft."
Although the concept is still embryonic, Avia aims to have aircraft spread all around the major capitals. Aircraft owners would have reciprocal rights to aircraft in other cities. That would enable a business person to fly RPT to Brisbane, collect an aircraft similar to the one they own a share in at Moorabbin, and fly it to a regional centre.
For this to work well, Avia understands that there would need to be commonality across the fleet in both type and avionic packages. For that reason, they have decided to standardise on the Cirrus SR22 with Garmin Perspective cockpit.
That is one of the things that Avia learnt from licensing a model already successful in the USA: Airshares Elite. It meant no new wheels needed to be invented.
"We could have taken a blank sheet approach," says Butchers, "but we'd rather work with a successful program in the US. Essentially we've got their entire business model in a box; everything they know and have learnt, we've got access to.
"For example they said we really need pilots with about 250 hours experience and an instrument rating. Why IFR? Because we don't want people sitting in Broken Hill and they can't get home because there's a few clouds in the way. That's going to mess up the next person's booking."
Initally, agreements are expected to be for five years, after which time the aircraft would be turned-over for a new model. A share of the sell price is then returned to the owner depending upon what fraction of the aircraft they owned in the first place. The aim is to keep the aeroplanes the most modern as possible to avoid heavy maintenance costs such as engine overhauls.
Avia co-founder and Managing Director Graham Van Damme is confident that fractional ovwnership will prove appealing to business fliers.
"We want our clients to enjoy the fantastic freedom that come with owning and flying their own aircraft so they can get more out of their day - weather it's making business time more productive or pleasure time more pleasurable," he said.
According to Van Damme, fractional ownership "offers easy access to remote locations often unreachable by commercial airlines, allowing owners to move quickly from one location to another. There are no queues, no check-ins, no boarding and disembarking times, and no time waiting for baggage. You just fly."