The Allplane Podcast #54 - building an executive jet business w/Vishal Hiremath of JetClub & Jet It

In today’s episode we get back to the world of executive aviation, a segment of commercial aviation that is bustling with entrepreneurial energy.

Our guest today, Vishal Hiremath, has been working in the aviation sector for quite some time and it was precisely during one of those professional assignments, at Honda Jet that he realized there was plenty of potential in this small but very capable and versatile aircraft manufactured by the aerospace branch of the famous Japanese firm. This led him to co-found Jet It, together with his business partner Glenn Gonzales. Jet It is a fractional jet ownership company that is based on a fleet of Honda Jet aircraft. After initial success in the US, they have now expanded to Canada and hopped across the Atlantic to Europe, where it operates under the Jet Club brand.

The chance to learn more about this interesting little aircraft, that I have had the chance to examine, on occasion, from up close at air shows, piqued my curiosity, but what finally decided me to reach out to the founders of Jet It/JetClub to get them on the podcast is the fact that they are already looking beyond this original Honda Jet focus and preparing to go electric.

Earlier in 2021, Jet It announced it is going to become the launch customer for the Bye eFlyer 800, a sleek, disruptive all-electric aircraft that, with lower costs and no emissions, aims to disrupt the private flying scene (we have had the chance to cover on a previous podcast how executive aviation can be a test bank for new ideas and technologies!)

Tune in for our chat with Vishal, in which we talk (despite some technical difficulties, we recorded it on mobile during a car trip) on about his entrepreneurial journey, how to build an executive aviation business that is active on both sides of the Atlantic and also how he is preparing his company to enter the new era of fossil-free aviation!

Download this episode from:

Apple Podcasts / iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher

Things we talk about in this episode:

  • Vishal’s background in aviation

  • What is Jet Club

  • Why the Honda Jet is one of the greatest aircraft in its category

  • Plans to go electric: launch customer for the Bye eFlyer 800

Interview Transcript

(please note that, although we strive to make it as close as possible to the original recording, the transcript may not be 100% accurate)

Hello and welcome to the Allplane podcast!

Always with guests that are redefining the future of commercial aviation

As usual, before I introduce today’s guest, let me remind you that you can find all the previous episodes of this podcast as well as many other aviation stories on the Allplane website: that’s allplane.tv - allplane.tv

Here we love inspiring, entrepreneurial stories in aviation, so when I learned that a young company called JetClub was going to be the launch customer for a new eFlyer 800 aircraft, a new sleek all-electric aircraft being developed by Bye Aerospace, it immediately got me curious.

As it turns out, JetClub is not just a stand alone company, but a branch of a US-based executive aviation group called Jet It, which, until now, was operating exclusively another very interesting aircraft type, the Honda Jet.

So, I reached out to Vishal Hiremath, the co-founder of Jet It and JetClub to learn more about this startup executive jet operator, their fractional ownership model and the reasons behind these interesting fleet choices and what led them to opt for an all-electric executive aircraft. 

But, more than anything else, I enjoyed the chance to listen to his interesting story of entrepreneurship and sheer passion for aviation.

In our conversation we talk as well about sustainability in executive aviation and why electric planes can be such a game changer for segments of this industry.

Last but not least, I apologize beforehand for the sound quality. Due to changing schedules and time zones our chat took place over a mobile connection while on the road, so at times the voices break a bit. Nevertheless I hope the essence is clear enough, though!

So without further ado, let me welcome Vishal to the podcast!

Hello, Vishal, how are you? 

Very good, Miquel, thank you very much for having me on the show.

Pleasure. We are connecting today with North Carolina, where you are based…you are actually the founder and the CEO of a company that spans two continents because you founded Jet It in the US and JetClub in Europe, which are both part of the same group. And you are in the field of executive aviation with an interesting model that we're going to talk about now. But first of all, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background in aviation? Because you have a very, very long experience in this area? 

Sure. Yes, yes. So I founded Jet It and Jet Club, along with my co-founder, and my very good friend that I've known for many years, Glenn Gonzalez, and we both worked at the Honda aircraft company, which as you as you and most of your listeners would know, is the manufacturer of the Honda Jet, which is the best light jet in its class. I was responsible for the international sales, and Glenn was responsible for sales. And we were both working together at Honda. And before that, we both worked together at Gulfstream as well. So I was working at Gulfstream as a sales development manager for the international sales division at Gulfstream Aerospace based in Savannah, Georgia. And I spent a lot of time traveling through throughout the different regions overseas. And Glenn was at international sales. And we work closely quite a bit because we used to do sales demonstration flights.

Sounds like an amazing job…

Yes, yeah, we were lucky…great manufacturers, great companies, very good people. And it was yeah, it was a great job. And I loved aviation all my life. I've wanted to be a pilot and wanted to fly and I did get my pilot's license. So I always wanted to work with airplanes. And it's a great combination of meeting new and interesting people and working in aviation. So before that, I worked at Rockwell Collins, which was an avionics company, and I think it's now called Collins Aerospace. And I worked as an engineer in flight deck technology and cockpit technology. So I worked in some cutting edge research technologies like voice recognition and human machine interface and these kinds of things. And it was very interesting to look out what is coming. So that was kind of my professional background. And also going to school I did my masters in aviation technology and human factors and partially some classes in aerospace engineering. And then before that, graduated in electrical engineering, so my background has been kind of technical and sales,

…you are an aviation man through and through.

Yeah, always wanted to, you know, fly and always wanted to be with airplanes. So I got my pilot's license, I felt I had achieved my dream. So it was a good time spent in aviation. And then when I was speaking about Jet It and JetClub, and we were working at Honda, people would ask us all the time, “look, I love this airplane. And I would love to fly it, but I don't use it that much. So it's hard for me to justify buying a whole airplane and putting all that investment for the fixed costs that come with owning an airplane”. And it's a lot of money that goes into maintaining and operating an airplane, when you're not using it that much. It's hard to justify. And so we kept getting that question over and over again. And a lot of people kept asking us “Look, can you find those apart?” I want to share them with somebody because I want to share them with us. And so we initially went to some current companies that to this model and said, “Look, the Honda Jet is a great airplane, why don't you operate it”, but the combination of the airplane being new and unknown at that time, and the fact that it didn't fit the business model of a lot of the big players in fractional ownership…so we decided, “look, we think it's a great airplane and we said let's just do this ourselves”. So that's how we launched the business. And we launched with one airplane. And now we have the largest Honda Jet fleet in the world. We have 10 airplanes. In the United States, and we have the first one in Canada that's going into service shortly. And then we have one airplane that's operating in Europe and we hope to grow the fleet in all three areas in the next few months.

So you developed dual brands, you operate under the Jet It brand in North America and in Europe, you launched JetClub. Are they two separate entities or is it just the brand, but you operate the same model in each continent?

They are two separate entities, but we kind of operate them as sister companies. And the reason we did that was for a number of reasons. First of all, in the international market now in Europe, we operate under a fractional model. But we also plan to expand further into Asia. And in a lot of places in Asia, we may not be able to do the fractional ownership model just because of the regulatory environment. So we wanted to create a separate entity and a separate brand that we can tailor to our international market. So Jet Club was a very simple, recognizable brand name, that it could be a club of fractional owners, or it could be a club of members. So we developed that brand. And then obviously, we also established a separate entity, because of the various different rules and regulations required to operate in different parts of the world. There was another aspect to also separating the brand is because initially, when we started, Jet It, is kind of a play as to, you know, “just jet it!”, right? Just just take a jet and just go! just do it! So it was a very clever brand name. But that doesn't translate into many international languages. Yeah. And so people in a lot of different languages were asking us, what does Jet It mean, or saying things like Jet-IT? So, we decided, “Okay, we are anyway, creating a separate entity, let's create a separate brand”. And then we operate our sister company. And the benefit of having such companies is that if you're a member or a fraction owner, in any one of the entities in a particular region, you're able to also fly on our fleet with the owner benefits in a different country or a different region.

So if I'm a JetClub customer in Europe and fly to the US commercial, then I can use Jet It in the US, inside the region.

Absolutely.

Cool. And tell me more about your business model. You operate the fractional fractional ownership model. What is your differentiation, compared to the, you know, the very large operators in this space? Obviously, one of them is that at Jet It, you operate the HondaJet. But are there other differential features that you would highlight?

Yes, the biggest differential features we offer days instead of hours, because we believe that our philosophy, and based on studies that we did, is that most people when they're flying within a region, entrepreneurs, business people, small and medium size CEOs and directors, these entrepreneurs, they want to spend more quality time with their families and their friends. And they want to go out to their business and come back home, within a day. They don't want to waste time, staying overnight in hotels, if they don't have to write so they can go to two different cities, three different cities, do their business, shake hands, finish their meetings, and come back. And so what we offer is instead of hours, we don't want to limit people by hours. We offer days, so if you buy a share of an aircraft, you have a certain number of days that are available to you.

And you have the aircraft for the whole day…

If you want, if you want to use it for the whole day, you have it available for the whole day. So if you want to have an eight hour itinerary, you will have an aircraft available. And what that does is many clients chose to use that day. Some say I don't mean for the whole day, I'll just use it for two hours. And that's fine, too. So we leave it up to them how they want to use it. And on average, we have seen our customers use the airplane for anywhere from one hour to two hours each day because they do a flight out and come back, or they just do a one way flight.

And then that day, so if you use it on one day, that day is written off, let's say it's not you're not counting periods of 24 hours, but you say like, I don't know, the fourth of August. I need the plane. Let's say you do a two hour flight. And that one day is counted out of your allowance, correct?

Yes. Right. Because we have to serve as multiple owners. So yeah 

Or the opposite…you might use it, I don't know, you have a very busy schedule, and you use it for eight different segments in the day. And that would be one day? 

Correct. The only limitation is that we don't exceed our flight time duty limitation. So that's a limitation. And everything included pilots. Everything with the membership. We are a one stop shop, a turnkey solution. So we have our AOC and with our AOC we hire the pilots, oversee the maintenance...So we make sure that everything is taken care of. All the owner has to do is call up or email our dedicated Concierge Team that is available 24/7. And we do the rest. So it's aircraft ownership without the hassle of aircraft owners.

And what's the typical fee structure? So if I wanted to become a member, I guess, would I pay an entry fee, then is there an annual or monthly fee, and then is there an additional fee depending on the destination you fly to?

Right? So for our fractional ownership is, very simply put: you buy a share of an aircraft. So the HondaJet, retail price of the HondaJet is about 6.3 million with all the options. You buy a particular share, that number is divided by how many shares you have. And that's what you pay to take ownership of a share of an aircraft. And then you get title to the aircraft with that amount of airplane that you have as equity. So think of it as a timeshare model. But with airplanes, and you take ownership of that part of the airplane, and then we also split all the fixed costs. So you have fixed costs, like pilots, salaries, insurance, hangar parking, maintenance, everything that's in the fixed costs, we also share that amongst the owners. So if there are eight owners, then you're divided by eight, and that's what you're paying monthly.

Okay, can you say again? What's the retail price of Jet Club? Because the sound was breaking a little bit when you said that…

Yeah, the HondaJet cost $6.3 million. so that's the total aircraft and then based on the sharing, just divided by that.

Okay, so the fraction you get depends on how many people are co-sharing that particular aircraft…Okay, and what factors derive the number of people that share an aircraft? Is it the members that bring their own people or do you have some mechanism to assign them in batches? Or how does it work? 

Oh, no, no, no, they don't have to bring any more other partners…we find the partners, we sell shares in the aircraft. So you don’t know who you own the aircraft with, you don't…you may not even know most of the time, because it's to protect the privacy of every share. It's like flying, owning your own airplane. So privacy is important. And that's actually more beneficial and has more advantages than when you're trying to find partners yourself, because if you try to find your own business partners, or friends or relatives, many of the time, it never works well, because you end up fighting with each other, or, you know, having disagreements, and who gets preference and all that stuff. So we avoid all this, we just say you buy your own portion of the share, we find the rest, which means we have our dedicated sales team to go and sell shares in the aircraft.

And you decide how many planes you purchase based on the amount of interest you get from the market? So let's say you get five new people interested, so then you say “we can buy a new plane” or something like that?

Yeah, that's right. And something we do is build detailed market analysis and demand and everything like that. So based on that we put a fleet order with our aircraft. In the beginning, we had ordered five airplanes, and we took delivery of those five airplanes. Before that, actually three, three, and then five. Yeah, so that was our second fleet order we completed.

What about the structure? It's not clear, it's not yet clear to me as a member, how would you pay for this membership, so you would purchase or you buy the share? But then going on into the future, you have, I guess, some regular payments, right. So how does it work?

Yeah, so a monthly fee, and then you pay an hourly fee when you fly. And that's something you normally do anyway when you fly an airplane, right? You just pay that and we take care of the rest.

I see you made a point earlier about the Honda Jet being the best in its category. Can you tell us more about that? Why is what's so special with the HondaJet? And what are the good points it has?

So the HondaJet is a class leading airplane, it's the fastest airplane in its category. It flies at a maximum operating speed of 422 knots. So it's very fast. It's also, you know, very, very excellent climb capability. You can climb directly to 43,000 feet with Max takeoff weight in under 20 minutes. Because it was way above most where most commercial jets fly so it's fast climbing, it's high speed. It's a unique design with the engine over the wings. What that enables it is to really allow a very quiet cabin and a very spacious. So the attach points on the fuselage are not a factor anymore. And that helps in the separation of the vibration of the engines from the fuselage. And then you are allowed more space in the cabin. So you have a spacious lavatory, which is also very unique in this class of aircraft, a very usable toilet with, you know, full solid doors. So you can actually use it like a large cabin. And when you sit in the airplane, I mean, I used to do demonstration flights and to me this did not feel cramped.

Yeah, I've been in a Honda Jet actually, though not flying it! But I have been inside a Honda Jet at the static display at RUBAE, Moscow’s executive jet show. I think I've got some pictures, I'll check them out and I'll post them so that I can give some more context…Do you operate it in a five passenger configuration normally, right? One pilot? 

We always operate with two, we always operate with two pilots, the aircraft is certified for single pilot, but we always operate with two pilots to just add a level of safety and five passengers, you can actually carry six passengers because the lavatory also has a belted seat, which means it is certified. So if you really need six passengers, you can also carry six. But ideally, with four, it's quite spacious, anything more becomes a little bit cramped on longer flights. But if it's a short flight, then it's perfectly normal.

And you've recently made headlines because you are the launch customer for the EFlyer 800 which is the new electric aircraft made…well still not made, but projected…by Bye Aerospace. What can you tell us about this?

We are very excited about this order. And it's not just a fluff order, like most orders you've seen on the market with these big announcements and big numbers. But when you dig deeper, you see that there's not really any deposits or commitments or any of that, but we have made firm commitments to Bye Aerospace and we have put in non refundable deposits. So we're very serious about this aircraft and about putting it into operation. And with the beautiful design. I mean, it's one of the most beautiful airplanes that I've seen out there. It's very sleek, very ergonomically efficient. And, you know, George [Bye] is a very experienced and very accomplished entrepreneur and aviation engineer. So we have put our faith in him and in developing this and bringing this to market and getting it certified, because that is the most important thing, obviously, being certified. And we hope that Bye Aerospace can get the airplane certified both here under the FAA as well as Europe under EASA. So that we can put it into operation…but the numbers are spectacular. The airplane can do 500 nautical miles and the airplane has seating capacity of two pilots plus six passengers and the executive configuration. And then it has an operating cost, I mean, the estimated operating cost is under $200. 

So, how does it compare with conventional aircraft in this category?

Well, if you look at a light jet, or a very light jet airplane, I mean that's about 1/5 the cost. Typical light jet is somewhere like $1,200 now, so $200 is not much lower. So it brings down the cost of private flight. Enables more profitable operations, and most importantly, it's clean, there is no fuel, it's all battery operated. So we're very excited. It's an extra year in aviation.

What about the members? What's been the reaction? Are they excited? Are they looking forward to flying this new technology anytime soon?

Yes, yes. I mean, everybody is quite excited. But everybody also is realistic in terms of, you know, when can this airplane enter the market? Certification is a long, tough and hard road. So the members are looking forward to it, but they are also realistic in their expectations of when the airplane will enter service. So we have told them that you know, we will be ready when the manufacturer is ready. Yeah. It is definitely something that everybody is looking forward to.

What about infrastructure on the ground? I guess, with this plane, you can fly to many locations. I don't know if it opens up new runways that were not accessible. 

Correct

…but you would need some charging infrastructure then we guess…

Exactly. Yes, you're totally right. I mean There is some preparation that is needed. And the way I view it is the eVTOLs are a little bit more challenging in terms of the infrastructure that is required: those vertiports and the certification of these vertical takeoffs and landings, which requires a lot of power. But in my estimation, the electric conventional aircraft that we are looking forward to operating are not as difficult, or the challenges are not that insurmountable compared to eVTOLS. So, we use the same infrastructure as normal airplanes with the runways and the taxiways, and everything, the only difference will be the charging stations. But I'm optimistic, because if you look at a manufacturer like Tesla, that has made electric vehicles so widely acceptable, and because of that, there have been charging stations for cars that have been installed everywhere. And infrastructure is catching up. So I don't see that aviation will be much behind once we, once we really start operating these aircraft. And a lot of times we may install our own electric chargers at these airports and, you know, we'll work with the OEMs to make these infrastructure changes happen, because it's inevitable. It's coming.

Are you going to operate them in principle in America first? And then are we going to see it in Europe anytime soon?

Well, I think I would like to operate in Europe earlier than in America, just because of all the regulations and restrictions and demand that is there in Europe, with a lot of governments putting in all these goals to climate change goals that they have, that can only be possible with electric aviation. So I would love to operate these airplanes simultaneously. But it depends on the certification plans by the manufacturer and buyer space as they promised us they will concurrently certify an FAA and EASA at the same time. If that happens, then yeah, we will put their plan into operation both in America and Europe at the same time.

Okay, great. Well, looking forward to that. Really great to see electric planes as soon as possible. 

So when you interview, George [Bye] ask him “Hey, George, when can you get these airplanes quickly to Jet Club and Jet It?”

Yeah, I'm making a note. So sure, yeah! Exciting times ahead. And well, definitely. Wishing you all the best with this project to move into electric aviation.

Very excited. And thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak with you.

A pleasure. I'm going to be posting all the relevant links and pictures so that people can have all the references in the show notes as always, and yeah, so thank you so much, and wishing you all the best with all these exciting projects.

Thank you so much, Miquel. I look forward to meeting you someday soon at some air show, I hope!

Hopefully, hopefully…! Take care! Bye

Take care. Bye bye

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