KEY POINTS:
The tightening of aviation security rules may infuriate most of us, but for Rob Leach it means good business.
Leach runs Air Center One, a company specialising in servicing the growing fleet of private jets flying to and around New Zealand.
Air Center One runs its own arrival
and departure terminal at Auckland International Airport, with a "private koru lounge" for millionaire clients who fly in and out of the city by corporate jet.
The company also handles the flying elite's travel requirements - everything from arranging jet aircraft charters to emptying the toilets.
The American spelling of "Center" in the company's name is an indication of where much of its business comes from.
Internationally, as the number of wealthy individuals has ballooned, demand for corporate jets has soared. Expect to wait a couple of years for delivery if you place your order with the factory today.
The post-9/11 hassles of flying on commercial airlines have helped persuade the super-rich that buying their own jet is a sensible investment.
Publisher Barry Colman was one of those whose dislike of being frisked for nail clippers prompted him to buy his own jet in December 2002.
"Ansett went broke, then the big seats disappeared, and then these security guys kept stealing our nail files. I found it exasperating," he was reported as saying soon after spending more than $1 million on a Cessna Citation.
Because he had business interests in Dunedin, Colman and his now-late wife Cushla Martini often made the trip from Auckland to the bottom of the South Island.
"We woke up in bed one Saturday morning and said we have got to do something about this," Colman said.
The first thing he did was call Auckland aircraft broker Dennis Thompson who also runs an aircraft servicing business, Corporate Jet Services, from Ardmore Airport.
"He rang me that day and a week later he had a jet," Thompson said.
Today Colman's Citation is kept at Ardmore under the tender care and mindful eye of Corporate Jet Services.
"We're fielding more and inquiries from people sick and tired of the hassle factor of commercial travel," Thompson says.
"That's starting to wear thin with some people."
For the jaded business traveller the attractions of a corporate jet are obvious - security, convenience and privacy.
Private jet travellers aren't subjected to security shakedowns or limits on how much liquid they can carry on their own aircraft.
"They arrive here, the aeroplane's parked on the ramp out in front of the reception, they can drive the Rolls-Royce straight up to the door, step straight in and taxi away," says Thompson.
When the corporate jet market boomed in the mid-1980s, aircraft ownership tended to be more of a gratuitous statement about how wealthy a person was.
Today, jet-owning individuals and corporations are more interested in being able to travel where and when they like.
Leach illustrates the convenience factor by giving the example of two Australian-bound businessmen arriving at Auckland Airport at the same time, one stepping straight on to a private jet and the other on to a commercial plane.
He says the rigmarole of processing passengers and loading an airliner means the commercial jet will be taking off from Auckland at about the time the private is starting its descent into Sydney.
And rather than kicking back and sipping champagne, corporate jet travellers usually treat their aircraft as flying offices, spending time onboard working and making satellite phone calls.
For these people, "it's purely a business tool", says Leach.
Ownership of this particular business tool may be out of reach to all but a handful of New Zealand's wealthiest entrepreneurs.
But those willing to spend $10,000 or or more an hour can hire a jet from one of several jet charter companies.
They make available their own aeroplanes and sometimes those of private owners.
While Peter Jackson's Auckland-based Gulfstream is often hired out when the film-maker is not using it, most jet owners don't share their toys, preferring to have them available whenever they need to travel.
Jet-owning syndicates and "fractional ownership" schemes are popular overseas, Thompson says, but not in New Zealand, probably because the market is so small, he says.
As well as the cost of buying a private jet, there is the cost of keeping them flying.
Crew costs, annual engineering requirements, landing fees and hangar charges can all mount up, but repairs and maintenance can be less of a financial drain than the uninitiated may imagine.
"The biggest issue in today's equation is fuel," says Thompson.
"Late model aeroplanes, especially if they're under warranty, really there's nothing much to do to them apart from put fuel into them."
Leach expects the number of New Zealanders who own their own jets will grow.
But most new buyers will keep fairly quiet about their purchases.
Whereas in the 1980s American corporate jets would arrive on the tarmac at Auckland Airport boldly displaying their company's logo and colours, today most are unmarked.
An air of mystery, it seems, has replaced public displays of decadence for the ultra-rich.
Plane owners' instructions to aircraft companies are often to get the jet into a hangar with the door closed as quickly as possible after landing.
"Discretion is what they expect from us," says Leach.
"We don't discuss their business or who they are or where they're going. If we did we wouldn't be in business."
To buy or not to buy is the question ...
Keen on joining the ranks of the jet-owning business elite but not so eager to spend millions buying an aircraft?
Leasing your dream aircraft may be an option.
Aircraft broker Dennis Thompson says while leasing of corporate jets is popular overseas, the small group of New Zealand private jet users have always preferred to own their machines outright.
The leasing option typically works much the same way it does with a company car - a monthly fee is paid.
Thompson says the difference is that unlike most cars which rapidly depreciate, a well-maintained popular model corporate jet is likely to appreciate in value.
This makes it easier for an aspiring high-flyer to convince their accountant (or their company's board) that a jet is a good investment.
Air Center One's Rob Leach agrees the right model of corporate jet can be a good investment.
"Our customers own their own jets and don't bother leasing them," he says.
Thompson cites the example of a 1980 Cessna Citation II 550. When it left the factory it was selling for around US$1.8 million ($2.5 million).
Today the same plane, now 26 years old, is still worth between US$1.75 million and US$2 million.
Strong global demand for new corporate jets means some manufacturers cannot deliver on new orders until 2009.
This in turn means demand for used aircraft has been kept strong.
THE JET SET
New Zealand businessmen who own jets:
* Entrepreneur Graeme Hart owns a Bombardier Global Express valued at about US$40 million ($56.5 million).
* Businessmen Craig Heatley and Trevor Farmer jointly own a Bombardier Global 5000 worth about US$30 million ($42.4 million).
* Brothers Craig, Graeme and Peter Turner, owners of bedding company Sleepyhead Group, recently upgraded to a new Dassault Falcon 900, also valued at about US$30 million.
* Filmmaker Peter Jackson's Gulfstream G-IV is valued at about US$25 million ($35.3 million).
* Former Motueka boy Greg Goodman, based in Sydney and a member of the Goodman family whose main investment vehicle is the Macquarie Goodman Trust, owns a Bombardier Challenger 604 valued at about US$23 million ($32.5 million).
* The Lucus family of Nelson, who sold the Nelson Evening Mail to INL in 1993, own a Westwind II valued at about US$2-US$2.5 million.
* Auckland Air Charter, controlled by Cavalier Carpets' Grant Biel and his family, owns a Learjet 35A valued at about US$1.7-US$2 million. The jet is used mainly to support Auckland Air Charter's Australasian and Pacific helicopter charter operations.
* Publisher Barry Colman's Cessna Citation is worth approximately US$1.5-US$1.6 million.
