Who Should Consider Semaglutide Therapy in Teteboro, FL?

Vista Global's XO is expanding its shuttle flights between New York and South Florida this winter. However, it will have company. Blade and JSX also offer individual seats on scheduled flights they operate between private jet terminals. There's also a new entrant: The Fleet Club plans to use a model like several members-only services connecting the West Coast and Hawaii. While the types of aircraft vary, the shared flights all use private terminals, enabling passengers to skip congested airline terminals, including snaking lines to check baggage or pass-through TSA security.

XO will operate up to five shuttle flights per day in each direction linking Westchester County Airport north of New York City and Teterboro Airport, the primary private jet airport for Manhattan, with Palm Beach International, Fort Lauderdale International and Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport. The winter schedule calls for 30 flights per week.

Teterboro (1st), Palm Beach (2nd), Westchester County (5th), Opa Locka (8^th) and Fort Lauderdale International (22^nd) ranked among the busiest airports for private jets in 2021.

"XO pioneered and continues to lead the shared flight opportunity, so private flyers can enjoy private flying benefits at one-tenth of the cost of a full charter," said Lynn Fischer, Chief Marketing Officer at XO. "In addition to economic value, shared flights offer significant sustainability advantages. While, on average, fewer than three passengers travel on board a private aircraft, shared flights accommodate 10 or more passengers, increasing the efficiency of seating capacity by 230%."

Earlier this year, XO acquired two Bombardier regional jets to boost the flights. Each airplane has been reconfigured in a 1-by-1 configuration with just 18 seats and two cabin attendants. Gourmet meals can be preordered and there is 4G WIFI to stay connected. One-way tickets start at $1,500 per seat.

For its part, Blade hasn't announced its schedule yet. However, CEO Rob Wiesenthal tells Forbes the flights will start before Thanksgiving, for the seventh straight year from Westchester to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport and for the second year in a row to Palm Beach International Airport.

"We've seen a tremendous number of our regular flyers who have made their second homes in Florida their first homes, have bought second homes in Florida or have moved altogether, but come back to New York from time to time," says Wiesenthal.

The flights, which normally end at Easter, will continue through May this season, he says, pointing to Blade's private terminals at HPN and OPF and its helicopter flights in New York that allow customers to transfer from Manhattan to Westchester County Airport, which is located about 30 miles north of the city.

Blade will use aircraft with 12 to 16 seats. Last year 10-pack ticket books were priced from $2,560 one-way per seat.

JSX, which has been adding flights between Texas, Colorado, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Southern California, continues its route between Miami International Airport and Westchester Country, which operates five to six times a week in each direction. Seats start at $769.

Its flights are on reconfigured Embraer E135s and E145s with 30 leather seats and extra legroom. It is adding connectivity via SpaceX's Starlink starting later this year.

New is The Fleet Club. The start-up brings together Bernard Schwartz, a veteran hospitality entrepreneur and Michele Sullivan, who has 15 years of experience organizing similar members-only shuttles to Kona where Schwartz was a customer.

Plans call for twice-weekly flights from the Signature Flight Support terminal at Miami International Airport to both Eagle County Regional Airport in Colorado and Long Island's MacArthur Airport, using FBOs. While the Eagle flights will operate with a Boeing 757, the flights to New York will use 737s, in both cases configured 2-by-2 with first-class seating and at least 48 inches of pitch between rows.

Schwartz, whose APICII has helped develop hospitality concepts for clients ranging from Montage Los Cabos and Miami's Bath Club to the Seattle Mariners, says both private jet clubs are already about half sold to their maximum of 200 members.

He says Islip is an easy helicopter hop to Manhattan and is at the doorstep of the Hamptons, providing an appeal to those of you who split your time between Miami, New York City and Eastern Long Island.

-0703612984b1deeb.jpg

Teterboro Airport expects a heavy influx of traffic on Super Bowl weekend.

(Star-Ledger file photo)

Shortly after the last confetti rains down at the National Football League's championship game, Wayne Boggs and his team will take the field in the annual Super Bowl of luxury private aviation.

New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport, one of the nation’s busiest for business aviation, will be jammed with about half the 1,200 private and charter planes coming in for the Feb. 2 game. Almost all will be looking to enter the world’s most-delayed airspace that night and the next day.

Boggs’s job at Teterboro will be to prevent the postgame gridlock that’s sometimes ensnared corporate chiefs and celebrities used to being whisked around on a whim. In his third Super Bowl as the so-called air boss, Boggs has the last word on who gets out and when.

“It’s air-traffic control on steroids,” said Boggs, 67, of Tampa, Florida, who specializes in choreographing air shows.

There won’t be as many flight operations around the big game as the New York area has during normal summer periods, even with the influx of private planes, according to a Federal Aviation Administration analysis obtained by Bloomberg News.

That makes Boggs’s task about logistics on the ground. One stalled plane can block dozens of others from reaching the runways, slowing departures to a crawl.

Then there’s this year’s wild card for aircraft operators as well as for the two teams in the first Super Bowl played outdoors in northern climes -- the weather.

Ground Control

Boggs won’t replace the FAA employees at Teterboro’s tower, who will be working at full capacity. His team of 11 will be responsible for wrangling aircraft on the tarmac and some taxiways, which during the game will resemble the MetLife Stadium parking lot less than 2 miles (3 kilometers) away, he said in an interview.

He’ll set up a shadow control facility from an unused tower at the airport. Team members, most of them former air-traffic controllers like Boggs, will be stationed at each of the five airport locations that service the planes. Another will be roving in an airport vehicle. Those in the tower will keep tabs on which planes can depart first, radioing taxi instructions on a frequency temporarily assigned to them.

Boggs said he won’t allow a plane to move at Teterboro until all passengers are aboard and it’s been fueled. Clearance to taxi will be first-come, first-served. That prevents pilots from trying to outrun others to the runways and gives the tower’s controllers an orderly flow, he said.

Teterboro’s airport is taking reservations for as many as 600 aircraft to park there. They will include models built by General Dynamics Corp.’s Gulfstream, Bombardier Inc. and Dassault Aviation SA’s Falcon.

“You have a tremendous amount of heavy iron attending,” Boggs said, using industry jargon for the largest business jets.

Airplane Choreographer

Just as his lookalike younger brother, Wade Boggs, hit the toughest pitchers during his Hall of Fame baseball career with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, Wayne Boggs’s skills are distinctive enough to have inspired a reality-TV miniseries called “Air Boss.” It’s scheduled to debut in June on affiliates of Discovery International, according to the show’s website.

One occupational hazard is that “high-dollar people,” as the air boss calls them, can get impatient if they have to wait.

After the 2008 Super Bowl, held at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, private and charter planes trying to leave the following day were delayed at least six hours.

A storm blew across the Phoenix region on the Monday after the game and limited departures, Arthur Rosen, who was chairman of the Scottsdale Airport’s advisory commission, said in an interview.

2008 Meltdown

Compounding the delays were that some plane owners and operators reserved departure slots and then failed to leave on time, Rosen said.

Robert Kraft, owner of the losing New England Patriots, was stuck in the backup and called officials in an attempt to reach the airport manager, according to Rosen.

The gridlock didn’t just ensnare the losing team. A plane carrying quarterback Eli Manning of the victorious New York Giants and his older brother, Peyton Manning, who will lead the Denver Broncos against the Seattle Seahawks in this year’s game, also was stuck, Rosen said.

“That can be a challenge,” Boggs said, “keeping them as happy as we can until they are able to get out.”

After last year’s Super Bowl, a former football player Boggs declined to identify became irate after the air boss made him wait in a departure queue at New Orleans’s Lakefront Airport.

“The reason he couldn’t go was all his people weren’t there,” he said.

Keeping Happy

Such confrontations have been rare, Boggs said. Most often he eases anger by acting as a referee and providing information if delays occur, he said. When tensions persist, he dispatches a member of his staff to mollify passengers.

Boggs’s work after last year’s Super Bowl prevented a recurrence of the much-worse delays seen in New Orleans after the men’s college basketball championship game in 2012, when Boggs wasn’t on duty, Louis Capo, executive director of the Non- Flood Protection Asset Management Authority, which manages Lakefront Airport, said in an interview.

The FAA, local airport authorities in New York and New Jersey, and aviation businesses have spent months preparing for what’s the biggest annual event for business-jet travelers, according to Argus International Inc., a Cincinnati-based aviation research firm.

Reservations Required

Mindful of previous traffic jams, the FAA has required private and charter planes flying to airports near MetLife Stadium to obtain a reservation and a parking space.

The cost of chartering a plane to the Super Bowl varies by distance traveled, aircraft size and other factors. Hiring a plane capable of flying non-stop from Los Angeles to Teterboro, and staying four days, would cost $65,000, said Andrew Ladouceur, vice president of charter sales and client services at Meridian Teterboro, one of the five bases for private aircraft at the airport.

Airports are laying in extra fuel and deicing fluid, making special parking arrangements for vans and limousines and calling on hundreds of volunteers to assist visitors.

At Meridian, reservations for plane parking during the Super Bowl filled up before Christmas, Betsy Wines, the company’s vice president of customer service and human resources, said in an interview.

'More Planes'

Carlyle Group Landmark Aviation is bringing in more than 20 employees from bases around the U.S. to supplement its staff of 120 at Teterboro, Mario Diaz, the facility’s manager, said in an interview. It expects to handle at least 150 planes, Diaz said.

Both facilities are hosting a viewing party for the pilots and crew who must tend to aircraft during the game.

Interest is also brisk for private flights at Newark Liberty International Airport, which can handle the private planes too big for Teterboro, such as Boeing Co.’s BBJ line including 737s and the double-decker 747-8 modified for private use.

The concrete tarmac at the northern tip of Newark will hold planes worth more than $1 billion on game day.

“We’re going to have more planes during the Super Bowl than we’ve ever had before,” said Eric Richardson, general manager at BBA Aviation Plc’s Signature Flight Support at Newark.

'Dead Crawl'

Super Bowl attendees more into making appearances than staying until the game’s end must use Newark as well. While FAA security rules ban flights at Teterboro from 4 p.m. the day of the game until an hour after the contest ends, Newark is just outside the FAA’s no-flight ring around the stadium and has no restrictions.

The crush at Teterboro won’t begin until the FAA lifts its flight restrictions at about midnight after the game, Boggs said.

He expects a rush from midnight until about 5 a.m. on Feb. 3, with traffic picking up again around 7 a.m. “We don’t quit or take a break until we end around 3 p.m. Monday,” he said.

There’s only one thing Boggs is dreading: the weather. There may be little he can do if freezing rain, snow or high winds reduce flight capacity or temporarily shut an airport.

A winter storm like the one that hit New York and New Jersey Jan. 21 “will throw everything into a dead crawl,” he said.

"In that case, you'd want everyone to take a vacation and go into Manhattan to see a show," he said.Bloomberg

FOLLOW STAR-LEDGER BUSINESS: TWITTER | FACEBOOK

If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. By browsing this site, we may share your information with our social media partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Tropic Ocean Airways (TI, Fort Lauderdale International) has received an undisclosed minority capital investment from executive charter operator Wheels Up (Teterboro) to help fund the Florida-based seaplane specialist's continued growth and support shared initiatives under a new commercial agreement, including the introduction of new flights that will be exclusive to Wheels Up customers.

Tropic Ocean Airways services more than 70 destinations through private- and shared charters throughout Florida, the Northeast, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean with its fleet of nine-seater amphibious and wheeled Cessna (single turboprop) Caravan EXs."This partnership will help us extend the reach of our existing products, invest in our operational capabilities, and expand our offerings to more places and more service types," said Tropic Ocean Airways Chief Executive Officer Rob Ceravolo.

Wheels Up is an ad-hoc private aviation provider that also has a strategic partnership with Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson). Its new multi-year commercial agreement with Tropic Ocean Airways is aimed at expanding its market and offering first- to last-mile travel solutions for its members and customers, the company said in a statement. The agreement will integrate Tropic Ocean Airways' charter- and certain scheduled by-the-seat services into Wheels Up’s system, meaning passengers will be able to book and pay directly through Wheels Up to fly on Tropic Ocean Airways flights.

The parties will initially focus on providing Wheels Up customers with greater accessibility within Tropic Ocean Airways' current coverage area. Over time, the intention is to expand to additional markets in the United States and the Caribbean.

"Tropic Ocean delivers a strong geographic and product fit as the locations they currently serve are very popular with our members and with an aircraft type that extends the range and access capability of our existing fleet,” explained Wheels Up Chief Executive Officer Kenny Dichter.

Tropic Ocean Airways offers scheduled flights from its Fort Lauderdale International base to Bimini North SPB, Bullock Harbour, Cat Cay, and Nassau International in the Bahamas.

Business aviation activity is starting to see a slowdown from pandemic highs, according to a recent report by WingX.

Although business and private jet travel remains 20 percent higher than where it was last year, WingX suggests that things might taper off soon. “The big question is whether flight demand can weather the start of autumn and [a] swiftly deteriorating economic outlook in the next few months,” the bulletin said.

WingX said that during August, private jet operators in North America traveled just 1 percent more than they did in 2021. This August’s activity was 13 percent higher than previous highs in 2019, which is a good indication that the overall business jet market has grown as travelers have shifted from commercial airlines to private operators during the pandemic.

But things might turn.

In late August, business jet departures were “down 4 percent compared to the previous week,” WingX said. Going further, August fractional and charter flight activities decreased by 8 percent, according to the report.

North America in Focus

The FAA’s business jet report provides a snapshot of trends in business turbine activity up through the previous month and a ranking of the top 10 airports and aircraft used for business jet operations over the past year.

Bankers and other economic analysts use business jet activities as one indicator of overall economic conditions, according to the FAA. Its August report showed 2,425 fewer departures from the top three domestic business aviation airports of Teterboro, New Jersey (KTEB); West Palm Beach, Florida (KPBI); and Van Nuys, California (KVNY), for the period. This makes August the second consecutive month of declining business travel after setting records last year.

Amid talks of a broad economic slowdown, WingX said that this year, “the overall region of North America has notched up record flight activity, with almost 2 million business jet sectors flown.” That would be 18 percent higher than the same period in 2021.

Moreover, the U.S. market grew by 23 percent during 2019, but Canada and Mexico still haven’t managed to top their pre-pandemic activity, according to the WingX data.

Meanwhile, summer destination favorites, like Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have experienced 30 percent more business travel from January to August this year compared to 2019.

Mid-Size Jets Lead the Way

As for what equipment operators seem to prefer, WingX said that this year, in North America, the Bombardier Challenger 300/350 has dominated and is being flown by operators 17 percent more than it was prior to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Embraer Phenom 300 and Cessna Citation Latitude have seen the largest increase in fleet size.

Domestically, Cessna’s Citation Excel is still the workhorse of the business aviation industry.

Regarding domestic travel, the FAA’s data shows that among the top 10 aircraft for business jet operations, the Excel, Phenom, and Latitude represent just over 40 percent of all activity.

Interestingly, it wasn’t until June that more operators began using the Latitude slightly more than the popular Hawker 800 jet.

Over 10 years ago, Captain Chesley Sullenberger - affectionately known as Sully - landed flight number 1549 into the Hudson River. It was a feat of responsiveness to pilot training, which left all 150 passengers and five crew alive and well. Yet, whatever happened to the Airbus A320 aircraft? Where is it now?

Flight 1549 crash lands in the sea

January 15th, 2009, is a day that many Americans and aviation enthusiasts will not forget. It was the day that a commercial, narrowbody Airbus aircraft crash-landed into the winter-chilled Hudson River.

Flight number 1549 for US Airways was being operated on the day by an Airbus A320-214 registered as N106US. The aircraft, produced in Toulouse, was delivered back in 1999 and a well-cemented part of the US Airways fleet. Little was the airline aware that flight 1549 would be its last.

The aircraft was taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City on its way to Charlotte in North Carolina. Upon take-off, the plane got into difficulty when it encountered a flock of geese. Birds obscured the pilot and first officer's view while passengers became aware of a loud bang and smell of fuel. The bird strike severely damaged both of the aircraft's engines, causing them to fail. While first officer Jeffrey Bruce "Jeff" Skiles began configuring an engine restart, Captain Sully glided the plane to a safe landing spot.

Initially, the pilot chose Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to land when it was given clearance for Runway 1. However, the aircraft never made it. It became apparent to both Sully and Skiles that the best option for the aircraft was the Hudson River, where the plane eventually ditched.

What happened next?

After landing on the river, passengers were evacuated, and local boat operators were alerted to facilitate the rescue. All 155 people onboard, including five crew members and 150 passengers, were safe and mostly without physical injury.

Severely damaged and waterlogged, the plane was pulled from the water on January 17th and investigated to determine the cause of the crash. The aircraft was moved to Kearney, New Jersey, where analysis of the accident continued. Satisfied that the aircraft had indeed lost engine power due to a bird strike from a flock of Canada geese in May 2009, the next priority was what to do with the plane.

In early January 2010, N106US was put up for auction online by insurance firm Chartis. The sale lasted three months in which no valuation was given. However, the aircraft was not purchased, understandably so due to the nature of the damage and scale of the plane.

N106US finds a new home

Still, N106US was not destined for the scrapyard. On June 10th, 2011, the aircraft was donated to the Carolinas Aviation Museum by the American International Group (AIG). According to officials at the museum, the aircraft was a game-changer for revenue. It took the site from a relatively unknown collection of aircraft for aviation enthusiasts to a place of national significance.

Visitors to Carolinas Aviation Museum were able to not only see the plane but also witness passenger testimonies and find out more about the dramatic accident.

However, while the aircraft lavished in new-found fame, a twist of fate now sees the aircraft in storage. Carolinas Aviation Museum is currently closed while it searches for a new hangar to host its collection. As a result, N106US is be closed for public viewings until a new location can be found ahead of reopening next year.

Notably, upon reopening, the museum will be renamed in honor of Sully. It will also host a special Miracle on the Hudson exhibition recognizing the acts of the US Airways Flight 1549 crew

"The Carolinas Aviation Museum (CAM) announces it will be renamed in honor of Captain Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III, who together with the crew of US Airways Flight 1549, heroically landed the plane in the Hudson River and saved all lives on board. The Museum will formally announce its official new name later this year. Upon reopening in 2023, the Smithsonian affiliate will also become home to a permanent exhibit honoring the Captain and crew of the flight, including the “Miracle on the Hudson” airplane, which previously attracted more than 74,000 visitors to the Museum annually." - Carolinas Aviation Museum.

Have you seen N106US? What do you make of the aircraft's history over the years? Let us know what you think in the comments.