Scudrunners

If you want to spend your life in the employ of a commercial air service, it
would behoove you to buy 4 books and read them at some point.

One book on finance.
One book on accounting.
One book on marketing.
One book on economics.

Is that too much to ask? You will find this knowledge enormously beneficial
to you. Over your lifetime, this additional knowledge may increase your net
worth by at least a million dollars. Or two.

You don't need to get a Bcomm or an MBA. Just read four fucking books.

You do that, email me and I will mail you a gold star. Seriously.

I would suggest economic literacy is much less prevalent in the general population than written literacy. A major factor in this IMO is the diminution of numerical literacy in today’s society.

It would also seem that a lack of understanding of basic economic principles is a prerequisite for a professional flying career, otherwise nobody would be a commercial pilot. The entire system is rigged against pilots.

In a perfect world the CPL syllabus would have a section on the economics of commercial aviation. It would be the most important part of the course.

Very early in my career I worked for a small air taxi operation. I remember one morning there was a panic call from a very occasional customer for a charter that was a 600 mile round trip but had the airplane away for the whole day as the return was not until late at night. The boss ( company owner) thought about it for a minute and then called a competitor and offered it as a sub charter for 500 dollars less than he had quoted to the customer. The other company bit and he made 500 dollars in 5 minutes

The airplane ended up flying 2 other short trips that day with regular customers and the bottom line was it was a $1000 profit ( in 1991 dollars) day. Not surprisingly this gentleman ran a very successful business for 25 years and then sold it for a tidy sum.

That day was an “Ah, Hah” moment for me. However my co pilot was seriously pissed because he felt he had missed flying a trip without any understanding of the value of having a job because the owner was smart with his money

Similar aha moment for me was when my old boss in Yukon said his best year running his small seasonal air taxi sightseeing and charter business it made $2000.

Huh ?!!!! That’s terrible I said.

I think he set me up with his line of conversation just to have a business talk.

Well he said. That year the business paid my wife and I dividends totalling 200k. Built a hangar, the company needed a new truck and I hung a new engine on the 206.
Not bad for 6 months of your work eh.

I should have bought the airline off him right there.

I learned a ton about how to run a business he came from
Outside aviation before he started the operation so he actually knew a thing or two.

Young and dumb I suppose.

My current company has been around since 1881 so I’m pretty safe they need business jets.

My side hustle businesses are starting to pay off, it just might need a new truck next year.

I had heard “Airlines are banks” a number of years ago but had assumed it was more of an investment banking situation. You know, like they collect their payment weeks in advance of providing their product so they’d have that long to try and grow that money.

Neat video.