I am going to stand by the "well they won't" because all the people I know with private jets most certainly won't. Even if the government used eminent domain and forced buy-backs at $10-$50 million per aircraft they would just buy something that skirts the line to meet business needs. More likely they would just buy out all the seats on a 737 so they can change the flight plan, leading to even more waste and longer lines at airports but that won't meet the needs of business folks that are landing at small class C airports and thereby leading to lawsuits. Folks land near me all the time in their private jets. The nearest commercial airline is a couple hours away. Time is money and is also critical for back-to-back business meetings.
There are likely a small number of celebrities that use these aircraft to avoid sitting with us plebs and for status but the vast majority of them are use for business purposes that can not be replaced by commercial airlines in a manor that business folks would consider acceptable. Most of these people have legal teams that would battle any action taken by the government and in the end we would just waste vast amounts of taxpayer funds. That may sound defeatist but we have all witnessed the legal fallout of smaller changes.
That is a good question. One use case would be signing documents in person when that and a public notary is required. Some legal documents can be pseudo signed over various document sharing platforms but some business deals do not support this, especially when talking about acquisitions, mergers and sales of multi-million/billion dollar companies. Another disputable use case would be the human interaction factor when making large business deals. Historically people in person will be favored over people online. There are debates about this use case but money talks and people will go where the money is. Another use case are deals that require negotiating and/or discussing things too sensitive to discuss online and that is a topic in and of itself.
My group writes software that runs manufacturing facilities. Pandemic showed us how ridiculously effective we could be at most of our work and how ridiculously inefficient, ineffective, and all around worse not being able to go to the factories where our software runs.
one example: driving a potentially huge sale (say, $10M/yr services contract with n years guaranteed) with a huge global company and getting an extremely rare time slot with their CEO to close the deal. in that situation, a $50k flight in a challenger to a muni airport that's 10 mins away makes a lot of sense
another example: there was a piece done on a doctor that bought a light jet for his practice. don't remember the specifics but i remember thinking that his use case made a lot of sense
There are likely a small number of celebrities that use these aircraft to avoid sitting with us plebs and for status but the vast majority of them are use for business purposes that can not be replaced by commercial airlines in a manor that business folks would consider acceptable. Most of these people have legal teams that would battle any action taken by the government and in the end we would just waste vast amounts of taxpayer funds. That may sound defeatist but we have all witnessed the legal fallout of smaller changes.
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