Portland’s MAC Air Group is taking off in a new direction by selling timeshares in private jets.

The aviation company is starting a subsidiary, QJet Shares, and plans to sell six Hawker 1000 “super midsize” jets to 36 owners, with each owning one-sixth of a plane. The typical buyer would be a company or individual that wants occasional access to a private jet without incurring the full cost of ownership. Each fully refurbished Hawker 1000 will seat up to nine passengers.

Shared ownership programs are not new to the aviation industry. There are large providers such as NetJets and Flight Options, in addition to many smaller, regional players.

MAC Air has hired Pat Reed, an aviation industry veteran, to serve as director of sales for QJet. She has worked for a number of aircraft companies, including some that offered variations on the shared ownership model.

Pat Reed sits aboard a Hawker 1000 at the Portland International Jetport last week.

Reed said shared ownership is ideal for customers who fly at least 75 hours a year via private jet, but less than the 200 or so hours that would justify purchasing a full aircraft. With that amount of flight time, shared ownership becomes more economical than using a chartered flight for every trip, she said.

There are also tax benefits to being the legal owner of an aircraft, such as the ability to take a deduction for depreciation, Reed said.

“You’re actually buying one-sixth of an aircraft, and your name is on the title of that plane,” she said.

Still, not everyone agrees that heavy usage alone warrants the purchase of a fractional share in a private jet. According to Bedford, Massachusetts-based Jet Advisors, it’s the type of use that matters most.

Al Caruso of Mac Air Group drops the steps of a Hawker 1000, a small jet that is capable of making cross-country flights.

For example, a single fractional ownership would not suffice for a company that needed several jets on the same day to fly out of regional offices in different cities, Jet Advisors said in an analysis piece on its website.

“The truth is that the decision is not so simple,” it said. “Choosing private jet ownership over a charter service depends not on the number of hours of use, but rather the type of use a private jet will get.”

MAC Air Group, formerly Maine Aviation Corp., has flown from the Portland International Jetport since 1959, but the company has been evolving in recent years. In 2014, it ceased offering short-term rentals and flight instruction so it could focus on a more lucrative market: sales and charters of luxury aircraft.

The decision reflected ongoing changes in the private aviation market – high fuel costs and the shift in demand to other parts of the world made offering local two-seater rentals less financially viable. It also took into consideration a resurgence of demand for nonessential luxury services and big-ticket items as the economy recovered from the Great Recession of 2008.

FOCUS ON A NEW MARKET

MAC Air President and CEO Allyn Caruso said the expansion into shared ownership sales is part of a natural progression for the company, which not only operates a charter service but converts former commercial planes into luxury jets for private use.

With the company’s existing fleet of 18 charter planes in addition to the six shared-ownership planes, QJet customers always will have a private jet available to take them to their destination, Caruso said. The six shared-ownership jets will be used interchangeably, he said. For any given flight, the nearest available plane will be used.

The Hawker 1000 carries nine passengers. Six of the jets will be part of the QJets timeshare program.

“We can provide backup to these with our existing fleet,” Caruso added.

Buying one-sixth of a private jet may be less expensive than buying a full jet, but the cost is still far outside most people’s price range. Caruso and Reed said they haven’t settled on exact prices yet, but that there will be recurring monthly management fees and hourly fees for flight time in addition to the initial purchase price, which is standard for shared ownership programs.

A brand new Hawker 1000 ranges in price from $16 million to $18 million, Caruso said.

But for those who can afford it, Reed and Caruso said QJet will be able to offer a more personalized experience than its larger competitors at a lower cost, because it will manage a smaller fleet consisting of a single type of aircraft.

“We’re not trying to be all things to all people,” Reed said. “We’re focusing on one jet. We’re focusing on a fewer number of people.”

Caruso noted that some larger shared ownership providers sell fractions of a jet as small as one-sixteenth, which means 16 owners to a plane.

“With other fractionals, they just keep selling shares,” he said.

The cockpit of a Hawker 1000.

Shared or fractional private jet ownership is not the only alternative to chartering a plane or buying a whole one. Another service offered by some providers is what’s known as a jet card. A jet card allows customers to pre-purchase a set number of flight hours on a private jet and is similar in use to a prepaid debit card.

However, in an analysis for Forbes magazine, aviation marketing expert Heather Dynes, president of Cleveland-based HD Marketing Solutions, said that jet card programs have not proven to be economically viable for jet service operators.

“Unfortunately, they have proven to be a weak point in the market, so while they do provide benefits to the buyer, they are definitely not a sustainable option for the operating companies,” Dynes said.

QJet will operate primarily in the same region as MAC Air – up and down the East Coast from Maine to Florida – but with a maximum range of 3,000 miles, its jets will have the ability to reach thousands of domestic and international destinations, Caruso said.

MAC Air was founded in 1947 by brothers Joe and Tom Caruso, who had recently returned from World War II. On the advice of a relative, they began offering scenic flights on a seaplane out of Southwest Harbor. Three years later, the brothers leased space at the Bar Harbor Airport, and by 1959 moved operations to the Portland International Jetport.

The business was taken over by Joe Caruso’s son, Allyn Caruso, who spent his life around planes. By age 19 he had become an airline captain, and he now runs the business with his wife, Alysan, and their son, Travis, who is director of maintenance.

When the economy crashed in 2008, MAC Air struggled along with other private jet operators while congressional leaders chastised executives of struggling companies in televised hearings about their lavish lifestyles and excessive spending on private jets and other luxuries.

But those times have passed. MAC Air recently completed a new terminal and office building, a “fixed-based operator” facility that provides various aviation-related services, and a “fuel farm” at Portland International Jetport. A grand opening is being planned for July.

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