Though Wal-Mart could, in theory, save millions of dollars in annual operating
expenses by downsizing a substantial portion of its fleet to VLJs, it has no
plans to do so, choosing, instead, to maximize the efficiency of its Lears by
maintaining a load factor of plus-five passengers per flight leg.
“Our load factor is 5.2, so we really get incredible efficiency out of these
airplanes,” Wal-Mart director of Global Travel Services Duane Futch said in an
interview with Business Travel News. “We’re not just going out and dropping one
person off. They always travel with a team that is going to do the job they
have to do in the field. We don’t just drop that team off. That airplane is
constantly moving. The typical Wal-Mart airplane will make between three and
six stops a day: picking up people, dropping people off … moving them to
another location.”
As is the case with many commercial air-taxi operations, Wal-Mart’s fleet
management needs are sufficiently complex to demand more than an off-the-shelf
management solution to handle passenger, crew, maintenance, inspection and
other scheduling and back-office tasks. Building on Atlanta-based Seagil
Software’s BART aviation management system, WalMart programmers fashioned a
series of custom application extensions maximizing efficiency while retaining
the flexibility to quickly change everything from routings to passenger lists
in response to unforeseen circumstances requiring immediate attention (a
computer system meltdown at a remote division, for example.)
Like many new-generation air-taxi operators, Wal-Mart Aviation also recognizes
the importance of full-service, high-level ground services (think DayJets’
DayPorts). Not only does the company own and operate a private ATC tower at
Rogers field, a wholly owned FBO at the airport, 22-year-old Beaver Lake
Aviation, supplies everything from free popcorn to computerized weather
tracking, executive conference rooms, crew quiet and snooze rooms, exercise
facilities, washing machines and courtesy transportation to nearby restaurants.
And if all this isn’t enough to convince skeptics that Wal-Mart Aviation is
really just an air-taxi company in corporate clothing, consider this: The
company traces its history back to 1954 when Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton bought
a single-engine Ercoupe 415 and began flying it to stores in Arkansas and
adjacent states because it was faster than driving between locations on
twisting Ozark Mountain roads.
