Jet Owner

As a result, the company has rebranded itself "CitationAir by Cessna." But is the imminent demise of fractional ownership really  only a recent development?  On the morning of October 9th, CitationShares revealed its rebranding as "CitationAir by Cessna," now that Cessna owns most of the company. Cessna has had an interest in increasing its control since 2004.

From the article: "Acknowledging that the fractional model is in need of overhaul in the new economic environment, CitationAir president Steve O’Neill said, “This change is necessary because our customers have evolved, and so must we. The private jet industry is facing enormous pressures right now, and in order to thrive we must ensure our business model remains viable and our sales and marketing efforts are leveraging all our points of difference.”"

Wait, "in need of overhaul in the NEW economic environment?" Adam Webster, co-founder of Marcil Tech Group, whose subsidiaries include the Jet Owner Group and RSVPair, predicted the fall of fractional ownership companies back in 2006, and even before then, the lack of profits felt by NetJets was already known. As stated in an 2006 article in the New York Times: "Although NetJets is by far the leader in its industry, the company lost $80 million last year, after scratching out a profit of $10 million in 2004. (It also lost money in 2001, 2002 and 2003, according to the company.)"

O'Neill and company believe that CitationShares' new business model will help tackle the economic issues currently affecting the general aviation industry, fractional ownership programs specifically, but only time will tell. In the meanwhile, the exodus of fractional owners looking for less costly alternatives keeps on growing while the number of new sales keeps decreasing, which is terrible for a business that thrives on new sales more than existing customers. In turn, this forces fractional companies to charge more, which certainly doesn't help.