Jessie: Good morning. Welcome back to the VIP seat. We have stories on 135 rules. Again, sit back, buckle up, and let's take off. Preston Holland: So Jesse, another great week in business aviation. And the first story this week is that Fly Exclusive is now setting some records for their jet card deposits and for their flying, according to a press release covered by private jet card comparisons. Jessie: Yeah, so I'm very curious about the timing of this. We were kind of talking on the show before we started. Earnings are probably coming out like mid-August. It hasn't officially been announced. so this is kind of press before earnings, which to me, and again, this is speculative and this is not financial advice. That's not we do here. but you know, if you're doing press before earnings, it's either one of two things. A, you're doing the things that you said you were gonna do, and in Q1, they said they were gonna have 15% increases year over year in Q2. So maybe that's what's Happening, or B, they're not going to meet targets and they're trying to do some positive press before the negatives come out. I guess we'll just have to see what happens. Preston Holland: Yeah. So these are main numbers that came out. So 4,000 flights and over 7,000 flight hours, which is a lot. last year they were the fifth largest operator based off of flight hours. and the big number that stuck out to me was that the average jet jet club funding, which is their jet card equivalent, was $190,000, which is almost double the $100,000 minimum. So people are putting up Bigger deposits to run in, to run in their in their jet card program. The one big caveat to that is that now you have deferred liability, right? So you Jessie: Mm. Preston Holland: have to serve those flights sometime in the future, and you have the cash now. So that's always been the biggest rub that people in the industry have with these large prepaid deposit cards. Is like, okay, well, yes, that's great. And you have this. future revenue, but you have cash now. So you have to have enough cash to be able to serve those flights in the future. Jessie: Yeah, it's all about operational and margin performance. And that's, I think, you know, investors are really going to be looking, okay, yeah, you can have growth. You know, Wheels App had amazing growth, but at the end of the day, it comes down to what are you making on an hourly basis? And are you covering a the cost of running the airplanes, but also your overhead and everything else? So that'll be for me what'll be really interesting to see is okay, you got sales growth, market is great. they also mentioned their net promoter score, which that was like hit or miss for me. I don't know why everyone uses that as like a metric. But anyway, their net promoter score is 86%. percent. So they're they're signaling, hey, we've got all this great interest, great customers, doubling how much they're spending with us. That's really positive. The question will be, are they making enough to really justify the business? They did have adjusted positive EBUDA in Q1. so we'll just have to see. Preston Holland: Yeah. And I also think that this is all retail numbers. So they're kind of touting the retail numbers, better margin, right? But also higher Jessie: Mm. Preston Holland: cost of go-to-market. When you're just a wholesale operator, you have less sales expense, you have less marketing expense. And so this is all direct to customer. Not the number is kind of lumped in, and then there's a lot of pointing towards, hey, look at the retail numbers. So that's just one thing to think about is The number of flight hours is going to be cumulative. And then the jet card number is going to be retail. So you cannot say that that is a one for one. They did not necessarily fly 9,000 hours of retail flying at high, nice retail margins necessarily. They don't break it out in this report and in this press release, which is, I think at the end of the day, if you're publicly traded, especially, you have to be very careful with what you say because. It can swing the price if they don't understand. And we have talked about this exhaustively Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: on the show that public markets have a hard time understanding our business. And so the deposit, yes, looks great and it looks fantastic. When earnings come out, you'll be able to see what the actual pull through is of those numbers. But if all of those hours are wholesale, the margin's not going to be as good. The deposit, yes, it's great, but it's not going to be as, you know, it's not going to be as profitable. And so Jessie: Is that the story in here? Is that maybe we're highlighting our re very speculative guys. This is like just us spitballing, Preston Holland: Maybe maybe. I maybe. Yeah. Jessie: but like is that the story that re retail's better and it's growing? Preston Holland: Right. I mean, the number is seven thousand flight hours and the average jet club funding. Okay. So like those are the two numbers that are released. Total new customer deposits in May were up thirty two percent year over year. Now, what does all of like I think you would really need to back into that number and see that program got revamped this year. So there's no membership fees and there's no taxi time. So membership fees, mind you, are a hundred percent gross margin, right? That is the dollar to become a member flows straight into your, you know, SGNA. Whereas if there's no membership, that's you know, you still have to keep really tight margins. They're growing. Again, we've talked about this and looking at the landscape of wholesale operators as you kind of zoom back, right? You've got fly exclusive, wheels up still being in the wholesale market. and then, you know, a lot of other call it sub scale, right? Flag Squares is really trying to be a big scale player in the wholesale market, but also having this big retail arm. So we'll see when earnings come out. I think that's gonna tell us the real story is when earnings come out, we'll actually be able to see this. I guess the question is is are would they be reporting May in or in earnings coming up? That's the question. If it's that's Q two. So if they report Q2 earnings in August, we'll actually be able to see what the net net of that is. Right. Jessie: Yeah, I don't know. I mean it'll probably be lumped in with like through June, right? So I don't know. Preston Holland: Right. So yeah, we'll we'll see. Again, interesting to see it come out. Good for them. It's showing growth. That's net positive, Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: right? So growth is always good. but we will see when earnings come out. So earmark this, all you loyal listeners, remind us when earnings come out that we need to revisit this exact conversation. I'm making Jessie: Hey. Preston Holland: this for my own notes as well. that we'll come revisit this conversation and see and actually compare and contrast what the headlines say versus what the earnings say. Jessie: Yeah, but if you are looking for an incredible wholesale provider, if you're one of our wonderful charter broker listeners or other retail customers out there listening, AB Jets is a fantastic Challenger 3500 operator. we flew in one of their aircraft and they are sponsors of the show, so we really appreciate it. Preston Holland: Don't forget they also operate a fleet of Lear sixties that are owned and operated, self-supported. And I've actually flown in one of those too. And it's also fantastic. Great pilots, great crew, great maintenance. So call A B Jets. Thanks, A B Jets, for sponsoring this week's episode of the show. Jessie: Now it's time for everyone's favorite part of the show, Mile Hive Madness, where we take the craziest stuff off the internet and business aviation or aviation related generally and share it with you. Preston Holland: Yeah, mine my mile hype madness this week is Chad. And Chad is the cousin of PE guy. And this is Chad flying to Nantucket. And to be honest with you, I love this guy. It's he's hysterical. That's so my that's my favorite line right there. He went to the wrong FBO. So then later in this video, he ends up he he ends up showing a shot out the wing on a PC twelve because he is, you know, flying around on trade winds or some other PC twelve Nantucket provider. Jessie: Trade web, yeah. Preston Holland: And yeah, so it's it's pretty funny. He does peptides at altitude, which is pretty diabolical. but it's funny. So we do love these guys kind of poking fun at our industry because the the reality is is This is actual satire and other people on the internet in our industry are not holding it out as satire. They're holding it out as real life, but really it reads as satire. I don't know. Jessie: Yes. Yeah, no, I love this guy because not only does he do these like finance bro and some other like impressions of people, but he also does like what normal people do, what versus what influencers do. And I really want to do one day that version of that with like the FBO or not the FBO, the aircraft detailer guy. Detailer guy. Preston Holland: Detailer guy. Yeah, detailer guy. Jessie: Yeah, because he goes around and like says the most ridiculous things and has the most ridiculous prices and it's not real and it makes all the detailers crazy. So what detailer influencers do versus real. Preston Holland: Yeah, we haven't seen D we haven't seen Detailer Guy in a while. I don't know if he Jessie: I I know, thankfully. Preston Holland: finally got canceled and everybody's like, This is stupid or not. But Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: Detailer Guy, if you're out there and you listen, like, where you been, bud? Jessie: no, no, thank you. Don't I don't wanna see Preston Holland: Yeah. Jessie: it anymore. But speaking of things I do wanna see is my mile hype at this this week, which is just glorious and let's just watch it together. Preston Holland: For those that are just listening, this is a bunch of air to air videography from a Prater five hundred and six hundred shoot from Kevin LaRosa, and it is gorge. I mean, it's beautiful. Jessie: That's so pretty. At the end of it, they have a snow capped mountain that the plane is just going past. It's the Prater five hundred six hundred and it's being shot by the Phenom 300 that's equipped with the camera that also did Top Gun. And it's just it's just so pretty. Preston Holland: Yeah, the Kevin LaRosa, K2 LaRosa on Instagram is a great late night fall down the rabbit hole find. So highly encourage going to look at those if you're scrolling late at night on the internet looking for something really cool to go look at. Jessie: could watch that video like so many times it's just so pretty Preston Holland: yeah. yeah. Absolutely gorgeous. Jessie: All right, well, thank speaking of things that are not so gorgeous. we have a little update on the New York City crash that happened last year in a helicopter tour company. this tragically killed an entire family, including an executive that was on vacation. for those who remember the video, it was shocking because the main rotor just completely separated from the aircraft and the helicopter had no chance. It just crashed into the Hudson. There was there was no getting out of that situation. But I think everyone speculated, and again, this is the whole problem with speculation before the reports come. out that it could have been a maintenance issue, but we're finding out now the NTSB is finding pieces of birds around the area where it occurred. So it could very well be a bird strike. It's not finalized yet, but they are putting that out there. Preston Holland: Yeah, so the Smithsonian Institution's feather identification lab identified remains from different breeds of geese on the wreckage, including a female Canada goose, which averages nearly eight pounds, according to this AP article. And, you know, it's it's really unfortunate. The crazy part is that everybody basically said, yeah, probably sketchy, you know, maintenance was wrong, all of this, but then as All of this information has started to resurface. It's like, well, not really, it's not really what you think that it is. yeah. I mean, so there's 24 helicopter bird strike crashes in the last 25 years, including three fatal ones. So that's it's not a lot, but it's not zero, right? Like if you think about like how many, I don't know, how many bird strikes there are. I I don't know, 20, 24 doesn't feel like a ton, but. One a year, that's Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: more than more than nothing. Jessie: Well, one the interesting things too is and this is referenced in the the report, there's also a system called Pulse Light that helicopters use. it's a more recent product. I don't know when it came out, but a lot of companies were using it in Las Vegas to get birds to go away. Basically, I think it makes a sound and a light that flashes to kind Preston Holland: Hmm. Jessie: of distract birds so they don't come near the helicopter. And this operator was using it. They don't know if it was on at the time, but it had been on previously during the day. so but again, I it's not foolproof, you know, not in a nine pound geese is a nine pound geese. Like you can't Really do much about that. but crazy story too, because in this situation, this was the one where the certificate was revoked. The director of operations had a phone call with the FAA in which he voluntarily agreed to have a safety stand down and just you know cease operations for a time being till they could do some research. apparently, I don't think he told the CEO, or maybe there was a miscommunication between the two of them, because he emailed the company and said, Yes, we're shutting down, you know, per FAA. and then the The CEO called him like a few minutes later and said, no, we're not. I don't want to do that and fired him. So the FAA then revoked the certificate based on him being fired over a safety issue. Just definitely a weird situation between, you know, management personnel versus actual management of the company and who wins in that fight. Preston Holland: Yeah. So Jesse, is this is that basically a DOA? Like is that a if you fire somebody for a safety related incident that is not substantiated, then the FAA is gonna revoke your certificate? Or do they just kind of they call the shots in this scenario? Jessie: I think they call the shots in this situation, especially right after a fatal accident. You know, even from like their own PR perspective, it's like if they didn't do something, the FAA would probably look bad for not doing it. But I've I've never heard of this before where there was a dispute like that in the FAA saying, Nope, you don't get to do that, and then immediately suspending the certificate. There were some other details that we probably don't know yet and maybe will come out in the final report. But one of the things was that the director of maintenance and the director of operations were part-time employees as well. So who knows what else kind of forced them to or made them make that decision. certainly not a good look though on the management side. Like you don't fire someone right after you've had a crash. That's not good policy. Preston Holland: And because they did what is probably the right thing and stop. Let's take a pause. Let's figure Jessie: Mm. Preston Holland: out what happened. And then maybe we can resume after we actually figure out what happened, right? Let's run through records. In 15 minutes, you don't really have enough time to generally say, yes, we can continue on and we can't. And you had said something about some pilots, some pilot interviews that had come out that maybe had some undercurrent of company culture and direction Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: and that kind of stuff. Jessie: Yeah, and look, I mean, it's pilot talk. We never, you know, we we don't know if it's substantiated or not. But something that came up in the interviews was that they were saying that there was like trouble with paying invoices and the company was having financial problems, but who knows? You know, I mean, that's just all speculative at this point. but yeah, I mean, as someone who's run an operation and has had some pretty, you know, serious incidents, you know, thankfully we never had an accident. you take a beat for your employees. Like, imagine, you know, the pilot that was involved in the crash was probably someone's friend that's flying there or, you know, even closer friend, give people a moment. You know, you don't expect people to run an operation the same day that something tragic has happened. Preston Holland: Yep. Yeah, exactly. No, but I think that the lesson out there for management and executives is like, look, doesn't matter what's going on in the business, like safety, people, right? Like I'm sure that all the pilots were shook up about this. I mean, I can't imagine being there being a very a lot of confidence. It's like, yeah, we Jessie: Mm. Preston Holland: just had a really bad accident. I'm gonna go take off in two hours. Like it's all everything's good. This probably, Jessie: Yeah, no. Don't do that. Preston Holland: yeah, probably well merited. So you know, f default to safety. Jessie: Yeah, well we'll see if they end up being a helicopter charter operator again, but I think it'd be pretty messy to convince people to fly with them in the future. But please do fly in helicopters, folks. This is a pretty freak accident. I know Preston gives me a hard time sometimes about helicopters, but it's very rare, as you said, that something like this happens. Preston Holland: Yep, very true. Well, moving on to our next story, Bombardier is mopping up in fleet orders this year. I mean, they are on a tear that is going to be one for the record books because you have the mysterious Bond by, you have I I think NetJets has placed some orders this year, and now we have a new player, which is the Saudis, which by the way, just want to throw this out there, is who we all thought Bond was actually placed the order. So Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: Maybe it wasn't, maybe the the speculation that it's the Saudis was not a hundred percent wrong. Jessie: Yep, just slightly delayed. Yeah. So the Saudi Arabia's PIF, which is a private investment fund or their sovereign wealth fund, is going a whole hog in private aviation over there. Not only have they agreed to buy the firm order was for twelve aircraft, which is about half a milli five hundred to five hundred and sixty million dollars. Preston Holland: Have a billion. Jessie: half a billion, but also options for forty-eight more, which could be up to two point nine billion dollars, which is so huge. Preston Holland: I'm just saying the only disappointment I have in this story is that they didn't wait till NBAA and bring back Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: the Circus O Olay dancers. Like, you know, if if you're gonna have a big order, do something cool and crazy and fun, not just like send out a big price release. Jessie: Well, so this wasn't their only announcement. They also purchased a whole bunch of helicopters. the entity that this is is called the helicopter company. That's who the PIF is investing in and buying these assets for. they already have 60 helicopters. They plan to have 100 by the end of this year. 900 plus employees plus all these airplanes. So the Saudis are really getting into it. Preston Holland: Yeah, no kidding. The Middle East is really growing as a market. again, I think we saw some signs of this coming. Cause if you remember all of the the Bombardier MRO resources that went into the Middle East, right? It was all these announcements of MRO capacity opening in the Middle East, but it was like, who's the big anchor customer there, right? MRO customer in the United States. Everybody assumes that NetJet's the anchor. You go to the Middle East, you're like, who's the big player there? but this is apparently the helicopter company, which the Jessie: Mm. Preston Holland: initials are THC. That one doesn't translate a hundred percent to English. Jessie: It does not Preston Holland: but five Challenger 3500s, five global 5500s, two global eight thousands is the firm order. And Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: then assuming the same ratio would be 20, 3500s, 20, 5500s, and eight global eight thousands, which would be, I mean, that'd put them way up there in the new delivery. like the new aircraft flying their big competitor now becomes Vista instead of, you know, like NetJets Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: and Flexjet. So interesting to see that grow. But then they also don't operate offshore in their helicopters. Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: So it's like this is all VIP helicopters. Jessie: Yeah, and that's something I'm interested in. for those who don't know, my husband's a partial investor in an offshore operation in the Middle East. So I do have somewhat familiarity with this area. But yeah, they had originally announced they were going to be an offshore operator. It hasn't happened yet. but if they have plans to grow to a hundred helicopters, that may very well be in the near future. Their fleet today doesn't really make sense for the offshore market. but we'll just have to keep keep an eye on it. For right now, they're doing VIP, private charter. There's certainly a ton. Of wealth that's moving to that region because it's a tax-friendly area and the Saudis are really focused on making this, you know, a luxury, wealthy destination for the world. Preston Holland: Let's also be honest, the sovereign wealth fund might be the most patient capital in the world because it's like five Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: thousand years old or something like that. So Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: but I tell you who is not going to be celebrating any big orders anytime soon is Dasso, because apparently the Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: 10X is delayed once again. Jessie: Yeah, this is funny because this was originally announced in 2021 and then it got pushbacked originally. They claimed there were COVID supply chain delays, and now the reason for the delay is being blamed on certification issues and certification going very slow, but it seems like Bombardier Gulfstream didn't have that problem. Preston Holland: Yeah, they're pointing the finger at Boeing, which I just want to point out the irony that the other aviation company in France is Airbus and Desso, right? So of classic French pointing the finger at the Americans for their delay in certification. Now, could be legitimate. They did have their first test flight this year, so they're making progress, but I think everybody was kind of asking the question of, okay. If you're gonna certify in twenty seven and you're just now flying, that's gonna be a pretty quick turn. And they've I think, according to this article, I think they've only done one test flight. So like it's not like they're flying a ton. Jessie: Yeah, I think they're also maybe slightly distracted with maybe, you know, the military side of things. And I think that's the whole story out of like the Farm Borough Air Show was last week. And I think, you know, there wasn't a lot of news other than like some big airplane orders, which always happens there. And I think what's going on is that really the whole world has really shifted into military and defense because we have so many wars and so many conflicts going around the world. There's a lot more investment, you know, Trump making European countries increase their investment into. and whatnot. So they're probably just a little distracted, I think. I don't think it's just certification problems. Preston Holland: Yeah, it's like all of the employees came back from afternoon tea, because that's a thing in Europe. And they said, Hello, Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: employees, please move from the 10X line over to the Raphael line. Go ahead and move over there. Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: And yeah, so that's the that is the the way of the French and Dassault. But it may be t they are saying maybe end of 2028 for certification, early 2029. I said their their flight second flight test, their second flight test. 10X is nearing completion. So they may have two, which would be, you know, more than one, more than zero, which is what it's been Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: for a long time. But but yeah, so I also think that the clean, the totally clean sheet design, like totally new airframe. The G700 and 800 still had some elements that were carryovers from previous generations. So Jessie: Sure, sure. Preston Holland: I will give them the benefit of the doubt there. I think blaming the 737 might be a little bit of a red herring. Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: That that's just me. That's also me. I'm an American, so of course I'm gonna defend the American companies. Jessie: Naturally. We we like aviation manufacturing in our country. Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. Well, speaking of new innovations that are happening in the United States, the FAA has debuted as of last week a new, basically CPDLC for general aviation aircraft, which is pretty neat. One, two, why is this just now happening? This feels like technology that probably has existed for 10 years. Jessie: I mean, yeah, that's what we always do at aviation, right? Like everything is 20 years behind the curve. but yeah, I mean, this is great. It was announced last week at Oshkosh. Of course, there were a lot of GA announcements coming in the news with Oshkosh around. But the FAA is launching a mobile clearance tool in which you'll actually be able to file for your departure clearance without picking up a phone and calling someone. You can just do it with the click of a button in your garment or your fore flight. it looks like they're trying to get this out by twenty twenty seven nationwide, but it will be coming to other airports near you very soon. Preston Holland: Yep. Nashville is one of the ones on the test list. Appleton, Wisconsin, ironically, right up the road from Oshkosh, also was in the test in the test clearance. Wonder how that Jessie: Sure. Preston Holland: happened. Pretty crazy. and then can't in Kansas at New Century Air Center, K-I-X-D, are going to get some of the test beds. So it's not every airport, but it's at some. and it will actually push straight into your four flight. So instead of you picking up the phone, writing down your clearance, and then typing it four flight, it just kind of pushes it straight in. Which is neat and interesting. Do you know, did you know? I looked this up in research for this article, and I thought this was shocking. Is that in 2025 there was more GA, which means business aviation, right? So GA being non-commercial aircraft for C C P D L C in the pat in Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: in three months in 2025, 3689 G aircraft had used N-Route CPDLC and 3473 mainline operators. So like GA uses C P D L C more often Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: than the airline. So it's net it's this is a natural spill down cascade to go into general aviation. Jessie: Yeah, and I you know, look, I'm not a pilot, so I did have to do a little looking at this too, because I was like, I knew about CP DLC, which is basically the communication, you know, it's an electronic communication tool between air traffic control and the cockpit. but I was honestly surprised at how many GA aircraft had it, 'cause I kind of thought it was mostly an air thing airline thing, but I guess that shows you how much I'm not in the cockpit. Yeah. Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. Well, and that's G A meaning business aviation. So, you know, business aviation pilots are like, this is awesome pops up, but it is in the vision jet. So it's not just like big stuff. It also it kind of moves the G three vision jet, not all vision jets, but in the G three vision jet, which is pretty neat. Jessie: Well and it makes you wonder how necessary this is gonna be now that the FA is rolling rolling this tool out, or you can just do it in four flight, which is what everyone's using anyway. Do you even need C D L C anymore? I guess you do for certain things, but like overflight water, but you know, for domestic, not so much. Preston Holland: Yeah, and probably for redundant systems. I mean, Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: you know, how reliable is an iPad? Hmm, probably not as reliable as the five hundred thousand dollar piece of honeywell equipment in the middle of your, you know, it's like thousand dollar iPad, Jessie: Sure. Sure. Preston Holland: $500,000 computer, like, I Jessie: huh. Preston Holland: think I'm gonna take the installed computer, you know, as far as safety goes. So, but yeah. Yeah. Well, last Jessie: Yeah. You'd be surprised though. Preston Holland: story of the day is a topic that Jesse's very passionate about, which is crew rest. We've been talking about this a lot recently. It is a very common theme that's coming up. And interestingly enough, Jesse's already informed the FAA about all of this already. And here we are having these discussions. Jessie: me and a small group of thirty people that were fighting with each other for two years, but it's fine. yeah, so a s a listener sent this to us and they were curious about our thoughts on it. And I was like, hey, let's just go ahead and throw this in the story mix today to to say what we think. So for those who don't know, The cargo carriers, such as UPS, FedEx, the others generally are operating under Part 135. they are big airliners, but they are still under 135 cargo rules. They're not under the 121 airline rules. Now, in 2011, the new Part 117 rest and duty rules for the airlines went into effect. At that time, there was a carve out for the cargo carriers. So ever since then, the unions and the cargo carriers have been in an epic battle. To, you know, the union obviously wants the more restrictive 117 rules, and the carriers want more flexibility to fly like every other 135 operator with a 14-hour duty day, 10-hour rest period. and a union has now just come out again in support of the 117 rules, saying that this carve out, which actually isn't a car gap carve out because they were never under 121 rules. This was kind of an intent to get them under 121 when they really weren't. so it's a bit of a mess. I can see why the unions won it. There was also a few senators earlier this year that tried to put this bill into the House and it hasn't really gone anywhere since January. So I don't know where we end up, but I can tell you, we already submitted recommendations. We talked about this on the show a couple weeks ago to the FAA on rest and duty. And part of this was covered in there as well because there were cargo carriers on that committee as well. Preston Holland: Yeah, Sean Duffy, if you listen to our show, which chances of him listening are not zero, but quite small. If you're listening, you should Jessie: Maybe. Preston Holland: take a look at the report that Jesse and her friends submitted because it answers a Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: lot of these questions that you're probably have people spending more resource resources. Well, okay. Jesse and her acquaintan compadres Jessie: We weren't all friends. Preston Holland: have submitted to the FAA. It's sitting on a shelf somewhere. I know you're moving offices, so it might get lost in the shuffle. But go find it, pull it out. It answers a lot of these questions. Cause I bet you you know what happens is they call another set of thirty people and start asking them all these questions and they start from zero because the government is, if nothing, inefficient. So I bet that that is what's happening. Jessie: And it's so frustrating because these aviation rulemaking committees, they truly bring together amazing people into one room. You know, we had the cargo carrier representation, we had the airlines, we had NetJet's pilot association, we had all of these people in a room battling it out. And I mean battling, you know, those were not necessarily friendly conversations every day, but we came up with a product. that was somewhat consented to by everyone in the room, at least most people signed off on it. Like use the information. The industry did the work for you. The industry, the unions, everybody else did the work. Now use it. Preston Holland: Yeah. Okay, so Jesse, which side of this issue do you fall on? Do you think that cargoes should be regulated under one seventeen or do you think they should continue under one thirty five? Jessie: I don't know. I think they should just follow our recommendations because it's all the report. Preston Holland: Is is the recommendation just like a hybrid, or is it because I can see the argument that it shouldn't apply because cargo operators are flying from, you know, the time everybody's sleeping to the time everybody wakes up. So if they're on any sort of circadian rhythm interruption, but on the other side, I can see that all of a sudden now you have a staffing nightmare for FedEx and UPS and DHL and you know, name your big cargo operator or small cargo operator, right? Like does it apply? Do you set a limit? Is it like if you're over this gross weight, then you get the one twenty one rules? Is it if you're under this gross weight, right? Like it's I can see that being incredibly disruptive to businesses. Jessie: So our perspective on this and the the committee and I and I agree with it mostly is that one seventeen was overly restrictive on one thirty five carriers of all kinds. You know, it's it's got so you have to have a a table to understand like what's going on in a given moment and where you are in your duty periods. That's not really good for a small operation, especially a single pilot operation. It's also not very good for a cargo carrier because it kind of 117 rules punish you really hard for doing overnight flying, for example. And they do a lot of that. So our idea was let's have different standards of different level Levels of safety along the spectrum of what you're willing to do. So if you want to have a fully fleshed out, you know, AI-driven system that tells you if your pilot's, you know, tired or not based on all these like statistical pieces of information, you can push the limits a little higher, right? Or if you're, you know, a small company, you can have a very, very basic, you know, restrictive set of rules to go by. But if you want more, you get more, but you have to prove you can do it safely. So it was that was our perspective, and I think that's the right. Preston Holland: Yeah, no, that's interesting. Well, Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: I guess y we will link the article for the vote. you know, so we'll see who falls on what side of this issue. But I think it's an interesting, it's a worthwhile conversation. And again, Jessie: Mm-hmm. Preston Holland: Jesse already did the work here. So, you know, I'm not sure not sure why we're debating this again, but here we are. So Jessie: Over and over and ours was the second, by the way. There was another one like tw fifteen years before us. So it's really come on FAA, just listen to us, please. Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. Well, we cannot end this show without thanking our other sponsor this week, which is Real Jet. Realjet is a charter brokerage by Kenny Dictor and Robert Withers, the it next iteration on private travel, all about real people and real relationships. Jessie: Yeah, Realjet is amazing. you know, they're one of those that really focuses on things like rest and duty and being cautious with your operators and, you know, choosing the right operator and not just the cheapest. so go to them for all of your chartered needs. and if you're an operator, they're a great team to work with. So thank guys so much for sponsoring the show. Preston Holland: Well, that brings us to the end of another awesome episode of the VIP Seat. You know, Jesse, one thing that I love about going to industry events is getting to see people who are like, I listened to your podcast. I met one at Oshkosh. They were like, you have a podcast. And I said, Yes, I do. Me and Jesse, we have a great Jessie: Yeah. Preston Holland: podcast. So share it with friends. That's the best way that we can grow this show. Go to the news, sign up for the newsletter at the VIPseat.com. Thanks to A B Jets and Real Jet for sponsoring this week's episode and we will see you all next week.