ATLANTA — On October 3, with the state Lieutenant Governor, the local mayor, and Eclipse Aviation CEO Vern Raburn in attendance, DayJet Services officially launched its very light jet (VLJ) service in Tallahassee, one of four initial Florida destinations for the company’s ‘per-seat, on-demand’ service using Eclipse 500s. The week before, founder Ed Iacobucci was heavily promoting the upstart at the annual National Business Aviation Association convention, during which this interview took place. For airports and airport-based businesses, two key questions about DayJet and other proposed start-ups that remain are, 1) When is it coming to our community? and 2) How does a service company make being a DayJet partner a profitable experience?

Iacobucci knows something about start-ups, having founded Citrix Systems, Inc. after a prior career with IBM. Prior to the launch, DayJet had become the media darling, bringing an array of exposure. “We’ve had the major networks chasing us on this concept,” he relates. “I saw a report the other day that we reached 20 million households in one day.

“Frankly, from a business standpoint, getting a lot of calls from Minneapolis and Lincoln, NE about when are you going to be here is not really productive. Even when we go beyond Florida, we’re still not going to go to Chicago. We’re going to do adjacent markets. We know where they are. I don’t care if we’re not visible in markets that we’re not in; that’s irrelevant.”

Headquartered in Boca Raton, DayJet Corporation’s wholly owned subsidiary, DayJet Services, LLC, is holder of the Part 135 air carrier certificate from FAA. The company launched its on-demand service with a dozen VLJs, and anticipates having 30 Eclipse 500s in service by year’s end. It has a five-year order for more than 1,000 units.

Initial waypoints include Boca Raton, Gainesville, Lakeland, Pensacola, and Tallahassee. The company plans to expand service within two years to “dozens” of additional DayPort locations across the Southeast.

Explains Iacobucci, “Our model is very simple. It’s based on the one thing that people have told us is worth something to them — time. We don’t place any value on accoutrements, on sitting in the front or back of the airplane. The only thing that matters is how much of my time am I saving?
“The way we express it is, leave no earlier than, arrive no later than If you tell me, ‘I’m willing to leave no earlier than nine in the morning but I have to arrive no later than 10:30 for a one-hour trip,’ that’s going to be pretty close to $4 a mile. If you say, ‘I’m willing to leave as early as six in the morning and I’m willing to be there as late as 1 p.m.,’ then it’s more like $1 a mile.”