Fractious Competition
For decades, charter services have delivered similar value to business travelers who do not fly enough to justify a full aircraft purchase, but whose lifestyles require flexibility and precise time management. The chartered aircraft is the airborne equivalent of a limousine that, for a fee, will pick up and transport travelers just about anywhere, often to more obscure landing fields that commercial aircraft do not service.

Long the favorite alternative to both commercial airlines and privately owned jets, charter has, in the past decade, lost significant market share to fractional operators who offer a seductive mix of ownership, flexibility and comfort that proves fiscally compelling. Given his financial profile and travel needs, Lemke would make an ideal fractional owner, an idea he has considered and rejected. “I know people who own fractional shares and are quite happy with them,” he says. “It’s just so much more expensive than chartering planes when we need them. Fractional ownership does make sense for some people, just not for me.”