Lots of people enjoy flying, but hardly anybody likes hanging around an airport for hours and hours, peering up at TV screens for dubious estimates of an eventual departure.

That’s particularly true of business people. The lucky ones have a fast, private aircraft at their disposal, and can be whisked back home while a competitor is still studying those monitors.

But who can afford a private turboprop or jet?

Surprisingly, lots of companies – through fractional ownership.

More common for vacation/ recreation real estate, fractional ownership can also be the traveling business person’s salvation in an increasingly busy world.

AirSprint CEO Judson Macor with a Pilatus PC turboprop.

The program is available through AirSprint, which brought the concept to Canada three years ago.

Judson Macor, AirSprint’s CEO, says clients consistently praise the positive effects on their lives.

“They talk a lot about the time savings and the privacy of flying in the aircraft,” Macor says.

“People using it for business can stop at three or four locations in a day, then get home. Some of them are just going to a single location, where they get a good, full day of work and get back to their family.”

Macor, who lives in Calgary, is explaining this by cellphone from Edmonton, where he has a business appointment. He drove to the Calgary airport at 8:50 a.m. and jumped aboard an AirSprint plane.

“We were in the air at 9 o’clock and we were on the ground at Edmonton at 9:30 – in the city centre,” he says.

“It’s amazing. I left the house about an hour and 15 minutes ago and I’m going to be where I need to be in 15 minutes.”

Company CEOs who ensure their top people get such treatment tend to keep their top people.

AirSprint planes fly all over Canada, the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean.

Under the program, a company or individual buys an “undivided interest” of one-eighth of a specific, serial-numbered aircraft. For tax and legal purposes, it’s the same as owning the whole plane – not a time-share.

AirSprint’s success keeps growing as commercial air travel becomes increasingly frustrating for business people, especially after the 9/11 events and the spread of SARS.

An AirSprint client not only avoids rubbing shoulders with thousands of weary airline passengers in terminals, he or she flies efficiently in a private environment.

It’s ideal for getting work done in the air or merely relaxing without the old seat squeeze and unwanted small talk with coughing strangers.

Investors choose from two planes – the Pilatus PC turboprop and the faster Citation Excel executive jet – both highly acclaimed aircraft that only the rich could normally afford.

“Buying a fraction of it and only being responsible for a fraction of the overhead and the capital – and then having a low direct-operating cost – that’s the business model,” Macor says. “The whole package makes a lot of sense.”

For more information, call toll-free 1.877.588.2344; Judson Macor’s cell 403-827-8082; e-mail: sales@airsprint.com; or visit www.airsprint.com.