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When Flying is Cheaper

By crooky | October 27, 2008

I had the pleasure of taking the Helijet from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria today. For those of you not familiar with the trip, it’s about 2.5 hours from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria if you drive/take the ferry (see map below). If you take the Helijet, it’s only 35 minutes. Sure, it costs five times as much to cut the travel time down to 1/5th of what it would normally but but as I will try to show - it’s worth it in some cases.


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It all comes back to thinking about what your time is worth. If you’re a $1000/day consultant (mid range), a $500 flight to Victoria could be worth it. There’s something to be said for coming over and spending facetime with potential clients. There’s also something to be said for not wasting $500 of your time taking the ferry.

Airfare, like all other business-related travel expenses, is tax deductable. This means that you can write off 30-50% of the ticket price at tax time (depending on your income bracket). The Helijet is also an excellent networking opportunity - unlike taking the ferry, the kind of people who can afford a $500 commute are the kind of people that you want to liaise with. High-priced consultants, senior government officials, business executives, etc…

The whole experience is very motivating too. You feel like a rock star when you’re up above the city, looking down at the traffic that you could be stuck in. The picture above is an aerial shot I took with my BlackBerry Bold out the window while cruising over UBC (one of my best clients, by the way. I blew them a kiss when I flew over). The take home message for this post is that you need to do the math before writing off a $500 same-day business flight. It might be a net gain for you depending on your business.

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Topics: Business of Consulting |

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