Our Decision Guide to Private Jet Travel is organized to quickly help readers decide which aspects of private aviation are most important to them. A central decision is fleet sourcing: where does the plane come from? Fractional cards such as Marquis Jet, Flexjet 25, JetPass Ultimate Travel and Vector Jet rely on company managed planes -- planes that are essentially “owned and operated” by the card provider. These companies have close relationships with plane suppliers (they’re often subsidiaries of plane manufacturers), and posess the infrastructure to carefully manage and position the fleet. Charter cards more typically tap planes that are outside their control. This is positioned as an advantage: for each trip, you may select exactly the plane to suit your needs: a short-runway light jet, a transoceanic heavy jet, even a helicopter, seaplane or jumbo jet. Fractional providers tend to streamline their fleets to about four plane models to simplify operations. NetJets and Marquis Jet are notable exceptions. Does this matter to you? For some customers, the comfort of knowing that your provider has intimate knowledge of plane and crew is important. For others, this direct oversight can be substituted by a careful set of procedures for subcontracting to third-party charter operators. It’s more expensive to manage a fractionally-owned fleet, and for some, the lower cost of a charter-sourced plane -- when complemented by careful management -- is a worthy tradeoff. We’ve heard the companies’ arguments; now we’d like to hear yours. Let us know your thoughts at jets@heliumreport.com.