In the early 2000s, while working in asset finance and trying to arrange private flights across continents, Thomas Flohr noticed something that would define his career: the private aviation industry was fundamentally misaligned. Companies were trapped between inadequate charter services and the crushing financial burden of aircraft ownership. But where others saw an intractable problem, Flohr saw an opportunity.
Two decades before subscription models would dominate industries from entertainment to transportation, Thomas Flohr predicted that corporate travel would follow the same trajectory. His vision led to the founding of VistaJet in 2004, a company that would challenge the industry’s assumption that access to private aviation required ownership of depreciating assets. Today, as membership numbers surge and traditional ownership models face mounting criticism, Flohr’s early insights appear increasingly prescient.
Thomas Flohr’s prediction wasn’t based on trend forecasting or market analysis. It emerged from a simple observation about corporate waste. During his career in asset management, he watched companies struggle with the realities of aircraft ownership. The numbers told a stark story: the average business jet sat idle for most of the year, used for only around 250 hours annually compared to the 4,000 hours that commercial aircraft typically fly.
“When I see waste, I become ambitious,” Thomas Flohr told Barron’s. “The average utilization of a business jet is 250 hours per year—talk about waste and corporate waste. Commercial planes are used around 4,000 hours a year, so I thought, ‘What are these airplanes doing?’ I love to challenge the system. If something doesn’t make sense, it’s a natural inclination to challenge it.”
But the inefficiency went deeper than utilization rates. Thomas Flohr recognized that aircraft ownership fundamentally contradicted sound business strategy. Companies were locking capital into assets that depreciated rapidly while delivering minimal return on investment. For firms that might use a jet 250 hours per year, the financial burden included not just the purchase price—ranging from $2 million to over $70 million depending on the aircraft—but also ongoing maintenance, crew salaries, hangar fees, insurance, and unpredictable operational costs.
Thomas Flohr articulated this insight clearly in an interview with McKinsey & Co.: “I believe that corporations should invest their equity in building their core businesses. At the end of the day, an aviation service is a service you can easily outsource. Why would you have your equity stuck in something that is not your core business?”
This philosophy would become the cornerstone of VistaJet’s model. Thomas Flohr wasn’t simply offering an alternative to ownership; he was arguing that ownership itself was strategically misguided. For most companies, aviation represented a support function, not a competitive advantage. Tying up capital in aircraft meant diverting resources from research and development, market expansion, or other investments that could actually differentiate the business.
The question wasn’t whether companies needed reliable access to private aviation—they clearly did. The question was whether they needed to own the asset to secure that access. Thomas Flohr’s answer was an emphatic no.
Charlotte Colhoun, VistaJet’s CFO, later elaborated on this financial logic during an interview about membership growth. She explained that from a CFO’s perspective, aircraft ownership created a cascade of problems. First, acquiring an aircraft required board approval for a capital expenditure, putting a private jet on the balance sheet at a time when such assets faced increasing public scrutiny. Second, ownership meant taking on a depreciating asset that required specialized knowledge to maintain—expertise that fell far outside most companies’ core competencies.
“If I’m buying an asset as a CFO of a corporation, I need to go to the board to get approval,” she explained. “I’m going to have a private jet on my balance sheet, which from a corporate or public scrutiny perspective isn’t great. And so you’ve got OpEx decision versus a CapEx decision. And if I go down the CapEx decision route, I’m owning and depreciating assets that are expensive to maintain and are not an asset I know that much about.”
She continued: “The big benefit for VistaJet from a product perspective and a key to success ( and maybe I’m biased because I’m a CFO) is the financial proposition that we’re offering, particularly in an environment where you have a lot of unpredictable costs that can happen.”
Flohr also recognized that predictability would be crucial to winning over corporate decision-makers. With ownership, companies faced constant uncertainty: pilot shortages, supply chain disruptions, unexpected maintenance issues, and fluctuating operational costs. These unpredictable expenses made budgeting difficult and exposed companies to financial risk that had nothing to do with their actual business operations.
The subscription model Thomas Flohr envisioned would eliminate this uncertainty. VistaJet’s structure became elegantly simple: clients sign a three-year contract, commit to a specific number of hours per year starting at 25 hours, and receive a guaranteed fixed hourly rate with global availability. No surprise costs. No balance sheet complications. No diversion of management attention to aviation operations.
“We don’t think corporations should invest in their own aircraft because we have proven we can do it for them at a price point that can be less than half the price of owning a jet,” Thomas Flohr told McKinsey.
The fractional ownership model, popularized by competitors like NetJets and Flexjet, represented a halfway point between full ownership and charter services. But Thomas Flohr saw fundamental flaws in this approach as well. Fractional ownership still required substantial capital investment, typically running into the millions. Clients purchased a share of an aircraft, committed to long-term agreements, and remained exposed to depreciation and operational complexity.
More importantly, fractional ownership didn’t solve the asset allocation problem Thomas Flohr had identified. Companies were still investing equity in aviation rather than in their core business. They were tied to specific aircraft rather than having the flexibility to choose the right plane for each mission. And they still faced the operational headaches of coordinating with other fractional owners for scheduling.
VistaJet’s subscription model, by contrast, eliminated all asset ownership while providing superior flexibility. Members could access the entire VistaJet fleet—from mid-size jets to the Bombardier Global 7500, the world’s largest and longest-range business jet—choosing the optimal aircraft for each specific journey. A short regional hop might require a different plane than a transcontinental flight, and the subscription model accommodated both without requiring clients to own multiple aircraft or settle for a compromise.
Thomas Flohr also understood that the subscription model offered VistaJet significant competitive advantages. Traditional ownership created alignment problems: the company selling the aircraft profited from the sale but had little incentive to optimize operational efficiency. Fractional operators solved this partially, but still offloaded much of the risk to clients. VistaJet’s model, however, aligned the company’s interests completely with its members’ satisfaction.
By maintaining total ownership and control of its fleet, VistaJet took responsibility for every aspect of operations: aircraft acquisition, maintenance schedules, crew training, safety protocols, and service consistency. This vertical integration allowed the company to deliver on its promise of guaranteed availability with as little as 24 hours’ notice anywhere in the world. It also created predictable revenue streams that enabled strategic investments in fleet expansion and service enhancement.
Charlotte emphasized this point in her interview: “I want to know what my cash receipts are going to be in any given day, and I want to know what my cash obligations are, and because I’m acquiring the aircraft, I’m financing it, I know exactly what my financing costs are, I know exactly when those liabilities are going to arise and I can manage accordingly.”
The validation of Thomas Flohr’s vision came gradually, then suddenly. When VistaJet launched with just two aircraft in 2004, the subscription model was unproven in private aviation. But the company’s growth trajectory told the story of a model whose time had come. By 2023, VistaJet was operating approximately 87,000 flights per year, an 18 percent increase year-over-year, with more than half originating outside the United States. The company had expanded to serve 2,700 airports in 96 percent of the world’s countries.
More tellingly, membership growth accelerated dramatically. According to company statements, Program members who sign three-year deals now account for more than 60 percent of VistaJet’s revenue, and the membership base has grown by 20 percent. This shift toward longer-term commitments suggested that clients weren’t just trying the subscription model—they were embracing it as their primary aviation solution.
Thomas Flohr’s prediction about the shift away from asset ownership proved particularly prescient during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic also served as an “accelerant” for the long-term trend away from ownership. Companies facing economic uncertainty found the flexibility and predictability of subscription models increasingly attractive compared to the fixed costs and obligations of owned assets.
“It’s the long-term shift away from asset ownership,” Charlotte said when asked about membership growth drivers. “And the majority of the market is individuals and corporations that own aircraft.”
Thomas Flohr himself remained confident that this trend would continue. As he told Fortloc: “The new wave of flyers values flexibility and global service over ownership. Forward-thinking companies aren’t interested in owning a depreciating asset, and younger travelers are not accepting the complexities of managing an aircraft—they just want access to a jet when and where they need it.”
The private aviation industry’s transformation from ownership to subscription models vindicated Thomas Flohr’s early vision. What he recognized two decades ago—that companies should invest equity in their core business rather than depreciating aviation assets—has become increasingly accepted wisdom among corporate decision-makers. The subscription model he pioneered at VistaJet has demonstrated that access to private aviation doesn’t require ownership, and that predictable costs and global flexibility often deliver more value than asset control.
Perhaps most significantly, Thomas Flohr understood that the subscription model wasn’t just about cost efficiency. It represented a fundamental reconception of what clients were actually purchasing. They weren’t buying an aircraft; they were buying guaranteed access to global private aviation services. They weren’t acquiring an asset; they were securing a capability. And they weren’t investing in aviation; they were investing in their core business while outsourcing aviation to specialists.
“We offer a subscription business model where you only buy the hours you need on a three-year contract,” Thomas Flohr explained to CNBC. “And it’s guaranteed availability, anywhere, anytime. Whether you’re in Japan, in South East Asia, in the Middle East, in America, in South America—you have guaranteed availability around the globe.”
As VistaJet continues to expand and membership numbers grow, Thomas Flohr’s early prediction about the shift from ownership to subscription models has proven not just accurate but transformative. By seeing waste where others saw tradition, by questioning assumptions about asset ownership, and by focusing relentlessly on what clients actually needed rather than what the industry was structured to deliver, Thomas Flohr didn’t just predict the future of corporate aviation—he created it.
