GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Fans will be flying in to Green Bay over the next week for the Packers’ Monday night game against Detroit, as well as the Ryder Cup down at Whistling Straits. But not everyone buys economy-level tickets.
Crews at the JetAir facility in Green Bay are preparing to welcome a lot of private aircraft.
“We’ve got a couple dozen private aircraft scheduled for the night of the game, and I’m sure that’ll increase over the weekend. I would expect probably 75-100 private aircraft for the Monday night game,” said JetAir CEO Alan Timmerman. “I’ve had over 150 for some of the playoff games, so 75-100 for the Monday night game? That’s not out of the ordinary.”
Many people will charter a plane or even take their own private aircraft to fly in.
“You avoid the hassles of the airlines. It’s a nice way to travel,” Timmerman pointed out.
But how much does something like that cost?
“Do you want to charter a 4-seat aircraft? Do you want to charter a 15-passenger jet? How fast do you want to get here? How long are you gonna stay? There’s so many variables,” Timmerman said. “Every charter is different. It could be from a couple thousand dollars to over $10,000. It depends on how many friends you’re gonna bring along, where you’re coming from…We’ll get guys that fly in with their little 4-seat, $30,000 airplane followed by the guys that come in with their $40 million jet. So it varies. It’s very interesting.”
JetAir will provide any needed maintenance or fuel for those parking on their property, along with a list of other services. That includes the fighter jets utilized for the pre-game flyover, whose pilots also receive a courtesy ride back to the stadium for the game.
“We’re at the highest level of certification by the FAA to do maintenance on any aircraft. We even service airlines if an airline has a maintenance issue,” Timmerman said. “They might want their aircraft detailed while they’re here for 5-6 hours. So we’ll put it in and we’ll wash and detail it for them. We provide any services the customer might want…A lot of the requests we hear lately are ‘Will you sterilize the aircraft?’ We have a sterilizer here that we can put in the aircraft and completely sanitize the aircraft.”
So far, about a half-dozen reservations have been made related to the Ryder Cup.
One of the biggest events JetAir has dealt with was when the Wisconsin Badgers played LSU at Lambeau Field. Timmerman says they had over 200 private aircraft on the field for that game.
Comments