I know quite a few oilfield types visit the B&I board and am passing this along. There is a new private charter plane service that flies direct from Hobby to Midland (and also Dallas, San Antonio etc). You pay ~$2000/mo and can take unlimited flights for that month with no long term commitment. Park right next to the plane, skip the security lines, and off you go. Plus you earn free guest passes.

On short notice I was spending $800-$1000 to fly out of IAH (I live on north side), so this nearly pays for itself if I fly to Midland twice a month. The rub is that they don't have a lot of flights currently so the more interest/members they get, the more flexible the schedule will become.

And what I'm really hoping for are flights out of Hooks airport on the NW side. They currently fly a ton of Hooks to Love, but said there is not enough demand for Hooks to Midland yet.

Check it out:
Fly Rise

And if you want you can give my email, Drillbit at g mail and get 30% off, but I'm not so worried about referrals as I am wanting demand for flights out of Hooks.

I really like this business idea. Thanks for sharing. I don't need as of now, but could down the line.

we did this at one point with a similar contract to fly hooks to south texas and hooks to midland back in 2012-2015.


it was nice, but we ended up spending a lot mroe than projected b/c we never took as many flights as we thought would taken. . there was not anything gained other than convenience.

I talked to these guys when they first got started a couple of years ago and I was under the impression they never got off the ground. I fly to Midland at least three times a month but my flights on united average $600. I might be changing roles at my company and basically commuting to Midland weekly, in which case this would definitely interest me if they had a Monday morning flight out and Thursday evening flight home that was reliable.

Right now they are flying Tue Wed Thur Hobby to Midland. That'd be perfect for me if they would do that schedule out of Hooks.

What time are the flights to midland and when are the flights back to Houston.

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On short notice I was spending $800-$1000 to fly out of IAH (I live on north side), so this nearly pays for itself if I fly to Midland twice a month.

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This line is a little deceiving...$800-1000 is probably well on the high end. Flights to Midland next week are $350 rt if you're flexible with times, $550 if not. If you book a few weeks ahead $350 is pretty standard. My field service rep for the area typically books day of or day before and has very rarely paid over $700, averages about $600. So all things considered, I'd say you need 4 trips minimum for this to pay for itself.

This isn't really a cost savings idea, it's a luxury and convenience idea. And I can't tell because the information on their website seems useless, but doesn't seem they have the convenience part completely worked out yet. Sure, it's more convenient to have it prepaid and drive up to the plane vs. security. But I probably have a couple dozen commercial options to fly to Midland a day, this seems much, much more limited. Doesn't do me much good to pay $2,000 a month if I don't know for sure I can get to Midland when I need to.

Edit, found the schedule. 4 total flights, only on Tuesday and Wednesday, each way would probably be a deal breaker for anyone planning on using this just for flying back and forth between Midland.

SweaterusVestus said:

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I talked to these guys when they first got started a couple of years ago and I was under the impression they never got off the ground. I fly to Midland at least three times a month but my flights on united average $600. I might be changing roles at my company and basically commuting to Midland weekly, in which case this would definitely interest me if they had a Monday morning flight out and Thursday evening flight home that was reliable.

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FYI, if you start flying to Midland weekly, look into reverse flights or whatever they call it. Your itinerary would be departing Midland for Houston on Thursday and returning to Midland from Houston on Monday. We have someone who does this as he commuted to Houston from Kentucky weekly and it saves him a significant amount of money.

Interesting. I fly to Midland around 3 times a month usually Tues/Wed or Wed/Thurs. I live in The Woodlands so Hobby is not an option. Depending on their schedule I would consider it. One bonus with United is I can fly home at either 2, 5, or 7 so a good bit of flexibility on when I return. What times do the flights leave Midland/Houston on Tues/Wed/Thurs?

Granted I don't ever make these routes with my job, but my thing would be losing the status and points that I accrue flying United or SWA. Those could be some pretty nice perks you may lose out on when you consider this type of arrangement. I assume the Houston-Midland isn't the only flight routes a lot of you may make.

IrishTxAggie said:

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Granted I don't ever make these routes with my job, but my thing would be loosing the status and points that I accrue flying United or SWA. Those could be some pretty nice perks you may lose out on when you consider this type of arrangement. I assume the Houston-Midland isn't the only flight routes a lot of you may make.

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I had the same thought. I fly periodically to Denver, OKC and DFW.

They fly back from Midland is at 4:30. You are correct in that there isn't a whole lot of options yet, but its all about demand. The plane holds 8. By me and my CFO signing up, we were able to get them to start a Thursday flight service. You don't need a whole lot of people to get them to expand flights. So they'll be doing flights 7:30 from Hobby and 4:30 back from Midland Tue, Wed, Thur.

And flights Houston to Dallas are apparently very popular. Twice a day, everyday back and forth. So they'll scale up and down based on demand pretty easily.

Rise Schedule