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Hmm I’m not so sure. My sister used to be a project manager at an Enterprise software company. She lives in NL and was put on a project in Prague at some point.

Hmm I’m not so sure. My sister used to be a project manager at an Enterprise software company. She lives in NL and was put on a project in Prague at some point. Think 10-20 engineers setting up some product at the customer site, ie it was worth tens of millions (licenses + consultancy fees). After months of mostly living in a hotel, she got tired of it, told he boss she wanted to go back to basketball training in her home town so wanted a different project. Her boss solved it by flying her to Prague and back every week so she could make basketball training on Thursday nights. I think that if there was supersonic flight they’d happily have found her a project in New York next and foot the bill, twice a week, just so she could keep going to basketball training and still run the project in person.

WJW 4y ago
Honestly that sounds exactly like the type of "small niche" of customers that GP talks about. There can't be too many megacorps willing to do this and I bet most project managers wouldn't go for it either. Btw, that sounds like the worst solution your sister could have agreed to. She was tired of living in a hotel but is willing to keep living in an hotel and also fly back and forth between Prague and Amsterdam every week?
- skrebbel 4y ago
  She’d live in the hotel 3-4 nights a week and, well, she did like the project itself.
runako 4y ago
This is a dying niche (source: have worked in Enterprise software for 20 years, used to live on a plane like your sister) that is largely moving to cloud deployments run by remote teams (those teams may themselves be co-located). The other prevalent model is opening a satellite office on the customer's continent, so that staff can be semi-local with shorter commutes. And even if she was a good representative, look at the ratio: 10-20 engineers to 1 project manager flying supersonic. I'm not sure that's a great market niche. > if there was supersonic flight they’d happily have found her a project in New York next and foot the bill, twice a week I do have to laugh at this, because there are numerous consultants who do this now, using our current planes. Edit: Amsterdam<->NYC 4x monthly for business/first class (equivalent to Boom pricing) looks like it will shake out in the range of $30k monthly in airline tickets. Very few employees in a company will justify that kind of travel spend. (And still not fly on a corporate jet.)
- TylerE 4y ago
  Transatlantic is a bit of a special case as most corporate jets don’t have the range for that, without doing something extreme like going way out of their way and stopping in Iceland (and thus being even slower than commercial)
fiat_fandango 4y ago
Damn, do I need an MBA to land a gig like this?
- jpm_sd 4y ago
  Air travel 2x/week goes from glamorous to miserable very quickly.
  - qayxc 4y ago
    Agreed, I used to do that 15 years ago and I wouldn't do it again. The most miserable part isn't even the flight itself - it's the hassle at the airports.
  - landemva 4y ago
    'Million miler' or 2M status meant something different twenty years ago than now. Now it means the person is unable to use communication tech and instead subjects themselves to invasive screening at airports. It was unavoidable for some people twenty years ago. Now it is a badge of stupid.
  - cafard 4y ago
    Indeed. I never got to 2x/week, but in the late 1980s I was traveling about seven days a month. I switched jobs, and for a while would see jets heading in to the local airport and think how grateful I was not be on them.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
> Her boss solved it by flying her to Prague and back every week so she could make basketball training on Thursday nights. And we wonder why the planet is set to "broil." "Who cares, someone else is paying for it."

WJW 4y ago

Honestly that sounds exactly like the type of "small niche" of customers that GP talks about. There can't be too many megacorps willing to do this and I bet most project managers wouldn't go for it either. Btw, that sounds like the worst solution your sister could have agreed to. She was tired of living in a hotel but is willing to keep living in an hotel and also fly back and forth between Prague and Amsterdam every week?

skrebbel 4y ago
She’d live in the hotel 3-4 nights a week and, well, she did like the project itself.

runako 4y ago

This is a dying niche (source: have worked in Enterprise software for 20 years, used to live on a plane like your sister) that is largely moving to cloud deployments run by remote teams (those teams may themselves be co-located). The other prevalent model is opening a satellite office on the customer's continent, so that staff can be semi-local with shorter commutes. And even if she was a good representative, look at the ratio: 10-20 engineers to 1 project manager flying supersonic. I'm not sure that's a great market niche. > if there was supersonic flight they’d happily have found her a project in New York next and foot the bill, twice a week I do have to laugh at this, because there are numerous consultants who do this now, using our current planes. Edit: Amsterdam<->NYC 4x monthly for business/first class (equivalent to Boom pricing) looks like it will shake out in the range of $30k monthly in airline tickets. Very few employees in a company will justify that kind of travel spend. (And still not fly on a corporate jet.)

TylerE 4y ago
Transatlantic is a bit of a special case as most corporate jets don’t have the range for that, without doing something extreme like going way out of their way and stopping in Iceland (and thus being even slower than commercial)

fiat_fandango 4y ago

Damn, do I need an MBA to land a gig like this?

jpm_sd 4y ago
Air travel 2x/week goes from glamorous to miserable very quickly.
- qayxc 4y ago
  Agreed, I used to do that 15 years ago and I wouldn't do it again. The most miserable part isn't even the flight itself - it's the hassle at the airports.
- landemva 4y ago
  'Million miler' or 2M status meant something different twenty years ago than now. Now it means the person is unable to use communication tech and instead subjects themselves to invasive screening at airports. It was unavoidable for some people twenty years ago. Now it is a badge of stupid.
- cafard 4y ago
  Indeed. I never got to 2x/week, but in the late 1980s I was traveling about seven days a month. I switched jobs, and for a while would see jets heading in to the local airport and think how grateful I was not be on them.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

> Her boss solved it by flying her to Prague and back every week so she could make basketball training on Thursday nights. And we wonder why the planet is set to "broil." "Who cares, someone else is paying for it."