Flying as a corporate pilot is a lot different that being a captain for an airline.  In a way, flying a jet with one owner requires a lot of angles to be covered.  I like to think of corporate aviation as an art form where each year I work to perfect my art and give my owner the best experience money can buy.  To do this effectively requires an enormous amount of attention to detail and organization.  As corporate pilots we have to do our own flight planning, coordinate fuel, work with the flight attendant to get catering and menus, plan for transportation at departure and destination airports all while keeping cool when things don’t go our way.  We also work with our dispatchers for finding hotels and planning for the details of a trip.  It can be overwhelming at times looking at everything that goes into trip planning.  A lot of this organization easily translates to other facets of life to include preparing yourself for travel.  Let me give you an example. 

The London area airports are some of the busiest in the world and as such, most airports will give you a time to take off called a slot time.  This means if I don’t take off during the time given within a 15-minute window, I will lose that slot time and have to start over again.  This can be costly as sometimes applying for new a slot means being delayed for hours. On this trip I had a slot to leave London as we had a flight scheduled for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Keep in mind, flying from London to Kuala Lumpur requires flying over many countries like Germany, Turkey, and India.  Each of these countries require a permit to fly into their country that have expiration times.  So being late out of London has a domino effect.   Can you see the stress in this situation?  Planning a trip overseas can be overwhelming too having to plan for hotels, coordinate your transportation, check for visas, and map out food plans for the week.  So here is the Chinese Finger method for organizing my planning that you can adopt into your own organization tactics.

Chinese Finger Method

A couple of days before the trip I spend time visualizing the entire trip from start to finish but from the boss’s perspective.  I try to think of every angle and I call this the Chinese Finger method.  You may have played this game as a kid using a Chinese finger trap that you would put both fingers into a helically wound braid.  When you pull, the braid tightens and you appear to be stuck.  To get free, you have to push both ends thus opening the weave to escape.  In the case of trip planning, I place pressure on both the start and finish of a trip and squeeze the information forward into a visualization concept.  For example, here is a simplified logistical map on how I plan a trip:

Home > Travel > Hotel
or
(Front) Home to Departure Airport > Travel Methods > Destination Airport to Hotel (Back)

In this process, I ask the questions on how will I get to the airport from my house?  What travel methods do I have to use getting to my destination? How will I get to the hotel from the airport upon arrival?  Both questions require transportation logistical solutions and you want to write down your answer to track it somewhere.  I recommend starting a travel journal to keep all of your information.  Here is a more advanced method example:

Front End of the trip:
 Home to airport > Airport to security > security to plane
 
Middle/Front of the trip
Departure to destination > Plane to security > security to car > car to hotel
 
Middle/Back end of the trip
Time spent at destination > hotel to airport > airport to security > security to plane
 
Back end of the trip
Departure to destination > plane to security > security to car > car to home.

Both the simplified and advanced version start with home and end with hotel.  When you are ready to return home, you simply reverse the order.  This makes planning into a process and an organized structure so that you will be sure not to miss anything.  Using the Chinese Finger method has you focus on the start and end of the trip and work towards the middle.  Once you’ve planned and documented your travel, visualize the day you travel and see yourself go through your process that’s been laid out.  This will empower you to be successful and not miss any of the details.