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Martin Myrtle made his first jump in 1994. He has owned & operated Air Capital Drop Zone in Wichita, Kansas with his wife Angie since 2001.
Martin Myrtle made his first jump in 1994. He has owned & operated Air Capital Drop Zone in Wichita, Kansas with his wife Angie since 2001.
Maintaining Profitability in a Small DZ
by Martin Myrtle
11 April 2005
by Martin Myrtle
11 April 2005
Disclaimer! I’ve been a drop zone owner
since October of 2001. Feel free to find argument with my opinions and
experiences. It would make my day if what I have to say inspired some
interesting discussions!
A former DZO who I didn’t care for had one piece of advice for me “Answer
the phone!” I would say that unless you operate with absolutely no
competition (which nobody does these days due to the national booking
services), that this is one of the most important things you can do to
secure your share of the student market. There are other great options for
booking students, but a large percentage will still want or need to talk
to a real person. My wife/business partner is a stay at home mom; she
answers the DZ phone which we forward to a cell phone during the week.
Once a prospective customer talks to her, they begin to feel comfortable
with our business, and become our customer!
Don’t maintain more than one airplane if it’s not adding to your bottom
line! There are many arguments to own and operate multiple aircraft, but
if the additional costs of that second aircraft (which can easily turn a
$10,000 profit into a $10,000 plus deficit) doesn’t add up, don’t do it! I
fly one Cessna 182 at my DZ and we put between 400 and 500 hours on it
annually running a weekend operation in Kansas. It’s very often that the
manifest is backed up 4 to 6 loads on a nice Saturday afternoon. There are
also times that the airplane sits at the start and end of the day, or on
Sunday. In my opinion the problem isn’t lift capacity; it’s that everyone
wants to jump during the same 6 hour window on a Saturday
morning/afternoon. If you are forced to be down for a weekend or two due
to maintenance, schedule around it just like you do for wind and clouds.
I’m in the practice of sending out an email to my regulars advising them
of my student schedule for the weekend. If they choose not to jump that
day, or to make the drive to another DZ who may have extra lift capacity
it’s absolutely fine with me!
Know your aircraft, and know your pilots! If you’re not an A&P, learn as much about your airplane as you can and take responsibility for your maintenance, it is your responsibility as owner. Learn how to change the oil and the other minor maintenance that an owner is allowed to do. Use only the best pilots you can, and if you’re not a pilot learn as much as you can about flying maybe even take some lessons. Employee as few pilots as you can, communicate with your pilots, and encourage your pilots to communicate with each other. Never allow your pilots to abuse your airplane! Generally DZ aircraft are 40 plus years old, every bit of unnecessary stress just adds to the maintenance. There may come a point that your wings have been stressed beyond repair, and at that point you could be looking at a maintenance bill that will exceed the value of your aircraft!
For the mom and pop DZ, you should be doing as much as you can, and paying others to do as little as necessary. I take half the tandems at my DZ, and do as many other jobs as humanly possible. We’re small enough that manifest is basically self serve, and when I or my partner (he serves basically as a partner, but isn’t actually a business partner) isn’t on the ground, the regulars will help out with the phone, etc. A person dedicated to running manifest, answering the phones, greeting customers, baby sitting, etc. is ideal, but we sacrifice this service for the very large hit it would have on our bottom line.
Do what you can to keep your up-jumpers happy, but don’t sacrifice profitability to do it. A non skydiving friend at a DZ party once asked me “so these people are your customers?” Yes they are, but my response to him was that “these people” are my friends, and the students are my “customers”. I’m sure I don’t need to tell any DZO that there isn’t much if any profit in up-jumpers (depending on your situation and how you run the numbers may even cost you money, I’m sure that argument could go on forever!), but the revenue generated from their business does help to meet the expenses at least in the off season.
Advertise, and don’t be afraid to try new things. It’s often fairly obvious whether some form of advertising is simply too expensive for a business that may gross $50,000 to $200,000 annually or whatever your number may be. If you think you will be fairly assured to break even, it may be worth trying once. When I got into the business and named my DZ, I was still thinking in terms of the phone book listing (Air Capital Drop Zone is first in phone books), I do think that phone book ads are a must, but these days for this industry most people will reference the internet first. I operated the first two years without a web site, after establishing a web presence our student traffic increased by 30% or so.
Look and ask around, see what others are doing, and give it a try. We all are aware of the “Skyride Issue” and know they get 100% of their customers by the use of paid internet ads. Paid ads obviously work, otherwise we would have never have heard of 1800Skyride! You can run a basic internet search engine campaign for between $300 and $400 annually; if you can redirect just a few customers to your DZ it’s paid for.
Enjoy it! When asked how long I’ll operate a drop zone, my standard response is that when I’m no longer enjoying being DZO, I’ll quit and go back to being one of those annoying fun jumpers.
Know your aircraft, and know your pilots! If you’re not an A&P, learn as much about your airplane as you can and take responsibility for your maintenance, it is your responsibility as owner. Learn how to change the oil and the other minor maintenance that an owner is allowed to do. Use only the best pilots you can, and if you’re not a pilot learn as much as you can about flying maybe even take some lessons. Employee as few pilots as you can, communicate with your pilots, and encourage your pilots to communicate with each other. Never allow your pilots to abuse your airplane! Generally DZ aircraft are 40 plus years old, every bit of unnecessary stress just adds to the maintenance. There may come a point that your wings have been stressed beyond repair, and at that point you could be looking at a maintenance bill that will exceed the value of your aircraft!
For the mom and pop DZ, you should be doing as much as you can, and paying others to do as little as necessary. I take half the tandems at my DZ, and do as many other jobs as humanly possible. We’re small enough that manifest is basically self serve, and when I or my partner (he serves basically as a partner, but isn’t actually a business partner) isn’t on the ground, the regulars will help out with the phone, etc. A person dedicated to running manifest, answering the phones, greeting customers, baby sitting, etc. is ideal, but we sacrifice this service for the very large hit it would have on our bottom line.
Do what you can to keep your up-jumpers happy, but don’t sacrifice profitability to do it. A non skydiving friend at a DZ party once asked me “so these people are your customers?” Yes they are, but my response to him was that “these people” are my friends, and the students are my “customers”. I’m sure I don’t need to tell any DZO that there isn’t much if any profit in up-jumpers (depending on your situation and how you run the numbers may even cost you money, I’m sure that argument could go on forever!), but the revenue generated from their business does help to meet the expenses at least in the off season.
Advertise, and don’t be afraid to try new things. It’s often fairly obvious whether some form of advertising is simply too expensive for a business that may gross $50,000 to $200,000 annually or whatever your number may be. If you think you will be fairly assured to break even, it may be worth trying once. When I got into the business and named my DZ, I was still thinking in terms of the phone book listing (Air Capital Drop Zone is first in phone books), I do think that phone book ads are a must, but these days for this industry most people will reference the internet first. I operated the first two years without a web site, after establishing a web presence our student traffic increased by 30% or so.
Look and ask around, see what others are doing, and give it a try. We all are aware of the “Skyride Issue” and know they get 100% of their customers by the use of paid internet ads. Paid ads obviously work, otherwise we would have never have heard of 1800Skyride! You can run a basic internet search engine campaign for between $300 and $400 annually; if you can redirect just a few customers to your DZ it’s paid for.
Enjoy it! When asked how long I’ll operate a drop zone, my standard response is that when I’m no longer enjoying being DZO, I’ll quit and go back to being one of those annoying fun jumpers.
