Wal-Mart Wields Corp. Fleet

With more than 3,800 domestic store locations and counting, Wal-Mart's travel program takes employees to the nooks and crannies of the United States—locales not always closely served by commercial airports. While the world's largest retailer relies heavily on airlines, the company also operates 22 jets in the United States, comprising part of the largest corporate fleet in the world, according to director of global travel services Duane Futch.

About 23,000 of the company's 1.8 million employees board at least one of Wal-Mart's corporate aircraft in the course of a year.

"It is a huge operation," Futch said. "There are 22 corporate jets based in the home offices, two jets based in the Canada home office, one jet based in our Mexico home office and a turboprop at our Wal-Mart Brazil unit."

Although Futch encourages travelers to fly commercial airlines when a direct flight is available—given the high demand for corporate aircraft and higher operating margins—its corporate fleet has become a source of relief for time-strapped associates needing to get in and out of stores on short notice.

"Efficiency of time is one of the main reasons we have the corporate fleet," Futch said, "but if someone is traveling to a city where we have nonstop airline service out of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, which is our home airport, we will ask that person to go on the airlines rather than use the company jet. We think that's more efficient use of money and more efficient use of the corporate fleet."

Futch said keeping planes full and in a virtual constant state of operation gives the company efficient use of its corporate fleet.

"A typical corporate airplane has a load factor of 2.2—in other words, an average of 2.2 people on each flight. Our load factor is 5.2, so we really get incredible efficiency out of these airplanes," Futch said. "We're not just going out and dropping one person off. They always travel with a team that is going to do the job they have to do in the field. We don't just drop that team off. That airplane is constantly moving. The typical Wal-Mart airplane will make between three and six stops a day: picking up people, dropping people off, going to get other teams that were dropped off three or four days earlier and moving them to another location."

While their planes touch every region of the United States and beyond, home base for Wal-Mart's corporate aviation activity is Rogers Municipal Airport, where the company operates its own traffic tower and has even purchased generation systems to keep planes moving in the event of power outages. "It's probably the best private-public relationship in the country right now because the city of Rogers does a phenomenal job of keeping up with our growth at that airport," Futch said.

Although corporate flights are not scheduled throughout the company's corporate booking tool, Wal-Mart has employed a separate system—Business Aircraft Records & Tracking—to operate its network of corporate-owned aircraft. Futch said the system is "specially tailored to how our corporate flight department operates."

"It's a fabulous system, but our corporate information systems division took BART and then wrote a program to go with it. It really enhances our scheduling capabilities on the fleet. It's the largest corporate fleet in the world and we use them very efficiently."

While many companies reserve corporate jet usage for its most senior executives, Futch said regional vice presidents—typically responsible for up to 500 stores—and division vice presidents—each responsible for roughly 100 stores—and their teams are the most frequent flyers on corporate aircraft. This makes use of planes less about status and more about need, Futch noted.

"The executives come third in the pecking order for the corporate airplanes," he said. "If need be, we can ask an executive to give up their airplane if we have an operational need to get someone out in the field or into the stores."

Futch has been a pilot for 36 years and headed several other corporate flight departments prior to joining Wal-Mart. With an expanding role and growing travel levels, Futch has been passing day-to-day flight department operations to Dan Williams, Wal-Mart director of aviation. Futch, meanwhile, has begun to focus on other projects, including a large international corporate travel operation and his responsibilities for Wal-Mart's consumer travel businesses, including Sam's Club Vacations and travel offerings through Wal-Mart.com and Samsclub.com.

"It just became too massive to be able to concentrate on all the areas," he said. "I still have the international departments. I still do the strategic planning, the buying and selling of the airplanes and the development of flight departments in other countries, but the day to day just became too massive."