Corporate America, it seems, is learning to share. Frequent fliers like Brule are defecting in droves to time-share jet services like NetJets and Citation Shares, which maintain large fleets of corporate aircraft–usually twin-engine jets with six to 12 seats. After buying a symbolic stake in one plane, customers are guaranteed access to a similar plane within a few hours of notifying the company. The programs are growing at a breakneck pace. In the last year alone the fleets of the four largest time-share jet companies ballooned by 42 percent. Cincinnati-based Aviation Research Group/U.S. projects that the industry will triple by 2005. Even big players like General Electric and Sun Microsystems are buying shares to top off their fleets.

For small businesses, a private plane is more than just a fat-cat frill. Smaller airplanes give executives access to 10 times as many airports as commercial carriers, since most airports aren’t big enough to accommodate jumbo jets. Paranoid honchos also don’t have to worry about privacy. And they avoid the costly delays that can wreak havoc on a small business. Sergio Zyman, formerly Coca-Cola’s top marketing executive, uses a time-share jet for his Atlanta-based firm, Z Marketing. “With the plane, I can do three cities comfortably in one day and get everything done,” Zyman says. “Otherwise it would be a three-day trip.”

But convenience comes at a price. “I pick up the phone and they’re here in four hours,” says venture capitalist Rob Loughan, who owns a one-eighth share in a Dassault Falcon and a one-eighth share in a Raytheon Beechjet. “But I very often write hundred-thousand-dollar checks each month for my bad habit of flying around.” And some worry that the costs could be more than monetary. “[Small planes] have a slightly higher accident rate than the commercial airlines,” says Jim Burin of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va., though both Burin and the FAA say corporate jets are basically safe. For Brule, the prestige that comes with owning his own plane is worth the gamble. “In my mind,” says Brule, “if I’m doing well enough to afford a jet airplane, then I must be doing pretty well.” With that attitude–and the cooperation of the commercial carriers–the time-share jet companies can count on doing pretty well themselves.