Des Moines to Minneapolis-St. Paul in 0 h 54 m

Brand and category work involves stores, plants, and distribution centres spread across secondary markets — the parts of the business you cannot understand from a headquarters conference room. Between Des Moines and Minneapolis-St. Paul that problem has a specific size: 198 nautical miles, and 4 h 20 m of it if you drive.

Wheels up at 07 45 puts you on site in Minneapolis-St. Paul by 09 09, with 7 h 27 m on the ground before the aircraft goes back. Home by 18 30. That is about as easy as a there-and-back day gets — no hotel, no overnight bag, and no second day of anyone's time.

The realistic alternative here is driving, and 4 h 20 m each way is the sort of number that gets quietly accepted until someone adds it up. Two of those in a day is most of a working day spent in a car, arriving for the meeting already tired. The scheduled-airline option on a pair this length is usually worse rather than better once you count the drive to the airport, the screening queue, and the connection a route this short often requires.

Flying Cloud Airport has 5,000 feet of runway. That is comfortable for the Vision Jet, whose balanced field length is 3,192 feet, and tight or prohibited for several of the light jets you would otherwise be quoted. On a business network the practical effect is that you land at the close-in field rather than the big airport half an hour further out.

Halcyon quotes the Vision Jet and nothing else, which is why we know which operators run it well and which fields it likes. The aircraft carries a whole-airframe parachute and Garmin Safe Return emergency autoland — neither of which exists on any other jet in production. Flights are operated by FAA Part 135 certificate holders.