When it comes to transporting large sports organizations to their away matches, the challenge of moving hundreds of personnel alongside thousands of pounds of equipment can be monumental. Team logistics are planned years in advance, and some individuals dedicate their entire lives to making sure that all aspects of a team's travel experience go off without a hitch. When traveling longer distances, sports teams must rely on air transportation, which can be especially difficult for American football teams that have some of the world's tallest and strongest athletes on their rosters.
These players will almost always require seating in first-class cabins, or at the very least the seat next to them open in economy, requiring even more space than would usually be expected for a group of around 250 people. Therefore, the practice of chartering aircraft from commercial airlines has become the norm for teams of the United States National Football League (NFL), for which biweekly travel to away games is required. However, chartering planes can be a logistical challenge, as they are configured for standard airline passenger operations, not for transporting a football team and all of its equipment.
Get all the latest aviation news from Simple Flying! Thus, there have been a pair of NFL teams that have identified a unique solution to this logistical nightmare, one which will likely carry a far higher price tag. Two teams, the New England Patriots and the Arizona Cardinals, have each maint.