After ten years of working for Intel I've finally flown on the company air shuttle. It's air travel the way it used to be, plus some of the best of the way it ought to be.
The shuttle service was established to get executives, and eventually employees (though I'm not sure about the history) between Intel's four largest locations in the western US. Having long been a distributed company, I guess it was determined - and it certainly must justify itself now on cost savings in the current environment - it was cheaper and faster to fly directly between sites from nearby regional airports than to pay for literally hundreds of employees per week to fly commercially. I know it enables folks to do a quick overnight or day trip where it wouldn't otherwise be feasible. Thanks to Intel's generally egalitarian employee policy, you may find yourself sitting next to Paul Otellini or Craig Barrett instead of a rank and file employee.
The way it used to be
Since we have to go through badged security and already have basic background checks as employees, the ticketing, check in, and boarding process is blissfully simple. Our flight was delayed considerable due to heavy ground fog, and here's where another difference showed up: it's the friendliest boarding gate I've ever been delayed at. Of course, this isn't because we're just naturally friendlier people (as a bunch of engineers and technologists I'd argue the opposite in fact); lots of the travelers were in groups, and of course we're all Intel employees. There's also interesting secondary behavior going on as a result, like about an 80% working-on-notebook ratio, and after about 90 minutes of waiting an increasingly urgent search for wall outlets :).
(Travel tip: Pick up one of those little 3-outlet wall plugs from Monster for your travel kit. If you're stuck in an airport, and all the wall plugs are full, just walk up and wave this mini-outlet and they'll let you right on.)
The way it ought to be
The jets aren't fancy corporate-style Gulfstreams or Lears; they're workhouse Embraer regional jets. We get some basic snacks just like the commercial flights. The flight attendants are very friendly, however, and all the seats have AC power because of course everyone on board pulls out a notebook and starts working!
On the return flight from Santa Clara / Folsom to Phoenix, I flew on the single-seat side, exit row. This is apparently Craig Barrett's reserved seat when he flies back to his home base in Phoenix. I found out because people kept asking me if I could see "CRB" scratched into the seat tray!
