A chartered flight offers flexibility, possible savings, and an airborne conference room

(CNN) -- Chartering a plane has been something most business travelers only dream about, but times are changing. These days, it may cost about the same to hire a plane as to take a commercial flight.

Microtel Chairman Mike Leven recently chartered a plane to take him from his Atlanta base to Georgetown, Kentucky, for the grand opening of the company's 100th hotel.

"Commercial doesn't go some of the places we have to go. If commercial does go the schedule doesn't work," he said. "Often times now it's very close to the same price, if you're taking a lot of people, because the commercial fares have gone up for business travelers so much," Leven said.

One pricing example: a six-seat, twin-engine, roundtrip flight from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. runs just under $4,000 for the day. Six coach class roundtrip tickets could cost $900 per ticket, or more than $5,000 total.

There are almost 700 airports in the United States that can handle commercial jets and almost 5,500 smaller facilities for general aviation.

More companies are finding that crowded airports and tight schedules mean flying on a charter plane makes sense economically.

"It's not an extravagance. It's a necessity of business travel today. In fact, 84 percent of the people who fly in a corporate jet are not the top management. They're engineering teams. They're people who are traveling to get to a factory or something like that," said Norm Sherlock of the National Business Travel Association.

Mike Leven planned to spend about two hours in Kentucky meeting with hotel investors, employees and residents on his trip. But he used the time on board the charter plane to meet with his business team.

"You can't do that on a commercial airline... You're using the time in the air to conduct business," he said.

Still, Leven's allegiance is to the bottom line. He said he continues to take commercial flights when that's more cost-effective.

Based on a report from CNN's Business and Travel and Beyond. The segment appears weekdays on Early Edition at 7 AM (ET) and on Morning News at 10 AM (ET).