Editor’s note: This article was originally published in December 2015.
CNN
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For high network flyers, the “on demand” economy means more than just conjuring a movie, pizza or a loot call to the touch of an iPhone screen. The flyers of a certain state want to be able to reserve a private jet at any time.
“Click, Reserve, Buy and pay, that is our reason for being,” says Clive Jackson, CEO and founder of Victor, an Uber application (only instead of taxis, you reserve private planes).
Victor’s growth (an average of 142.93% annually in the last three years) helps tell the history of an industry in the rebound: private jet trips.
Since the recession of 2008, private planes have not been exactly a financial priority, even for super rich.
This year, however, there has been an increase in Jet Charter reserves for the first time in years, at least in Western Europe.
The recently published Victor Private Jet Travel Report, which incorporates an independent Wingx investigation, highlights how (and where) this $ 14 billion industry is growing. In Europe, France has the greatest appetite for private jet trips, followed by Germany and the United Kingdom.
“He shows that the French have many international interests and a significant ambition to continue growing and overcome the rest of Europe to take a larger portion of that global cake,” says Jackson.
“They are more willing to justify an aircraft as a commercial tool that will give them a competitive advantage.”
The rental of a jet does not necessarily offer a better service than a first -class ticket, and the price is at the same time, if not more expensive (approximately $ 6,000 for a first leg and short distance ticket).
What it does have above the commercial flight is considerable savings over time.
“Our consumers want to get many more hours of a single day, which we know is impossible, but if it is done correctly, the private flight may seem like a time machine,” says Jackson.
Compared to the commercial flight, the private Jet Charter is fast and flexible. Customers can get on an airplane an hour after the reservation and not suffer the rigm of airport safety.
They can also be collected and left in smaller private airports closer to their desired destination, and can turn their cabin into a miniature office during the flight.
Jackson describes a recent client who used Victor to fly from London to Geneva for a 11 am meeting, back to the United Kingdom for an afternoon conference, to Paris for a speech in a fund collection event, after returning to London at 10 pm.
“If I could not build your own itinerary with that aircraft program, it would have been impossible for the mission,” says Jackson.
Making the connection between less dark supply and demand has also helped reduce the price of private airplanes. For example, if an operator has an “empty leg”, that is, it has flown to someone in a way and faces a potentially empty cabin on the return flight, they can offer a discount for that leg of the trip.
In this way, the private flight has become more affordable and more accessible than ever.
Victor is one of several companies that offer the option of “empty leg”, in addition to Privatefly, a European autonomous company and the company of the US author.
These vary from $ 499 to $ 1,499 for a stretch of a trip in a 100 phenomenon (which is based up to four) or a CJ3 (which can settle six). That price is not per person; It is by plane.
“Some of those trips are dumb, such as Santa Monica to Van Nuys. But sometimes you can get a complete plane for $ 499 that flies from Los Angeles to New York, and you can divide the price among four people,” says the CEO of Jetsuite Alex Wilcox. Okay, he points out, “that’s a rarity.”
