Travel
When a private jet makes sense
Sometimes the jet is the sensible choice and sometimes it is the expensive one. The four cases where the arithmetic favours it, and the honest comparison with the best seat on a scheduled flight.
A private jet is not a luxury or an extravagance. It is a tool with a price, and like any tool it is the right choice for some jobs and the wrong one for others. The desk books both, and the decision is arithmetic before it is anything else.
Case one: the airport
Some places cannot be reached by an airliner. Saint-Tropez’s La Môle takes jets up to Falcon size and nothing larger; St Barths takes nothing bigger than a twin turboprop from St Maarten; Olbia, Ibiza and Mykonos have scheduled flights only in season. When the destination airport is the constraint, the jet is not a choice but the way in.
Case two: the party
A light jet takes six, a midsize eight, a heavy thirteen. From six people upwards the charter price divided by the seats begins to approach a first-class fare, and from eight it usually beats it on short European sectors. A family with children and a nanny flying London to Nice pays about the same either way and arrives two hours earlier by jet.
Case three: the time
A scheduled flight costs two and a half hours of airport before and after: the check-in, the security, the lounge, the walk, the baggage. A jet costs forty-five minutes. On a two-hour sector that is the difference between a day lost and a day kept, and for some members the day is worth more than the difference in price.
Case four: the schedule
When the only flight leaves at six in the morning, when the connection through Paris adds four hours, when the return is on the wrong day for the charter’s end, the jet fits the trip rather than the reverse.
When it does not make sense
Two people, London to Dubai, on a day with a good first-class flight: the jet costs ten times the fares and saves two hours on a seven-hour sector. A couple to Nice on a Tuesday in March: first class is a tenth of the price and the lounge is empty. The tool on this site shows the comparison for twelve routes, and the desk shows it for any other.
Empty legs
Aircraft flying home empty after a charter are sold at a fraction of the price, sometimes a quarter. The catch is that the date and the route are the operator’s, not yours. For a member with flexible dates and a standing profile, the desk watches the empty-leg market and calls when one fits.
Use it now
Jet or First Class
Twelve common routes, the right aircraft for each, and the honest comparison of cost, time and comfort against the best scheduled seat.
