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Over the last few years, flying with the major airlines has become a less than comfortable experience as airlines compete to squash as many passengers on-board their commercial flights, flying it seem has now become a“ flying cans of sardines” experience. Of course there is the first-class alternative but for the wealthy amongst us is the hassle of the airport lounge and inevitable check in delays really worth the hassle – No and that is why the growth in the private jet industry has boomed.
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Flying by private plane is the ultimate upgrade: it’ s a hassle free experience there’ s no crowded cabins, never-ending check-in, and interminable delays in the departure lounge, instead after a simply phone call to reserve the plane, within a few hours it’ s ready to fly you to whatever destination you require.
It’ s a frequent flier’ s dream and surprising not as expensive as one would think, thanks in part to fractional ownership. Borne in the early 1980’ s the notion of fractional ownership was dreamed up by Richard Santulli. Richard had bought a company called Executive Jet and noticed that many wholly owned private jets were underused, after analysing 20 years’ worth of records, Santulli deduced that it was possible to divide ownership of the fleet among many clients and still offer everyone guaranteed availability with as little as four hours’ notice. With the financial backing of Warren Buffet he launched the first( and largest) fractional ownership company: NetJets.
Today fractional ownership or“ jet sharing” is often likened to a timeshare, you buy a fractional share of a plane, from one-sixteenth up to a half and in return for the initial purchase price, plus a monthly management fee and a charge for every hour flown you’ re guaranteed that the type of plane you’ ve bought into will be available at short notice. The bigger your fraction, the more hours you can fly. Own a sixteenth and you’ re entitled to 50 hours of flying time per year; a 50 percent stake will grant you 400 hours. Alternatively for those who only need limited access a private plane membership can be offered which for one upfront payment provides specified flying hours, with no capital cost and no commitment.
Although fractional ownership makes private jets more affordable, it’ s still not something everyone could afford so it’ s worth shopping around for example, 50 hours of flying time in NetJets’ entrylevel craft, the Cessna Citation V Ultra costs approx. $ 500,000 ownership plus a monthly management fee of approx $ 9,500, and $ 1,950 per hourly rate this means your first years expenditure will cost in excess of $ 700,000. Compare this to Take Flight Aviation who operate in the UK and offer an entry level craft Piper Malibu Matrix for a capital outlay of £ 80,000 plus a monthly management fee of approx £ 1,120.00 for 50 hours of flying time and £ 121.00 fuel costs per hours you can see the costs vary dramatically.
However, it’ s worth noting when comparing ownership programs to check fleet sizes, and range Netjets has one of the largest fractional ownership fleets around the world with bases in the US and subsidiaries in Europe and China so for worldwide travellers this is indeed something to look out for whereby if you only need to shoot across the UK then Take Flight Aviation would indeed be your ideal solutions.
When considering venturing into the private plane ownership I suppose you have to ask yourself one simple question: Compared to flying commercially, of course a private plane will always be more expensive, but“ What is your time worth?”