Private jets no longer just for the ultra-wealthy (sponsored article in The Australian)

[Flyerwin]

Interesting bits from the article (which looks like an advertorial - I don't have any conflicts to declare and no interest in the company):

Charters now account for 13 per cent of all domestic air travel – up from 8.6 per cent pre-Covid – far outpacing Rex and Bonza’s combined 7 per cent share of the market.

While private charter carries a reputation for exclusivity, the numbers may surprise. Navair offers charters from Sydney to Melbourne for $11,770 for a same-day return, with seating for up to five passengers. When the jet is fully booked, the cost per person is comparable to business class on a commercial airline – but with far more advantages.

Source: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...te-jets-no-longer-just-for-the-ultra-wealthy/

$11,770 divided by 5 is $2,354 per person to fly private SYD-MEL return.

Anyone here decided to leave commercial and fly private because of the costs and efficiency gains?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

lol. I’m guessing 5-seater jets don’t account for 13% of the market. There must be a fair few a320s, F100s, 737s in the mix for mining charters!

Who would want to fly private unless it was an e190 or larger? It’s bad enough flying erjs or crjs in terms of size, turbulence and everything else.

 

[DC3]

13%.

 

[jamesatfish]

I use a company called Airly who mainly fly Citation Mustangs - 4 seats plus the 2IC seat if you really need to take 5 pax.

CBR-SYD costs me about $5500. For random dates this week QF are charging $1255 per head for J on the 737 (if you can get it, as 90% of the flights on that route are Q300/400s).

When we fly as a family of 4 the Mustang costs less than QF J.

The real bonus is I can do literally door to door Canberra to Sydney in 90 minutes. With the commercial flight after 90 minutes I’d still be sitting in the J lounge waiting for the flight to start boarding / taking odds on whether it’d be cancelled.

Travel time aside it’s also invaluable if I want to take an early international flight out of Sydney (like the 6:45am SQ to Singapore) and for some reason can’t stay the night before in Sydney. Nothing commercial will get there in time, but the charter will leave whenever we need it to.

Turbulence isn’t an issue in my experience, we often fly higher than the commercial turboprops on that route and I’ve never had an overly bumpy ride despite the small plane.

Only time I’ll fly domestic commercial these days is the ultra long leg to Perth which is beyond the range of the Mustang or if I’m flying solo as part of a larger trip (like an ACIR22) where the domestic flights were included in the overall cost.