Three Ways You Can Save Money And Time By Sharing A Private Jet

Making flying privately affordable has long been a siren’s song in private aviation. As far back as 2002, entrepreneurs were talking up by-the-seat on-demand options. After taking flight in 2007 and before folding in 2008 DayJet had orders for 239 Eclipse 500 very light jets and had taken delivery of 28.

Unlike scheduled shuttle operations such as JSX, Tradewind Aviation, and several others that publish schedules in a similar fashion to the airlines, but reduce travel time by operating out of private jet terminals, the essence of jet sharing is crowd-sourcing flights at a time and route that at least two parties agree on.

Sometimes it might involve 10 people each buying a single seat on a private jet, while in other cases two families who don’t know each might decide to share a flight and divide costs up however they see fit.

Popular examples include attending big sporting events such as the Super Bowl. If there are just two of you, and you live in a major market, or the home team is playing, there are probably four, six or eight other folks who also want to go and come back at similar times and are willing to share the cost and cabin of a private jet, so the logic goes.

While for the most part, you are going to pay more than flying in first class, the idea is it’s a more enjoyable experience, you avoid crowded airports, saving time at both ends, you don’t have to worry if there will be enough space your carry-on luggage in the overhead bins or that your golf clubs will get lost somewhere in transit.

Other applications for sharing private aircraft might be flying from New York to Nantucket on a Friday evening and returning Sunday night in the summer or between the Big Apple and South Florida with a similar pattern in the winter.

With fully private flights typically costing $4,000 to $15,000 per hour, the savings of sharing verus taking an entire plane can be significant, even if it’s still more expensive than flying commercially.

Since the beginning of the year Wheels Up, a major player in business aviation, expanded its push. Jet Linx, which manages a fleet of 115 private jets, just added the feature earlier this summer. Both join the former JetSmarter, which under its new owner, Vista Global, recently rebranded as XO, a combination with XOJET.

With three of the industry’s bigger players now in the game, will the idea of crowdfunding private jet flights become more than a press release?

“The answer to whether it’s going to be a niche thing or not is probably answered that you have two more companies that believe in this part of the market,” says Ian Moore, chief commercial officer of Vista Global, adding, “It’s not only one or two routes in north America, but taking it on a global scale.”

Moore says there is a triangle between New York, Miami and Los Angeles that generates enough demand for flight-sharing, plus he adds Boston and Chicago as other promising markets.

Some routes will be seasonal, he notes, for example, during the summer between Moscow and Nice. A significant part of the opportunity appears to revolve around major events, such as The Kentucky Derby, The Masters as well as big soccer matches in Europe and the like.

Steve Nitkin, a co-founder of Wheels Up, says events such as Art Basel Miami as well as events it stages for members invite sharing. Wheels Up launched a new, lower-priced membership under the Connect banner in February, specifically for people who wanted to share flights with its regular members who typically charter the entire aircraft.

In the case of Jet Linx, it manages private jets for their owners in 18 markets across the U.S. When owners aren’t using their aircraft, its over 2,000 jet card members use them for flights, again taking the entire plane – until now.

Jamie Walker, its CEO, says with its customers clustered around the airports where it has bases, he thinks Jet Linx has a high probability for success. “For competitors, they may have 5,000 members or whatever they have, but they are spread out across the country, where for Jet Linx, our members are concentrated around the cities and airports we have bases.”

“Last year there were over 40,000 empty seats on the flights we operated,” he says, noting that each market has its own popular routes for jetsetters.

As an example, he notes its Omaha based customers frequently fly to Scottsdale, Chicago, and Aspen whereas from St. Louis there is a high frequency of flights to and from New York, Naples, Florida, and Washington D.C. From its Houston Hobby location, the top destinations for its community there are San Antonio, Dallas, and New Orleans.

For folks who normally charter an entire aircraft for themselves, don’t mind sharing the flight, and are willing to lock in departure times, sometimes weeks and months in advance, there are big savings.

On the XO website, the cost for a light jet seating seven passengers from New York to South Florida can be had for around $15,000 each way. If you do 10 roundtrips during the winter, that’s roughly $300,000. If you are flying alone or with one or two other people, and you were able to share even half of the flights, you might save $75,000!

For those of you who can’t afford to charter an entire airplane, buying seats provides possibly a nonstop routing instead of a connection and you also escape airport turmoil. You give up the ability to switch flights at the last minute as you get with the airlines, but with load factors at record levels, switching may be easier said than done.

David Zipkin, vice president of Tradewind Aviation, is bullish on jet sharing. His company operates scheduled shuttles on a fleet of Pilatus PC-12 turboprops. He said the flights, which include routes like White Plains to Nantucket, evolved from a crowdsourcing model. On a Friday in late August, its website lists nine flights each scheduled at 58 minutes. Passengers have to show up 15 minutes before departure.

“I think it works really well on short flights where the costs are lower,” he says.

However, the feeling is not universal. “Flight sharing is contradictory logic when it comes to comes to using business aviation,” says Christophe Kohler, managing director of WingX, a research firm that specializes in business aviation.

He adds, “Usually the reason you join one of these programs or you charter a private jet is because you want to define your schedule.”

How many routes have the demand is a good question. WingX data shows there were 177 private jet flights from Teterboro to West Palm Beach across 13 Fridays from November 2018 through January 2019. In other words, on average there were 13 flights on those days. NetJets, the world’s largest business aviation provider, operated 39 of those flights, so an average of three flights on those days.

Whether the pool is big enough, or sharing creates new demand, is something that will probably be evident over the next couple years.

Below is a look at how XO, Wheels Up and Jet Linx are each offering their versions of jet sharing:

XO

Tip: Best for kicking the tires. Non-members can see the availability of shared flights, pricing and can start or buy seats on shared flights.

XO is the result of Vista Global’s purchase of JetSmarter and XOJET, and the merger of the two together. While JetSmarter might be the best known for its pay one price annual membership which enabled you to snag seats for free, that model was dropped over a year ago and it is now you pay for seats on each flight.

The evolution means there are two ways XO enables sharing. The first is that you can start a flight by going to its FlyXO.com website and enter where you want to fly and when.

You then confirm the flight by buying a specific number of seats. That means regardless of whether or not others join your flight, it is set to go. If you don’t need all of the seats you purchased, you can let XO sell them for future credits.

Unlike when you normally charter a private jet, once you offer seats for sale, you are locked into that date, time and routing.

You can also select a routing and for a designated price per seat see if there are enough other people who want to join. You provide your credit card, but you aren’t charged unless enough other people buy a designated number of seats. If you get the crowd you go. If you don’t, you need to find another way, but you aren’t charged.

You can join for as little as $2,500 and members get discounted rates. On Aug. 21, from Los Angeles to New York, I found a flight that had one seat booked and required nine more seats being sold. Prices were either $4,495 or $3,495 per seat with members saving $1,000.

Between Chicago and New York, I could start a flight on a light jet for $2,560 per seat, or save $565 if I was a member. For this flight, it would require five other people to buy seats. By comparison, XO would allow me to charter an entire six-seat light jet for $11,800.

One interesting benefit for members of XO’s jet cards that use dynamic pricing is you can now sell seats on your flights in exchange for credits.

With XO you don’t interact with other passengers. It all happens online via its website or app. You just show up at the designated FBO at least 30 minutes before scheduled departure. Since launching its jet sharing, Moore says they have sold over 160,000 seats.

Wheels Up

Tip: Best for low-cost flights under 90 minutes seating eight people on its King Air 350i fleet.

Wheels Up has been offering sharing for a couple years, however, earlier this year it moved to expand the pool. Previously, sharing flights was limited to members who pay $17,500 to join, $8,500 in subsequent years, and then mainly charter a full aircraft.

The launch of Connect, priced at $2,995, allows members of the new tier to visit a community board and network with other members to discuss sharing. The board has sections divided by home base, popular routes, big events, and also universities.

“Take Syracuse University for example. Think of all the people in the New York area who are alumni or have kids who are students there now.  From homecoming to parents weekend, basketball games to taking the kids back to school, there are tons of opportunities to share flights with other parents and alumni to and from college towns,” Nitkin says.

Full members propose flights they want to share and wait for others to ask about joining, or go into the forums to highlight a shared flight. By the same token, members can message on various threads about trips they would like to take and see if others want to share.

Unlike XO, Wheels Up doesn’t set pricing. Members let Wheels Up know how they are splitting the cost, and then Wheels Up charges them for the shared amount.

Nitkin says the sweet spot is short flights using its King Air 350i fleet, with each aircraft seating eight passengers and able to carry eight golf bags. The cost for the roughly one hour flight from Westchester County Airport to Syracuse would be $5,025 including tax, so split eight ways, $628 per seat.

Many of the most popular routings, Nitkin says, are to places that either don’t have nonstop flights. For example, flying from any New York airport to University Park Airport, which serves Penn State University, would require changing planes, and not including time spent at the airport, take close to four hours. The King Air takes under an hour, about 3.5 hours faster than the other alternative, driving.

“In our community forums you can find other members to fly with, tailgate, see the game, and be back home in time for dinner all while sharing the price for the flight,” Nitkin says.

Jet Linx

Tip: Best if you live in one of its established local markets such as Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Ft. Worth, Nashville, San Antonio, St. Louis, Scottsdale, Tulsa, Omaha, and Washington D.C. where it has a critical mass of customers.

While Wheels Up and XO are trying to broaden the pool with either lower-priced memberships or allowing non-members to booked shared flights, Jet Linx is adding jet sharing exclusively as a benefit for the owners of the jets it manages and its jet card customers who charter full aircraft.

Joining the Jet Linx jet card program costs either $12,500 or $17,500 and then $3,500 in subsequent years. There is a one-time $5,000 fee to participate in Open Seat Exchange. It’s a different approach and interesting in that it will certainly give management a good idea on how many of its customers are really interested in the concept.

Walker says while it’s too early to talk about shared flights being booked, in the first week his sales team signed up several new jet card members who were enticed by the opportunity to share flights.

Of the three, Jet Linx is the only one that manages aircraft, which gives it a unique pitch when talking to aircraft owners who might be open to deferring costs by allowing other members to fly with them.

The flight starter can designate how many seats they want to sell, so even if they only need two of eight seats, they may only want to sell only two seats instead of traveling on a full aircraft.

Buyers can view posted shared flights on its app but can’t see which member posted the flight to protect privacy.  At the same time, the starters can see the names of members who are requesting to buy seats, and can accept or reject the request. You have normal flexibility to change or cancel your flight after posting, until somebody else buys into it.