ing on a (Private) Jet Plane
orldly beauty of Laoshan, China.
RE
8 PERSONAL JOURNEYS
A gay son of Montana returns home.
10 PURSUITS
The ultimate uncruise: a r
ESCAPE
“All the News That’s Fit to Print”
Reprinted With Permission
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013
THE GETAWAY
STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Leaving on a (Private) Jet Plane
ng on a (Private) Jet Plane
A handful of new players make layers makebooking as easy as ordering up ordering upa private car.
I
n less time than it takes to undergo a es to undergo a body scan, I breezed through the termiugh the terminal nal and onto the tarmac. No one at Teterboro Airport, in lowslung industrial New Jersey, asked for my Airport, in lowdriver’s license. No one rifled through my ey, asked for my bag. There were no screaming children or fled through my grown-ups in pajama bottoms wheeling ming children or luggage the size of fat steamer trunks. It ttoms wheeling was strangely serene: only the sound of eamer trunks. It the wind and the tap of my heels on the ly the sound of runway as I walked toward two pilots at my heels on the the foot of a Challenger 300, a gleaming rd two pilots at private jet with seating for nine. I stepped 300, a gleaming onto a swatch of blue carpet beneath the r nine. I stepped air stair and, steadied by a pilot’s hand, pet beneath the at long last boarded a plane like a human a pilot’s hand, at being, not a pack mule. ike a human beInside, the pilot in command, Rob Martin of XOJet, a private jet company based mand, Rob Marin San Francisco, went over the essencompany based tials: the iPod dock; the touch screen to r the essentials: control the lights and movies; the leather creen to control swivel seats that I was told (while treating e leather swivel mine like a Tilt-a-Whirl) cost $30,000 to rele treating mine place; the satellite phone; the Nespresso 0,000 to replace; machine; the cabinet with the Oreo cookNespresso maies and Kistler chardonnay. he Oreo cookies “One thing I forgot to mention,” Mr. Martin said before we took off, “the couch o mention,” Mr. will fold out into a bed.” k off, “the couch At a time when industry surveys show that travelers are fed up with epic lines y surveys show at commercial airports, when lounges with epic lines at are overflowing with airline-branded en lounges are credit card holders, and first class is but branded credit a shadow of what it was in the golden ss is but a shadage of air travel, companies are makolden age of air ing private jets easier to come by. What king private jets had been an industry that relied on full had been an inor partial ownership of planes is opening r partial ownerup, with jet operators and owners like p, with jet operaXOJet offering more flexible programs, et offering more and brokers who don’t own planes workokers who don’t ing in tandem with them to offer seats ndem with them — in some cases through apps — within e cases through striking distance of the price of a first distance of the class ticket.
ally changed 180 years,” said Bill executive who uis Jet, and Senunder and presi-
JOSHUA BRIGHT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The author boards an XOJet craft at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey.
“The industry has literally changed 180 degrees in the last five years,” said Bill Papariella, an aviation executive who worked at NetJets, Marquis Jet, and Sentient before becoming a founder and president of the operator Jet Edge International. Companies that survived the recession have made pricing simpler and now offer more membership options, based on where, when and how often you
fly. And a handful of new industry players are making booking a private jet as easy as ordering up a private car on Uber. “It’s much easier and much cheaper than it’s ever been before,” said Bradley Stewart, chief executive of XOJet. Even so, can you afford to travel like James Bond? The answer depends on what type of flier you are. (How often do you fly? Where do you fly? How rigid
is your schedule?) Different companies have different pricing structures, but one of the most common models is a yearly or monthly membership fee plus the cost of your flights. That can run you anywhere from several thousand dollars a year to several hundred thousand dollars a year. At one end of the spectrum are operators like Jet Edge International, who say their private jets are the purview of those with net worth in excess of $50 million. “We specialize in the 1 percent of the 1 percent,” Mr. Papariella said. At the other end of the spectrum are a handful of start-ups that want to change that, like BlackJet, which is enabling first-class fliers to graduate to private travel by selling individual seats to its members, who currently pay a $2,500 annual fee. The company, which began putting clients on flights late last year, finds jet owners or operators that will transport 6 to 14 travelers at a time in markets like New York, South Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas (and next up, Chicago and Washington, D.C.). “Our client is the mass affluent as opposed to the 1 percent of the population,” said Dean Rotchin, founder and chief executive of BlackJet. “It’s bringing it from the rock star level down to a practical tool for the mass affluent.” For instance, a recent search for a last-minute, one-way first-class ticket on a commercial airline from New York to Los Angeles was about $1,400 to $2,000. On BlackJet, Mr. Rotchin said that trip would be about $3,600, in addition to the membership fee. (There are no TSA lines but passengers’ names are checked against no-fly lists.) You must be flexible, though. When you book a flight on BlackJet (which can sell individual seats because as a broker it does not need an FAA operating license), you choose either a departure in the a.m. (between 7 and 10) or p.m. (between 4 and 7). Also, the amenities on the jets vary. “Flying private has always been an aspiration because the commercial experience is rarely fluid and easy and hassle-free and pleasant,” said Josh Rubin, the founder and editor in chief of the art and culture site Coolhunting.com and a BlackJet member. It’s still a splurge (though as an early adopter he pays less than new members), but he recalled a day in February when he and friends who had just been at a TED conference were driving to Van Nuys Airport in California and got stuck in traffic. “We ended up getting to the airport 10 minutes before the scheduled wheels up,” he said, “and it was no big deal. We parked the car, got on the plane and were off.”
Private jets have also allowed Mr. Rubin to travel easily with his Sealyham terriers, Otis and Logan, a process he blogged about on Cool Hunting. The tradeoff, he said, is that the planes he’s been on have been small and lacked Wi-Fi. “People think it’s the ultimate luxury,” he said, “but not without some sacrifice.” (That includes sharing a small jet with strangers, technically making the experience semiprivate.) This year, BlackJet is trying to revolutionize how reservations are made by selling seats online and through an app of the same name, which is not surprising considering that Garrett Camp, a founder of the app-based car service Uber, is an investor (along with boldface names like Ashton Kutcher).
No lines, no knees in your back, just a wine (and Oreos) cabinet, a plush chair that swivels and sofa that folds out into a bed. Other new brokers are also trying to lower the cost of flying private. Jumpjet, for one, offers monthly memberships from $2,350 to $5,500 for 10 round-trip flights a year (how far you can travel depends on your membership level). The Web site promises “a new way to fly for the approximate cost of first class airfare.” “I would describe us as luxury for less,” said Will Ashcroft, Jumpjet’s chief executive. Yet some competitors say that through the years many companies have tried and failed to make flying private as affordable as flying first class. “I’ve yet to see anything like that work,” said Mr. Papariella of Jet Edge. “Those companies treat the plane like a commodity, and it’s not a commoditized business. It’s a personal service business.” Operators often keep member profiles with details ranging from family birthdays to whether they want their car heated when the flight lands. “If they want sushi from Nobu,” said Gregg Slow, senior vice president for sales and national accounts for XOJet, “we figure out how to get them sushi from Nobu.” (XOJet agreed to take me on a flight so I could check out the bells and whistles.) But those who fly private — mostly for business (41 percent of the industry’s
revenue) but also tourism (about 27 percent of industry revenue) according to the research firm IBISWorld — do not do so for these extravagances alone. They do so to save time, safeguard their pets and collaborate with colleagues on confidential projects. “The reason they call it private travel is because it’s supposed to be private,” said Jordan Hansell, chief executive of NetJets, which plans to spend $17.6 billion for up to 670 aircraft over the next decade and whose client perks have included a complimentary Plácido Domingo concert at the Royal Palace in Spain. “On our planes and with my business associates we work the entire time. I don’t have to worry about anybody listening in.” That sort of lavish, personalized service is hard to replicate when using an app to buy a seat. As Mr. Stewart of XOJet put it, apps can work for younger customers who fly private a couple of times a year, but not for Fortune 500 clients. “If you’re a 59-yearold guy running a $30 billion company,” he said, “you want a throat to choke.” However yet another company called JetSuite is betting it can use technology to lower prices. Its chief executive, Alex Wilcox, a founder of JetBlue, wants to be the Southwest Airlines of private jet travel. His dream? When consumers visit a commercial flight search site like Kayak. com, they also see private jet availability. For instance, a trip from New York to Charlotte, N.C., might pop up for $400 on JetBlue, but $1,000 a person for a fourperson flight on JetSuite. What’s preventing that from happening, Mr. Wilcox said, is an availability tool that would allow jet companies to instantly notify Kayak when a plane is available. “We can’t deliver that information fast enough right now,” he said, adding that he plans to change that in the next year or two. (Perhaps having Tony Hsieh, the chief executive of Zappos.com, on the board will help.) In the meantime, JetSuite offers deals on one-way flights at Facebook.com/jetsuiteair and Twitter. com/Jetsuite. Back on the XOJet flight, Mr. Slow put his feet up on one of the leather chairs that swivel almost 360 degrees, the jet gently rocking us into the sort of daze usually achieved in a hammock on a summer afternoon. “This is nap central,” Mr. Slow said. “Put a little Golf Channel on in the background, and I’m out.” Some 147 miles and 31 minutes later, we were descending. For the first time since I was a kid, I was sad to be getting off an airplane.
(#78285) Copyright © 2013 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted with permission. For subscriptions to The New York Times, please call 1-800-NYTIMES. Visit us online at www.nytimes.com. For more information about reprints from The New York Times, visit PARS International Corp. at www.nytimesreprints.com.
RE
8 PERSONAL JOURNEYS
A gay son of Montana returns home.
10 PURSUITS
The ultimate uncruise: a r
ESCAPE
“All the News That’s Fit to Print”
Reprinted With Permission
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013
THE GETAWAY
STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Leaving on a (Private) Jet Plane
ng on a (Private) Jet Plane
A handful of new players make layers makebooking as easy as ordering up ordering upa private car.
I
n less time than it takes to undergo a es to undergo a body scan, I breezed through the termiugh the terminal nal and onto the tarmac. No one at Teterboro Airport, in lowslung industrial New Jersey, asked for my Airport, in lowdriver’s license. No one rifled through my ey, asked for my bag. There were no screaming children or fled through my grown-ups in pajama bottoms wheeling ming children or luggage the size of fat steamer trunks. It ttoms wheeling was strangely serene: only the sound of eamer trunks. It the wind and the tap of my heels on the ly the sound of runway as I walked toward two pilots at my heels on the the foot of a Challenger 300, a gleaming rd two pilots at private jet with seating for nine. I stepped 300, a gleaming onto a swatch of blue carpet beneath the r nine. I stepped air stair and, steadied by a pilot’s hand, pet beneath the at long last boarded a plane like a human a pilot’s hand, at being, not a pack mule. ike a human beInside, the pilot in command, Rob Martin of XOJet, a private jet company based mand, Rob Marin San Francisco, went over the essencompany based tials: the iPod dock; the touch screen to r the essentials: control the lights and movies; the leather creen to control swivel seats that I was told (while treating e leather swivel mine like a Tilt-a-Whirl) cost $30,000 to rele treating mine place; the satellite phone; the Nespresso 0,000 to replace; machine; the cabinet with the Oreo cookNespresso maies and Kistler chardonnay. he Oreo cookies “One thing I forgot to mention,” Mr. Martin said before we took off, “the couch o mention,” Mr. will fold out into a bed.” k off, “the couch At a time when industry surveys show that travelers are fed up with epic lines y surveys show at commercial airports, when lounges with epic lines at are overflowing with airline-branded en lounges are credit card holders, and first class is but branded credit a shadow of what it was in the golden ss is but a shadage of air travel, companies are makolden age of air ing private jets easier to come by. What king private jets had been an industry that relied on full had been an inor partial ownership of planes is opening r partial ownerup, with jet operators and owners like p, with jet operaXOJet offering more flexible programs, et offering more and brokers who don’t own planes workokers who don’t ing in tandem with them to offer seats ndem with them — in some cases through apps — within e cases through striking distance of the price of a first distance of the class ticket.
ally changed 180 years,” said Bill executive who uis Jet, and Senunder and presi-
JOSHUA BRIGHT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The author boards an XOJet craft at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey.
“The industry has literally changed 180 degrees in the last five years,” said Bill Papariella, an aviation executive who worked at NetJets, Marquis Jet, and Sentient before becoming a founder and president of the operator Jet Edge International. Companies that survived the recession have made pricing simpler and now offer more membership options, based on where, when and how often you
fly. And a handful of new industry players are making booking a private jet as easy as ordering up a private car on Uber. “It’s much easier and much cheaper than it’s ever been before,” said Bradley Stewart, chief executive of XOJet. Even so, can you afford to travel like James Bond? The answer depends on what type of flier you are. (How often do you fly? Where do you fly? How rigid
is your schedule?) Different companies have different pricing structures, but one of the most common models is a yearly or monthly membership fee plus the cost of your flights. That can run you anywhere from several thousand dollars a year to several hundred thousand dollars a year. At one end of the spectrum are operators like Jet Edge International, who say their private jets are the purview of those with net worth in excess of $50 million. “We specialize in the 1 percent of the 1 percent,” Mr. Papariella said. At the other end of the spectrum are a handful of start-ups that want to change that, like BlackJet, which is enabling first-class fliers to graduate to private travel by selling individual seats to its members, who currently pay a $2,500 annual fee. The company, which began putting clients on flights late last year, finds jet owners or operators that will transport 6 to 14 travelers at a time in markets like New York, South Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas (and next up, Chicago and Washington, D.C.). “Our client is the mass affluent as opposed to the 1 percent of the population,” said Dean Rotchin, founder and chief executive of BlackJet. “It’s bringing it from the rock star level down to a practical tool for the mass affluent.” For instance, a recent search for a last-minute, one-way first-class ticket on a commercial airline from New York to Los Angeles was about $1,400 to $2,000. On BlackJet, Mr. Rotchin said that trip would be about $3,600, in addition to the membership fee. (There are no TSA lines but passengers’ names are checked against no-fly lists.) You must be flexible, though. When you book a flight on BlackJet (which can sell individual seats because as a broker it does not need an FAA operating license), you choose either a departure in the a.m. (between 7 and 10) or p.m. (between 4 and 7). Also, the amenities on the jets vary. “Flying private has always been an aspiration because the commercial experience is rarely fluid and easy and hassle-free and pleasant,” said Josh Rubin, the founder and editor in chief of the art and culture site Coolhunting.com and a BlackJet member. It’s still a splurge (though as an early adopter he pays less than new members), but he recalled a day in February when he and friends who had just been at a TED conference were driving to Van Nuys Airport in California and got stuck in traffic. “We ended up getting to the airport 10 minutes before the scheduled wheels up,” he said, “and it was no big deal. We parked the car, got on the plane and were off.”
Private jets have also allowed Mr. Rubin to travel easily with his Sealyham terriers, Otis and Logan, a process he blogged about on Cool Hunting. The tradeoff, he said, is that the planes he’s been on have been small and lacked Wi-Fi. “People think it’s the ultimate luxury,” he said, “but not without some sacrifice.” (That includes sharing a small jet with strangers, technically making the experience semiprivate.) This year, BlackJet is trying to revolutionize how reservations are made by selling seats online and through an app of the same name, which is not surprising considering that Garrett Camp, a founder of the app-based car service Uber, is an investor (along with boldface names like Ashton Kutcher).
No lines, no knees in your back, just a wine (and Oreos) cabinet, a plush chair that swivels and sofa that folds out into a bed. Other new brokers are also trying to lower the cost of flying private. Jumpjet, for one, offers monthly memberships from $2,350 to $5,500 for 10 round-trip flights a year (how far you can travel depends on your membership level). The Web site promises “a new way to fly for the approximate cost of first class airfare.” “I would describe us as luxury for less,” said Will Ashcroft, Jumpjet’s chief executive. Yet some competitors say that through the years many companies have tried and failed to make flying private as affordable as flying first class. “I’ve yet to see anything like that work,” said Mr. Papariella of Jet Edge. “Those companies treat the plane like a commodity, and it’s not a commoditized business. It’s a personal service business.” Operators often keep member profiles with details ranging from family birthdays to whether they want their car heated when the flight lands. “If they want sushi from Nobu,” said Gregg Slow, senior vice president for sales and national accounts for XOJet, “we figure out how to get them sushi from Nobu.” (XOJet agreed to take me on a flight so I could check out the bells and whistles.) But those who fly private — mostly for business (41 percent of the industry’s
revenue) but also tourism (about 27 percent of industry revenue) according to the research firm IBISWorld — do not do so for these extravagances alone. They do so to save time, safeguard their pets and collaborate with colleagues on confidential projects. “The reason they call it private travel is because it’s supposed to be private,” said Jordan Hansell, chief executive of NetJets, which plans to spend $17.6 billion for up to 670 aircraft over the next decade and whose client perks have included a complimentary Plácido Domingo concert at the Royal Palace in Spain. “On our planes and with my business associates we work the entire time. I don’t have to worry about anybody listening in.” That sort of lavish, personalized service is hard to replicate when using an app to buy a seat. As Mr. Stewart of XOJet put it, apps can work for younger customers who fly private a couple of times a year, but not for Fortune 500 clients. “If you’re a 59-yearold guy running a $30 billion company,” he said, “you want a throat to choke.” However yet another company called JetSuite is betting it can use technology to lower prices. Its chief executive, Alex Wilcox, a founder of JetBlue, wants to be the Southwest Airlines of private jet travel. His dream? When consumers visit a commercial flight search site like Kayak. com, they also see private jet availability. For instance, a trip from New York to Charlotte, N.C., might pop up for $400 on JetBlue, but $1,000 a person for a fourperson flight on JetSuite. What’s preventing that from happening, Mr. Wilcox said, is an availability tool that would allow jet companies to instantly notify Kayak when a plane is available. “We can’t deliver that information fast enough right now,” he said, adding that he plans to change that in the next year or two. (Perhaps having Tony Hsieh, the chief executive of Zappos.com, on the board will help.) In the meantime, JetSuite offers deals on one-way flights at Facebook.com/jetsuiteair and Twitter. com/Jetsuite. Back on the XOJet flight, Mr. Slow put his feet up on one of the leather chairs that swivel almost 360 degrees, the jet gently rocking us into the sort of daze usually achieved in a hammock on a summer afternoon. “This is nap central,” Mr. Slow said. “Put a little Golf Channel on in the background, and I’m out.” Some 147 miles and 31 minutes later, we were descending. For the first time since I was a kid, I was sad to be getting off an airplane.
(#78285) Copyright © 2013 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted with permission. For subscriptions to The New York Times, please call 1-800-NYTIMES. Visit us online at www.nytimes.com. For more information about reprints from The New York Times, visit PARS International Corp. at www.nytimesreprints.com.
