Jet pooling takes off among city high flyers
Print Edition
WANG, a senior employee with a Shanghai finance company, recently took his wife and daughter on a holiday to Thailand. Theirs was no ordinary flight.
Wang’s family and the families of two friends pooled their resources to rent a nine-seat Legacy 450 business jet.
They arrived at the Hongqiao International Airport two hours before their scheduled takeoff, finished all the exit procedures in only 30 minutes and were told their private jet could take off any time they wanted.
“I always thought that corporate jets were the realm only of billionaires,” said Wang. “But we found out that the price of renting a private jet, divided up among several people, is actually about the same as flying first class commercially.”
Wang and other people who take advantage of “jet pooling” are reluctant to give their full names. Many refuse to talk about it at all. In the midst of a national government crackdown on ostentatious lifestyles, no one is keen to test the boundaries of “living too high on the hog.”
Like car pooling was once, jet pooling has become a popular new trend. For those who can afford it, a hiring a corporate jet is well worth the cost. It’s private, convenient and a bit of a novelty.
Since June, seven jet pool business planes have taken off from the Hongqiao airport bound for holiday destinations like Thailand and the Maldives, said Chen Tao, an official with the Hongqiao airport immigration inspection station.
Business jets passengers seem to enjoy faster exit processing. Their aircraft can take off at any interval between two commercial flights, Chen said, and apart from bad weather, there are few delays.
“It will normally take less than 30 minutes for a business jet passenger to complete exit procedures, compared with up to two hours for commercial flights,” Chen said.
Like Wang, most of those who rent private jets are senior employees in Shanghai multinational corporations — the so-called “golden-collar” workers with monthly salaries of 50,000 yuan (US$8,128) or more, Chen said.
The average charge for a business jet is about 100,000 yuan per hour, but with jet pooling, the cost works out to be only about 1.5 times more than a first-class ticket on the same route, he said.
Individually tailored
Another advantage is the comfortable environment. A corporate jet normally has a flight attendant to take care of the passengers. Meals and other services can be individually tailored.
Southeast Asian destinations are the most popular for holidaymakers, Chen said, because the distance is close enough to keep costs down but takes long enough to enjoy the deluxe experience.
Ma Lijuan, a press officer with the World Aviation Elite Club, China’s largest online business jet rental and purchase platform, said there is huge potential.
The platform receives rental inquiries almost every day, she said. The number of jet pooling customers is underestimated because people who fly privately don’t go about boasting about it.
Chen agreed that the actual number of jet pooling passengers is probably far larger than statistics suggest. But both Ma and Chen declined to give the exact numbers on how many jets were rented every month.
Renting a private jet is relatively easy. Three days prior to the scheduled takeoff, passengers are required to complete forms giving their names, passport numbers and itineraries.
The rental company then signs a contract with the customers and arranges pilots and flight attendants.
Ma said the company is working on a new business model whereby tickets on private jets will be sold to separate individuals. In other words, travelers don’t have to organize friends or associates to fill a plane and bring the costs down.
“It will be like an upgraded version of first-class travel,” Ma said.
Holidaymakers aside, China has become a major business jet market, chalking up faster growth rates year by year, Brazilian manufacturer Embraer said at the annual Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition in Shanghai in April. Embraer alone has delivered 147 business jets to both carriers and private buyers in China.
China is developing its ARJ21 regional jet that can be used as a corporate jet.
Last year, Shanghai’s two airports handled 4,489 private jets, up from 4,000 in 2012, according to the Shanghai Airport Authority. This represented 30 percent of the total on the Chinese mainland.
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