A week ago, I had the opportunity to fly on a private plane. There was a death in the family and my wife and I were fortunately able to hitch a ride on a private plane. I’m not sure what company they used but I kept seeing Flyjet on the TV screen.
We flew out of Boeing Field which was a small airport in South Seattle. There is a small terminal with a lounge area, but we just drove up to the call box next to the gate, told them the plane’s tail number and they let us drive onto the tarmac. From there, a person told us our plane wasn’t ready yet so we went into the terminal to use the restroom. After about 15 minutes, we got back into the car and drove up next to the plane. We got out, popped the trunk, told the 3 people standing there what bags to pack and then proceeded to walk up the ramp onto the plane. That took about 5 minutes at most.
The jet was a 12 seater in a configuration of a pod of 4 seats facing each other in a 2×2 configuration, then another 4 seats facing each other but with a table that was always down. Across from that was the table where they laid out all the food. The last “section” had 2 seats facing each other on one side and a pullout sofa that could fit 2-3 more people (and yes, you can sit in the sofa for takeoff and landing. Behind all the seats was the bathroom of course.
Once we boarded, we were supposed to just take off, but the catering got messed up so someone literally drove to a Panera to get some sandwiches for us. They also didn’t get the complimentary(?) alcohol nor did they bring the additional alcohol that was requested. Luckily someone brought some champagne in their bag so we had that to sip on. After an hour, the Panera came and we took off. The flight was uneventful. We flew into Hobby airport in Houston but to a smaller terminal. Once we landed, we got off the plane and there must have been 4-5 baggage carriers for our few bags. They loaded the rental cars and we were off in about 5-10 minutes.
On the way back, we flew out of IAH, but once again in a different terminal, where we just flew right up to the gate. It was a different plane this time. This one was in a different configuration. The front was the same, but the middle section now had the 2 seats and sofa. The last section was the 4 seater with a table. We had no issues with the catering this time; I think they provided one bottle of Veuve and then a bottle of Prosecco. Unfortunately, they forgot the extra alcohol again. This time, we took off rather quickly after we boarded. Once we landed at Boeing, our cars were waiting for us and we were on the road within 10 minutes.
I was trying to work the math on this. Let’s say if you’d normally pay $500 for a RT flight and you made $100K a year, now if this private RT flight cost $50K (which I think is on the low end,) you should be making 100X of $100K, so around $10M a year. Meaning if you made $10M a year, then paying $50K for a RT private flight probably makes sense. But the time savings is pretty minimal – if you normally head to the airport 2 hours before your flight but now you can just leave let’s say 30 minutes before your flight, you’re only saving 90 minutes on departure. On landing, you’re probably saving 60 minutes to not have to wait for your bag and shuttle/rental car/etc. Sure it’s nice to have your own FA and plane, but the extra cost of flying private just to save ~3 hours doesn’t make sense to 99.9% of people. Don’t get me wrong; I loved the experience and would never turn it down, but unless you make “FU money,” let’s face it, it doesn’t make economical sense.
Oh I forgot to note that the WIFI sucked on both flights. It would randomly work and you’d get new emails but you couldn’t browse the internet when you wanted. That was the only drawback of both flights.
I’m trying to sort this out – was the total one-way price of this Seattle-Houston private flight $50K? Or is this just a guess?
That looks super cool. Would love the opportunity some day. I have done similar math on how to “afford” paid first class. Only makes sense if you are pulling that much money in a year.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I also wondered what flying private may look like, and have been receiving these emails from Wheels Up / Delta that made me think about it. I agree that it does not make sense for the vast majority of people, nor is it the right thing to do for the environment.