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How I Fly Free On Private Jets And You Can Too
05.10.2023 - 10:17 / forbes.com
The average cost to charter a private jet is over $11,000 per hour. While I regularly receive press releases and pitches about flying privately on the cheap, most of these are not that cheap, at least to me.
For example, empty-leg flights, which can often be had for 30-50% off regular prices, are still expensive.
Between Miami, where I live, and New York, where I used to live, discounted empty legs are generally $10,000 to $15,000 or more each way.
The promoters say bring five of your friends, divide by six and it's not that expensive.
True, but the nature of these empty flights is they are generally marketed on short notice, so your friends have to be flexible.
They are also easy come, easy go.
Since the aircraft is repositioning after dropping off somebody who was paying the full freight or on the way to pick up the next customer who is paying retail, they can be changed if those customers switch plans or the provider finds a more efficient solution, assigning another aircraft for that next customer's trip.
Empty legs can, in fact, cancel while you are on your way to the airport.
At the same time, you need to plan for the expense of getting home and hotels.
Before being acquired by Wheels Up, Delta Private Jets had an excellent empty-leg program. It could be had on sale for as little as $6,000 per year.
You then could fly as many empty legs as you could grab for free. You logged in and when you saw a flight listed that you wanted, you clicked.
It was first-come, first-serve.
Wheels Up ended the program. Its empty leg product charges both a membership fee to join and for the repositioning flights, which in some cases are in the thousands of dollars.
However, there’s good news if you want to fly on private jets and can’t or don’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Vaunt is an offshoot of Volato, a 2021 start-up and the largest HondaJet operator in the world.
Here's how it works.
You download the app and pay a $1,000 annual membership (so it's not quite free), but then you can fly on its empty legs at no additional cost.
I was invited to join at the beginning of the summer as part of a group of guinea pigs.
I paid the standard membership and have been trying it out in advance of the formal launch, which is expected in the next few days.
Vaunt operates a bit differently than Delta Private Jets or JetSmarter. The latter helped popularize the idea of paying a membership and then flying for free before running into turbulence. It was sold in 2019 to Vista Global.
Instead of instantly rewarding those of us who constantly scan its app for the newest offers, slamming the buy button on our smartphones like a contestant on the Price is Right, with Vaunt you can opt to receive notifications
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