23 April 2010 Private jets make a bundle during Europe ash cloud By Frank Jordans (The Associated Press)

PDF [89Kb]

GENEVA — For those with deep pockets, there was one way to beat the ash cloud hovering over Europe: hire a private jet.

Seizing their chance, operators — who had been suffering from a slump in demand due to the global economic crisis — tried to meet a surge in flight requests and make a bundle using their privileged access to the few airports that remained open.

Now that restrictions are slowly being lifted across the continent, the industry is banking on the backlog that passengers face on regular airlines to pick up travelers willing to pay almost any price to get home or make that crucial meeting.

And it's not just executives who've scrambled to the exclusive end of the aviation market. Athletes, opera singers and even holiday makers booked themselves onto private jets when all else failed. "We've had calls from 6 a.m. to midnight," said Eymeric Segard, founder of Geneva-based LunaJets SA. "It's been absolutely hectic." The company saw a 50 percent rise in demand during the airspace shutdown compared with the previous week, he said. A one-way journey Wednesday from London's Luton airport to Teterboro airport near New York City cost euro25,000 ($33,400) for the entire 15-seater jet, while 12 seats on the lesser-traveled route from Boston to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, could be had for euro40,000 ($53,500). Companies deny they are asking for higher prices because of increased demand — but say that when supply runs low customers may find themselves bidding on the few remaining seats available.

Among the discreet world of private aviation no names were mention. But those who had to resort to its services included Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru, who said organizers of the London Marathon arranged for a jet to fly him and two other Kenyan runners to Europe in time for Sunday's race. Segard said his company flew an opera singer to Moscow, but declined to provide details. Faced with many of the same airspace restrictions as larger rivals like British Airways and Lufthansa, private jet companies took advantage of far-flung airfields and unusual routes to get around Europe while staying within the boundaries of the law.

Some European countries allowed planes to fly beneath the clouds under so-called visual flight rules while others only permitted non-commercial flights.

Among LunaJets' customers were 10 desperate pharmaceutical executives who drove from the Austrian capital Vienna to Montpellier in the south of France, where they were then able to catch a private jet back to Boston. "It was a beautiful plane as well, but they would have flown in anything," said Segard.

Antonia Tomkova of Grossmann Jet Service, a Czech company that operates three business jets, said its planes were able to fly people to destinations that big aircraft couldn't reach during the height of the grounding last Friday. Anderson, the consultant at SH&E, said the private jet bonanza will likely be short-lived and won't benefit all of Europe's 200 operators, who have been suffering the effects of high fuel costs and the economic downturn over the past two years.