Not making a poll because I haven’t found any serious contenders. NetJets costs $150k+ for 25 hours. JSX and blade have very low coverage. What I want is basically what air travel was 30 years ago (so I’m told). You should be able to show up 20 minutes before your flight leaves, no TSA / security, throw your skis and any bags on the plane, and have decent service (roughly Lufthansa level of food and service). The planes could be as big as 737s, but all seats should be roughly first class level. Absolutely no middle seats. The flights should cover at least NYC, Bay Area, and Los Angeles. I don’t really care about having ultra luxury service or anything like that. For this, I would be willing to pay about twice the cost of a normal flight. Does something like this exist? If not, why not? Please comment any private jet service that you’ve used and if you think it’s worth the cost.
Dunno but highly doubt the cost would only be 2x. Maybe 200x?
Elon Jet
At 2x best you can get is a dual engine prop plane which has to make two stops to get cross Country. Forget transoceanic.
Just fly business class
The thing is even if you pay a lot for business class, you still have to wait in line to check your bag at least an hour before the flight (so you have to get to the airport 90+ minutes in advance). If you try to check your bag 59 minutes before your flight, they’ll bump you to a later flight several hours later (and charge you to change flights). Then you have to wait through TSA security 🤮
I was thinking more like just paying some more to not have to deal with the BS of an airport and then having roughly first class but not business class level of service. Some of this comes from my experience today flying to Colorado with skis. I arrived at the airport 90 minutes before the flight’s departure, but the line to check bags was long, and I needed to check my skis, and by the time I got to the ticketing counter it was literally 57 minutes before departure, and Delta wouldn’t let me check my skis 😅 even though I already checked in on the app yesterday. They said the system won’t let them check bags less than 60 minutes before the flight. So anyway I’m just chilling at the airport lounge for the next 5.5 hours waiting for the flight that they rebooked me for, having missed basically a whole day of vacation. Haven’t you ever had a bad experience with an airline and thought “Next time I’ll just pay a little more and fly private”? This seems to be possible for some regional flights but not NYC to Denver for example, and there currently a HUGE gulf in cost between flying and most private options from what I’ve seen. This is why I asked the Blind community for tips. If there were even a commercial airline one notch above Delta and United, I think it could be really successful if done right. Like people pay significantly more for Amex Platinum / Chase Sapphire Reserve cards, Apple MacBooks, etc because they treat their customers really well. I guess it comes down to two points: 1.) Are there affordable options for flying private? If not, why not? 2.) The experience of flying commercial has degraded significantly over the years. Why isn’t there a more premium airline that treats their customers better (like how Apple and Amex Platinum treat their customers)?
When you have been in line so long that you are going to miss the cutoff to check your bag, you can flag down an agent and get moved up the line. I have seen it happen many times in the last year alone. That said, you could also just follow the guidelines and arrive two hours early rather than 90 minutes.
Just get a recreational pilot license
Who gives a shit
That wasn't 30 years ago, that was like 60-70 years ago.
lol you’re not getting that for only 2x the normal price. 200x, maybe.
JSX is pretty similar to what I described in the post. They have their own separate terminals, fly private jets with a maximum of 30 people per flight, and they claim 20 minutes from your car to your seat on the plane. The main downside is they fly a limited number of routes. I just checked their site, and you can fly from LA (Burbank airport) to Tahoe for $408 round trip. What I really want is something like this but with coast to coast routes. WheelsUp quotes at least $10k to fly NYC to SF, which is nuts. It seems like there should be a range of solutions here. This is why I asked the Blind community to see if anyone had good or bad experiences with these services.
You also said 737 size planes and first class service. JSX is dinky regional jets and definitely not first class service. And often the weird regional airports. Planes are crazy expensive to buy and operate, I’m actually surprised you can get private as cheap as $10k NYC to SF. A friends wealthy dad bought a jet and I had a long chat w him over operating costs. It was super eye opening, it’s incredible that commercial flights are even possible as cheap as they are. Even though he *already owns the jet* the cost of operating it is so much higher than flying commercial first class it’s ridiculous. I hope I’m super wrong and you find a great solution, but I doubt you will. Best of luck - if I end up wrong please post an update!
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Doubling the price for the passengers doesn’t cover the fuel costs, much less crew, runway fees, etc. There’s a reason it’s so expensive.
Yep. Simple math, removing middle seats and making the entire cabin first class config drastically reduces butts in seats. No way just doubling ticket price could cover it.