Tired of having your business class ticket cancelled? Try flying private
More Australians are opting to fly charter. And not all of them are celebrities.
Few symbols of wealth are more definitive than a private jet (except for maybe a super yacht, or a permanent plot on one of the world’s many rich lists). But the point is, most of us associate small, shiny, leather-seated planes with the rich and famous. They make owning a speedboat look affordable and therefore, for the majority of the Australian population, flying on one is considered to be out of reach.
Or is it?
“Everyone assumes that it’s just the Packers and the Pratts that fly private; it’s only for the rich and famous, only for the tennis stars that come into town, only for the musicians that come in and tour,” says Luke Hampshire, the CEO of Australian private aviation start up Airly. The concept behind Airly is unique, if not unprecedented: “Private aviation that’s more accessible,” explains Hampshire.
“We figured there’s got to be a way that we can apply some technology to an out-dated industry, to provide a new and unique product.”
Since the pandemic rocked the world and crippled Australia’s aviation industry, interest in private aviation has been quietly climbing.
While Airly doesn’t share its earnings publicly, to give you one example of how the private jet sector is currently faring, Alliance, a publicly listed airline that specialises in charter services for the resources industry and private group travel, reported a profit before tax of $40.7 million last financial year. This was an increase of 24.1% on earnings from the previous year.
Flying private has become especially popular among people who, pre-Covid, would fly business multiple times a week.
“We’ve got members who want to hit up multiple locations in the same day, but who don’t want to expose themselves to the airport experience,” Hampshire tells The Australian. “They just want to arrive and get done whatever they need to get done then and there.”
Airly is an app-based membership service for charter flights (“like an Uber for private jets,” Hampshire explains). It launched in 2015 but its membership rates have doubled in the last 12 months. Today, the company has 300 members, and its facilitated 60 private flights since the beginning of summer. Hampshire insists the growth has been motivated by word of mouth — over 80 per cent of his customer base are repeat bookers — and a growing awareness of the private aviation sector in Australia, but that Covid has also played a hand.
Frustrated by ongoing flight cancellations, Hampshire has noticed the arrival of a new flyer who could “afford private the whole time, but given the opportunity to get back home within an hour of requesting a flight on the app — they’re willing to try that out.”
“The advantage for us at the moment is that the airlines are unable to move quickly with schedules with frequency with reliability. So those day trips — the intra-state trips — we’re seeing more frequently.” In what will come as no shock to anyone with social media, Hampshire says during summer, Sydney to Byron was humming. Currently, that route will set you back approximately $1,295 a seat.
But it’s not all business travel. More and more, families and groups of friends desperate for a domestic getaway have opted to arrive and depart in a private plane. “We’re definitely seeing a lot of families and the nanny, travelling up to Byron or the Gold Coast. We had a group of friends go Brisbane to Hamilton Island recently,” says Hampshire.
“If a group can pool their money together, they’re making more of an experience out of it and it becomes more affordable.”
The entrepreneur uses the term ‘affordable’ with an asterisk — hiring a jet through Airly, which doesn’t have its own fleet but similar to ride share services like Uber or DiDi, works with a network of trusted jet providers — will set you back a considerable amount. But the company’s aim has always been to offer private air travel for the price of a business class ticket.
“Pre-Covid, the most expensive Qantas business ticket between Melbourne and Sydney was $1,500. So our prerogative was to get below that and make it work,” says Hampshire.
Last year, Airly launched its shared program, which offers members the opportunity to ‘initiate’ a flight — plug their desired route into the app — with other members then given the ability to join that route, which brings the price of seats down. Like Uber Pool for private jets, basically.
It hasn’t been able to run as many shared flights as it would’ve liked, mainly due to the border closure dance. But the mood of state premiers pending, it’s only a matter of time before the concept becomes a hit among frequent flyers and holiday-goers alike.
“The whole thing about charter is you come to us and say, ‘I need to get here on this date and I have eight passengers with me.’ So the task for us is to figure out how,” says Hampshire. “But there’s still a big gap in the market, between those who’re chartering and those who are flying business all the time, but can afford to charter,” he says, noting that a big part of filling that gap will come from consumer education.
“People who’ve never flown private before think a Melbourne-Sydney trip is far more than it is. But if you say ‘hey, you can touch down, do your meetings and be out of there. Have brekkie at your home in Bondi and get back to home in Bondi in time for dinner, and do a full day’s business for this kind of price.’”
“There are people out there who don’t realise that, who think it’s way more expensive than it is.” Airly is out to change that perception. Industry trends indicate it’s only a matter of time.