PR Log (Press Release) –
Dec 18, 2009 – Air Charter Service has seen a flood of ex-Jet Card and fractional ownership clients coming to them in the last 12 months for ad-hoc charters. The company’s London office’s executive jet department has seen a significant increase in business, especially in October and November where the amount of flights was almost double that of figures for the corresponding months in 2008.
Joel Fenn, Executive Charter Director, added: “Business people still need to save time, and therefore money, by chartering aircraft – they are just looking at different possibilities in these troubled economic times. As many of these clients have only ever chartered using Jet Cards or fractional ownership, this is the first time they have realised that not only is ad-hoc charter more flexible, but it can also be more cost effective. We therefore feel that the Jet Card fad may be on its way out even when the economy starts to recover.”
Fenn continued: “We already had a large client base, but it has grown significantly this year. The reasons our clients are giving for moving away from Jet Cards or fractional ownership include the lack of flexibility, only one size of aircraft, the hidden post flight costs and the large up front payments required to purchase them.”
Explaining why people originally purchased Jet Cards, Managing Director Tony Bauckham commented: “People were initially drawn in by the easily accountable hourly rates. This made costs black and white for business people and their accounts departments. These fixed rates, however, are often set higher than actual prices so that they cover all eventualities for the airline or broker offering them. It was only when companies looked into all costs closer, due to the economic downturn, that this was realised. Ad-hoc chartering allows far greater flexibility, and is based on current, actual rates.”
Another worry for customers is that if a Jet Card company were to become insolvent, they would take all their clients’ large prepayments with them. There has been one well publicised case of a big Jet Card company going out of business earlier this year, and there have also been a few other smaller competitors to ACS that have suffered the same fate. These clients still require chartered flights, but after bad experiences with such schemes they have been coming to ACS for ad-hoc charters.
Justin Bowman, Group Commercial Director, added: “Everything we have been reading in the press about the private jet industry has been doom and gloom as many of the publicly listed private jet companies are experiencing losses. However most of these companies rely mainly on selling Jet Card schemes. In my opinion their losses seem to be reflecting people’s changing spending habits, rather than the failure of the industry to recover.”
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