April 18, 2024
Jet card and on-demand broker Air Charter Service said that in the first half of its financial year the company saw an increase in private jet bookings from its UK office of 8%. This is compared to industry-wide WingX statistics showing that private jet flights into and out of the UK were down by 5.4% over the same six months.
In a press release, Andy Christie, Air Charter Service’s Global Director of Private Jets, said, “We had a very good first half of the year, considering the market is in decline, with more than 1,300 private jet charter flights arranged just from our London HQ over the six month period. The increase of 8% is even more impressive when you take into consideration WingX’s figures for the UK and when compared to the worldwide industry as a whole, which has grown by just 2%.”
He added, “It may seem somewhat surprising that the team is doing so well, as the economic and political situation in the UK at the moment has led to cuts in spending in many sectors whilst the country waits to find out what will happen with Brexit. As opposed to the increase being due to a buoyant market, it appears that we are simply gaining substantial market share.”
Overall, the company said revenue from private jet sales across all 25 of its worldwide offices saw increases with the private jet charter broker seeing global revenue across all markets in the six months to the end of July totalling £247.3million ($300m).
It said its two newest offices in the US – San Francisco and Atlanta “have both had great starts to the year and are ahead of expectations.”
Recently it added space to its offices in Los Angeles, Brazil, and Russia.
Christie added, “We are hoping that the UK will stabilise a little after October 31st, increasing the amount of private jet traffic into and out of the UK. In the meantime we are pleased to have grown market share and we are confident that the global upward trend for both ACS and the industry as a whole will continue into the second half of the year.”
In addition to on-demand private jet rental, Air Charter Service offers capped rate jet cards with service areas in both the United States and Europe starting at 25 hours. It also offers separate jet cards featuring dynamic pricing.
Capped rated jet cards are gaining traction. Wheels Up and Vault Jet have all launched capped rated programs.
A capped rate program offers a capped hourly rate which is the maximum you will be charged with the expectation based on where you are flying and when, the rate will be less.
In launching its Super Midsize program, Wheels Up used a capped hourly rate.
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