October 21, 2024
Technology issues are impacting Vista Global, the fourth largest provider of for-hire private aircraft in the U.S. Its operators include XOJET Aviation, VistaJet, and Red Wing Aviation. The company recently announced plans to acquire Talon Air, the 14th largest Part 135 operator, and related broker Apollo Jets.
Two brokers who did not want to be identified say the problems started on Thursday and have continued today. They report multiple flights for clients being canceled. One said records for future bookings might have been lost.
“Communication has been poor. I think they are back to old-school pen and paper. We had a Thursday morning flight canceled,” the broker tells Private Jet Card Comparisons, adding, “It’s still a mess.”
While XOJET sells its flights via Vista Global’s brokerage arm XO, which trades at FlyXO.com, all three of its operators also sell flights through third-party brokers.
With 45 owned Citation Xs and Challenger 300s, XOJET Aviation has one of the largest floating fleets and is a key player for transcontinental private jet flights.
A spokesperson for Vista Global says, “We are sunsetting out of (its operating system) FOS and going through an accelerated structural system upgrade, moving more and more legacy systems to our in-house cloud-based Global View infrastructure.”
In the case of an operator canceling a flight, on-demand charter clients have their flight re-quoted. Last-minute replacement flights are often 50% more expensive, and the customer has to decide if he or she wants to pay the difference, wait for prices to go back down, usually a few days, or get a refund and start from scratch.
XO offers its Elite Access customers on-fleet service recovery at no additional expense. However, one source says the company is limited to running at about 80% of normal capacity.
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