April 11, 2024
Jet card broker Magellan Jets is following Vista Global’s XO and Wheels Up. It is adding a fuel surcharge to jet card members.
NetJets, which isn’t currently selling jet cards, featured a fuel variable when it launched 25-hour leases. Leases previously had a separate fuel charge, while its jet cards were fuel inclusive for years.
Either way, increasing prices for jet fuel means more programs are likely to add the extra charges.
In some cases, there is a formula in the contract. In others, providers are using 30-day notice and Force Majeure clauses.
Magellan Jets’ fuel surcharges are $395 per hour for light jets, $495 per hour for midsize aircraft, $635 per hour for super-mids, and $815 per hour for large-cabin jets.
In an email to customers, Magellan wrote, “Due to the war in Ukraine, Magellan Jets has instituted an hourly based fuel adjustment program…The fuel adjustment rate can be moved, up or down, on a weekly basis in conjunction with the publicly posted jet fuel prices from S&P Global/Platts and single FBO source location rates. The applied fuel adjustment rate will be that of the posted rate at the time of booking.”
“We have implemented a temporary fuel adjustment while fuel prices are at historical and unforeseen levels. While we’ve continued to keep our hourly rates the most competitive and best overall value in the industry, a weekly fuel adjustment until things normalize was the fairest and most practical way to navigate our customers through these ever so quickly changing times,” Magellan Jets’ President Anthony Tivnan tells Private Jet Card Comparisons.
He adds, “We are monitoring, and publishing the fuel situation weekly, which our members can also access on a live page exclusive for them.”
