Jet Linx goes national with major jet card revamp

Jet Linx Aviation is making the most significant program moves in its 25-year history as it seeks to go national with a broad-scale overhaul of its jet card program and aircraft management business.

After the appointment of Brent Wouters as CEO of the Omaha-based flight provider, the company moved away from its traditional model of limiting aircraft management to airports near around two dozen bases.

Instead, the company has been seeking management agreements nationally.

In September, Wouters said he plans to grow Jet Linx from several hundred million dollars to $1 billion in revenues while tripling the fleet to over 300 aircraft.

As a result, it is expanding its jet card program coast-to-coast, although it still maintains its private terminals at about 20 airports.

“In the Fall, we soft launched the new jet card with a mission to provide the most well-rounded, value-oriented, and simple-to-use fixed-rate jet, backed by our fleet of 100 plus aircraft. We have seen an immensely positive response from the market, with an over two-and-a-half times increase in new jet card clients year-over-year under the new terms,” EVP Jet Card Sales Adam Posar (pictured below) tells Private Jet Card Comparisons.

At the same time, it is opening a new location in Salt Lake City in 2024, according to a post by Woutens on LinkedIn.

According to the CEO, more bases are coming to the West Coast, Southeast, and Midwest.

Through June, Jet Linx ranked as the 8th-largest operator based on fractional and charter flight hours, according to Argus TraqPak.

The revamped card program dramatically cuts peak days, lowers daily minimums, reduces membership fees, and makes unused deposits refundable.

Jet Linx has also ditched its Enterprise membership program targeted at companies.

That’s because the new Executive jet card provides unlimited lead passengers, says Posar.

National Player

While Jet Linx had offered fixed hourly rates nationally, the previous program had longer daily minimums for flights that didn’t begin or end at a list of specific airports near its bases.

Now, the flight terms are the same nationally regardless of where you are flying from or to.

Light and Midsize jets don’t have a daily minimum, but segment minimums are 72 minutes, including 12 minutes of taxi time.

Super midsize and large cabin aircraft continue to have two-hour daily minimums.

What’s more, Jet Linx now includes Mexico, the Caribbean, and Canada within 225 miles of the U.S. border, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Turks & Caicos in its standard domestic rates.

Additional Caribbean, Mexico, and Canada destinations carry a 10% surcharge.

All flights outside the contiguous U.S. have international fees ranging from $500 to $2,500 per segment based on where you travel and the aircraft size.

Peak Days

When the surge of demand outstripped supply in 2021, Jet Linx more than doubled its peak day calendar to nearly 120 dates.

It also allowed itself to change passenger departure times by as much as a day based on deposit level.

The goal was to avoid service letdowns and ensure customers would understand the need for flexibility in advance.

It cut peak days to 62 in 2023 and reduced the flex to +/- 8 hours at most.

For 2024, there are just 26 peak days, and flex is either +/-2 hours or +/- 3 hours based on deposit level.

That puts it among the best-in-class jet card sellers.

The average number of peak days dropped to 50.3 at the end of September from 51.2 days in June.

That’s still well above Q4 2019, when the average annual peak days were just 22.8 days.

Lower Membership Fees

The new program has two types of membership – Club and Executive.

The Club membership is pay-as-you-go with fixed-hourly rates and guaranteed availability, but a reduced $17,500 joining fee (from $25,000) and $7,500 for renewals (from $10,000).

Executive membership has three options based on deposits of $150,000, $250,000, or $500,000.

Executive members depositing $150,000 pay $10,000 to join (reduced from $25,000) and $5,000 to renew (down from $10,000).

Membership fees are waived for the higher levels.

Callouts are also going down. The non-peak booking window for Executive members goes from 96 to 48 hours.

For the Club level, non-peak booking is 72 hours before departure.

The more you deposit, the bigger the discount on its hourly rates, ranging up to 5%.

There are also domestic long-flight discounts with up to 25% savings for nonstop flights of five hours or more.

In what may be the most appreciated move, Jet Linx is guaranteeing its rates for 12 months.

Its previous contract enabled it to change pricing on 30 days’ notice, which it did three times in 2022 as the cost of securing aircraft off-fleet skyrocketed.

Jet Linx also now guarantees a fully enclosed lavatory on light jets.