Private Jet Card Comparisons - Know Before You Buy
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Surf Air Mobility, the product of a recent merger between Surf Air and Blackbird, will announce next week it has secured a $200 million investment commitment from Global Emerging Markets Group (GEM). The company bills itself as “a $3.4 billion alternative investment group that manages a diverse set of investment vehicles focused on emerging markets across the world.”
It hasn’t been a good year for Surf Air, but as the saying goes, sometimes you win just by showing up, and it seems the California-based pioneer of all-you-can-fly Netflix memberships is going to offer a new twist it is marketing launching Surf Air Express as it soldiers on.
While it has been a challenging run over the past six weeks for several air taxis and by-the-seat membership programs – Atlanta-based Imagine Air shuttering, Wijet putting its UK division into administration, Surf Air’s tax, and legal problems, JetSmarter rebooting its pricing approach – that hasn’t stopped others from announcing their intentions to jump into the space. ZED Aerospace said its Aura will launch a luxury by-the-seat scheduled private jet service flying nationwide by 2019, and AirChicago is pushing for a September launch of flights that would cater to Windy City travelers. Now Jeff Potter, who was CEO of Surf Air from February 2014 through June 2017, is listed as CEO of Tuxedo Air, which plans to begin flying this August.
Just over a year ago aviation industry veteran Jeff Potter was CEO of Surf Air, which at the time was seemingly shedding its training wheels and showing it could be a sustainable enterprise following a period of tumult when its founders left and then filed a $125 million lawsuit in 2015. Then came the acquisition of RISE, which was operating a similar concept in Texas. That is, you pay a monthly fee and somewhat like Netflix indulge as much as you would like, however, instead of movies, with Surf Air and RISE it is flights (see below), mainly short hops where you can save a lot of time by using private aviation terminals instead of the commercial ones.