Originally Posted by
abcxyz
What were your thoughts on it? Would you do it if you could? Do you think it's worth it? I really don't think there's much of a difference in price; esp. with today's prices and today's problems. Time is valuable, though it would be nice if I were traveling with 3-4 other people as costs would be absorbed more easily.
I've been on a few (for personal use, though personal trips tend to turn into business trips) and can't find any fault.
I'm not sure if your questions were directed at me or not but I'll answer them anyway.
To be quite honest I don't find travel, especially from my home airport (RIC) to be that stressful. My airport doesn't have priority lines but security is usually less than 5mins, and more often than not I'm flying premium cabin (and I've got elite status) so I don't loathe flying as much as your once a year flyer.
Having said that the jet was
very convenient. I just parked up at a small hangar on one side of the airfield, was met by a guy with a clipboard who ticked my name off a sheet of paper and waited in a room for my colleagues to turn up, then we just walked out to the aircraft. At the other end we were met by a small motorcoach type thing and driven to the office.
I don't tend to travel to out of the way places on personal time which is one of the main benefits of a jet, and frankly at my age don't earn enough money to consider it a reasonable alternative to flying commercially! I'd rather fly F and save the cash, and I don't always fly F anyways! There's no way I could justify it internationally, and frankly I wouldn't anyways, I quite like BA F/J!
The only person I know who is in the market for a private jet is splitting a Gulfstream V with two other business partners. He lives in the Channel Islands and splits his time between Florida, the Middle East, Mauritius, South Africa and Continental Europe. For him to get anywhere requires a connection, usually through London, and sometimes with a change of airports which gets tiresome by all accounts. He is wealthy enough to fly his wife and four kids in F everywhere on a regular basis so for him I guess it isn't much of a real step up.