Learn more about the different private jet access models. more
See full version: How does Paramount Business Jets; service compare to services like NetJets and Wheels Up
Learn more about the different private jet access models. more
Wheels Up – Fixed-Rate Jet Card, Closed Fleet: Best for clients flying from 25 to 50 hours per year [links]
One advantage offered by NetJets and Wheels Up is consistency, both in jet cards pricing and in how the aircraft are outfitted. The greater number of options available to Paramount Business Jets also means greater potential for variability to on-board amenities and cost structures. more
Paramount Jet Card – Fixed-Rate Jet Card, Variable Fleet: Best for clients flying from 25 to 50 hours per year, with guaranteed availability and much greater choice of available aircraft
What it does: Acts as a middleman between you and its approved charter operators. [links]
Minuses: Really expensive. Not only are you buying a piece of a plane, but you're also paying monthly upkeep on top of the time you're in the air. Plus it's not easy to get a bigger plane should your needs change. (They've also had to increasingly use outside charter operators when they run out of planes.) here
Pluses: Ideal for those who fly at least 50 hours per year often with short notice or during peak demand periods. The planes are first rate; the service impeccable and you get the consistency of the same plane every time. (It also seems to provide social cachet.) here
Typically, prices for private jet charters of more than a few days can cost double the time you're actually in the air because the plane won't wait for your return flight. That results in pilots flying empty or "deadheading" 40 percent of the time.
Minuses: One of the most expensive ways to fly. The hourly rate is set regardless of the destination or time of year that you're traveling. (And even though they say that you only pay for the hours you're in the air, the rate often figures in the cost of returning the plane home.) here
Minuses: Prices can vary widely and you may be stuck with the cost of keeping the plane with you or flying it back to its base.
Subscribers range from Fortune 100 companies to owners of all sorts of successful businesses. There are retirees who no longer have access to the company jet. Professionals from medicine, law, and finance use jet cards for personal and business travel. Wealthy individuals buy jet cards for family members, such as enabling a daughter to regularly bring over their grandchildren. It’s always fun to have the opportunity to hear how private aviation can enhance whatever they are doing while doing good. Business aviation is responsible for over a million jobs just here in the U.S. alone.
Another area where NetJets pricing might turn out to be more favorable than other options is for flights under two hours. NetJets’ daily minimums are 60 minutes, including taxi time, except for the Phenom 300, Excel/XLS, and Latitude. For those three there is no minimum. Quite a few providers have two-hour minimums on larger aircraft. While website rates often look great, they don’t necessarily match your invoice. That midsize jet with a two-hour daily minimum at $6,750 per hour is going to cost you $13,500 at least for that 45-minute flight ($6,750 x 2 hours). NetJets will be about 40% less with its XLS. here
In private aviation, new state-of-the-art aircraft alone don’t guarantee staying power. Look up Zetta Jet. It left a 70-page long list of creditors, including those who had prepaid six figures for charter flights. Same with Avantair. After the fractional share provider closed down it was found to have falsified maintenance records during its money squeeze. Just this year, JetSuite customers lost $50 million in unused flight credits. In other words, if you pay and don’t get to fly, you paid a high price.l
Warren Buffett purchased a share in 1995, and in 1998 Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company he controls, bought EJA. The NetJets name was adopted in 2002. In 2012, NetJets announced orders for Bombardier Globals and Challengers, Cessna Citations, and Embraer Phenoms totaling $17.6 billion, the largest aircraft purchase in private aviation history. NetJets now has some 750 jets and more than 7,000 shareowners and operates some 300,000 flights annually. Berkshire Hathaway doesn’t disclose financials for individual companies but it credited NetJets in part for the 2017 jump in service business revenues to $11.249 billion. more
Among the world’s first jet charter and management companies, NetJets was founded in 1964 as Executive Jet Aviation (EJA). Early board members included former U.S. Air Force generals Curtis LeMay and Paul Tibbets, Jr., as well as actor Jimmy Stewart and entertainer Arthur Godfrey. In 1984 Richard Santulli, a mathematician and former Goldman Sachs executive, bought EJA, and in 1987, following a statistical analysis of pilot logbooks, the company launched the world’s first fractional-ownership program. The concept has since been widely copied.
Among the company's offerings: more
NetJets offers 12 aircraft models via share or lease across light, mid, super-mid, and larger-cabin aircraft from Bombardier, Cessna, Dassault, Embraer, and Gulfstream.