Charter broker Air Partner is extending its Jet Membership block charter programme to the rest of Europe after successfully trialling it in the UK for a year and is extending its scope to the USA by tying up with US broker Sentient Jet.
Air Partner launched the scheme for UK customers as a test last year, to counter the card-based programmes from Bombardier FlexJet and NetJets Europe, says David Macdonald, sales director. The programme offers fixed rates for jets in three categories – light, mid-size and heavy – rather than specific jets as in the rival block charter programmes.
Macdonald says the programme is cheaper that its rivals, with €159,500 ($200,000) for a 25h block in a mid-size aircraft compared with €166,000 for a Cessna Citation Excel with NetJets Europe’s MarquisJet card.
The company declines to give figures on existing members, but says the take-up rate “beat targets”. Macdonald says the programme will now be offered by Air Partner’s offices in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. “We wouldn’t be putting it out if we were not happy with the success in the UK,” he adds.
Macdonald says that, although ad-hoc charter remains the cheapest way of chartering private aircraft, many customers were attracted by the simplicity of hour-based block charter programmes. He points to advantages such as specified chargeable flight times and round-trip hour discounts as customer-driven refinements.
The scheme currently covers most of the enlarged European Union and could be extended in future, he says. “We have access to the entire European fleet of charter business aircraft – that’s around 900 aircraft compared with NetJets Europe’s fleet [of 60 aircraft].”
Air Partner has also signed an agreement with Weymouth, Massachusetts-based Sentient Jet to swap member hours across the European Jet Membership Programme and Sentient’s US scheme. The two schemes have agreed an interchange ratio, says Macdonald.
JUSTIN WASTNAGE/LONDON
Source: Flight International
