Put the fun back into flying

No longer so much

an elitist toy but an effective

way of getting from A to B…

BUSINESS days that make a mockery of scheduled air travel by comprising two hours of meetings, four hours flying and seven hours killing time at airport terminals may sound far-fetched. Yet they are a grim reality for too many people.

If a businessman is charged out to clients at, say, £400 an hour, he almost can’t afford to use public air transport because of the bottlenecks at airports. Check-in facilities and all the security palaver are the biggest hindrances, and they have made a huge impact.

Paul Mulligan, chairman of Southend-based 247jet, realised this would cause business people, celebrities and other well-heeled travellers to drift away from scheduled airlines – they don’t want the hassle and they don’t have the time.

His approach is to work his aircraft efficiently to keep the price down. So his two Cessna Citation 2 eight-seaters have three crews each, and are aloft 1,200-1,400 hours a year, compared with 600-700 hours for most corporate owners or 4,000 hours for one of BA’s Boeings.

A new Citation 2 costs $7 million – and comes with a large bundle of depreciation. Mulligan prefers to pay $2.5 million for one that has flown 200-300 hours a year, and then spend $300,000 on fresh engines and refurbishment. He will add another pair of Citation 2s to the fleet this year, and a trans-Atlantic Falcon 2 in 2008.

The major airlines are no longer supported by the taxpayer,” says Mulligan. “If they don’t shift first and business seats, they’ve got to fill the back of the plane. So airliners are becoming like buses, whereas private jets are fulfilling the role of taxis and limousines at almost the same cost per mile.”

He finds himself in a rising market: “Fractional owners are migrating to us, and one of them told me you’re twice as good at less than half the price of a shared ownership programme. So we’re giving people what they want at a price they can afford – not an elitist toy but a simple, cost-effective means of getting from A to B.”

For example, 247jet can take eight people on a weekend jaunt to Nice or Cannes for £5,300.

“There’s no safer way of flying than in a public service private jet – just look at the statistics,” says Mulligan.

“With us you just drive up to the plane and go – none of this nonsense about tubes of toothpaste or bottles water. We’re deadline driven, and we put the fun back into flying.” l

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