Only $111 for a private jet travel experience | Al Khaleej newspaper

Dubai: Ahmed Al-Bashir

If you’re used to booking a ticket with the click of a button, or using an app to book, it may come as a surprise that as you move up the luxury travel continuum, it becomes more difficult.

Have you always dreamed of traveling on a private plane? This would usually mean contacting a broker, and if you don’t have one, it will be very difficult, as you may have to spend thousands of dollars on a premium membership, in order to get offers for private jet charters. This adventure can also be very expensive, as some private jet operators issue invoices to customers after the flight, in case additional fuel is consumed, for example.

But now the Uber private aviation service has arrived, as Connect Air aims to make private aviation services more friendly to ordinary people who want to experience traveling by private plane.

On the website of the company, which was founded in 2019 for private air travel in the Pacific Northwest, you can already book a regular flight on demand, but as of December 2023, you can get a deal on booking a private jet throughout the United States. The site offers travel deals starting at about $111 per person.

“We want to change the way people think about short-haul flights,” says co-CEO Katie Buss, a former US Army pilot. Host: People think it’s only for the Bill Gates and Elon Musk of the world. It’s not cheap by any means, but it’s more affordable than most people think. Instead of just booking a ticket on Delta, we want people to see what private flying is like, it’s a completely different way to travel.

She says the company wants to “revolutionize” the private aviation market in the same way that Uber did for taxis and Airbnb did for the hotel sector.

Co-CEO Ben Howard told CNN that the site uses artificial intelligence-powered software to search for private jet operators. He added: “We allow the program to do this by sifting through available flights and giving customers a better opportunity to choose the flights they actually want.”

In order to keep prices low, the company works with companies that operate low-cost aircraft, which are cheaper to operate than regular aircraft, although they fly slower. However, this difference in speed is less significant on a trip of less than 500 miles, says Howard, who adds: “If you fly to the same location, you will pay five times as much.”