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Up and Away | Industry Magazine | New Jersey, Brooklyn, Staten Island

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Up and Away | Industry Magazine | New Jersey, Brooklyn, Staten Island

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Jets.com, a private aviation brokerage firm, allows clients to book a flight on demand or pre-purchase trips by the hour

by Jessica Jones-Gorman * Photos By Doug Polle

Edgar Alacan was a Wall Street guy, building a career in the brokerage industry, when a friend opened a private jet company in 2007 and asked for his help getting the business off the ground...as it were.

"Private travel was something that always intrigued me- many of my customers were wealthy individuals who used services like this to travel around the world," Alacan said. "But I had no prior experience in the aviation industry- I just signed on to help out my friend."

After working in the company for about a year, Alacan became enamored with the field of private aviation. "It was life changing to be a part of this fun, glamorous world. Totally different from what I was doing, such an interesting lifestyle and profession." So, together with two friends and business partners, he launched Jets.com.

"I learned the business with my childhood friend, Manni Scarso and Damian Klinger, who worked in the brokerage industry with me," Alacan said, naming his website's other co-founders. "We started our own company in 2008 because after spending time learning the ins and outs of this business, we felt there was a need and a particular market for a company and a website like this."

They started small but enjoyed rapid expansion: One office with a smallish staff suddenly grew to two locations and then a third. Today, the operation has offices in New York, New Jersey, and Boston staffed by a total of 50 employees.

The company provides two services. Charter, or flight on demand, is booked just like a limo ride; customers can access quotes and availability online or speak directly to a personalized service representative to arrange their private plane. Or, clients can pre-purchase a Jet Card which is loaded with 25 hours of flight time. Each time a flight is booked, the appropriate hours are deducted from the card total. "It's one of our most popular options" Alacan said. "Customers pre-purchase hours at a certain rate and then book with those hours each time they fly. You have 25 hours on the card, take a flight that is three hours, there's now 22 hours left to spend. For clients who fly often on business, it's the most sensible option."

Jets.com clients include a lot of executives from Fortune 500 firms and other frequent high-end business travelers. Destinations include airports all over the world and popular aircrafts are selected from a range of models, like the Hawker400XP, Lear 60XR, Challenger 300 and the Phenom 100. Prices vary, but Alacan says they are able to offer the best, most competitive rates because they maintain exclusive arrangements with large fleets and purchase hours at wholesale prices.

"We are a charter broker," Alacan said. "We serve as the middleman between fleet operation and flyers. So as a company, we pre-purchase hours from larger fleets and then pass the savings on to our clients."

The holiday season remains Alacan's busiest time, with a combination of holiday travel and endof-
year business trips dominating the skies. "Our fourth quarter, which starts in September and extends to the end of the year, is always our busiest time," the co-owner said. "People are back from summer vacation, attending to business, and then all of the holiday travel takes place as well."
And the success that his business has garnered in the past seven years will most likely lead to expansion in the future.

"We plan on making some growth in 2015, possibly acquiring a couple of small private jet operators and of course are always looking at bringing on more employees," Alacan concluded. "This is a wonderful, fun, and interesting line of work. And we only hope to develop it further in the future."

JETS.COM
877.534.6691

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by Jessica Jones-Gorman * Photos By Doug Polle Edgar Alacan was a Wall Street guy, building a career in the brokerage industry, when a friend opened a private jet company in 2007 and asked for his help getting the business off the ground...as it were.

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Private Planes See Uptick as Commercial Airlines Cancel Flights

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Private Planes See Uptick as Commercial Airlines Cancel Flights

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Jessica Ambats/JetSuite

Nearly 3,500 flights had been delayed and almost 3,000 canceled as of midday Monday, as a large storm threatened to cover parts of New England with two feet or more of snow and cause terrible winter conditions throughout the Midwest.

According to a " Misery Map" created by Flight Aware, most of the affected flights are out of the Newark (New Jersey) and Chicago O'Hare airports, followed closely by New York's LaGuardia and JFK. "Just about every scheduled flight will be canceled" on Tuesday, Weather Channel airport spokesman Matthew Brelis told USA Today.

Well, every commercial flight that is. Private airline services, meanwhile, have been jumping through hoops to keep customers happy-and to get them quickly on flights away from the snow.

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For between $19,000 and $21,000 round-trip, Talon Air Jets is offering to charter a seven-seat private plane from New York to southern Florida. With Jets.com, the price is a bit lower, $16,000 to $18,000. A more luxurious, 10-seat plane is $28,000 to $32,000 for the same trip on Talon Air, or $22,000 to $24,000 on Jets.com, which comes to just under $3,000 a person on either aircraft. For some jet-setters looking to avoid delays and cancellations, though, no price may be too high.

Of course, no private jet company is sending flights into dangerous conditions, and they all rely on approval from air traffic control. "Whether you are flying out of New York in a storm or out of Vail, Colorado, during the winter, the conditions will prove difficult, so all of our pilots are well versed in mountainous terrain and difficult weather conditions," Paul St. Lucia, vice president of sales for Talon Air, tells Newsweek.

Though private plane services are subject to the same aviation safety policies as commercial airlines, they can much more easily adjust schedules to avoid delays and cancellations. As of midday Monday, Talon Air had canceled only a handful of flights, mainly those headed to Boston from New York and Chicago. Jets.com hadn't had any cancellations or even a delay, as was the case with Private Jet Services.

"With private planes, we don't schedule back-to-back flights; that allows us to change schedules more easily. We also don't have hubs. We make use of over 5,000 private airports, compared to about 500 hubs for commercial flights," St. Lucia explains.

Flying out of smaller airports allows private jet companies to stay on time. "While we have the same weather, we don't have the same traffic and congestion [as commercial airports do] and are therefore more likely to be able to complete a trip," says JetSuite CEO Alex Wilcox. In addition to using airports that are less congested, some private plane operators will select airports with particularly good equipment. "We focus on airports that have the best de-icing equipment-it helps our planes get off the ground faster," Private Jet Services CEO Greg Raiff tells Newsweek.

Edgar Alacan, a co-founder of Jets.com, takes a preemptive approach with his customers during bad weather: "We ask the client in advance if we can move up the flight or move it later."

At Private Jet Services, a customer care team tracks weather a week in advance and generally re-books flights as far in advance as three days, according to Raiff. "You have people proactively looking at your aircraft at all times," he says.

To avoid flying into areas with dangerous weather conditions, private plane companies schedule flights to nearby airports-Private Jet Services was able to land a plane at Manchester, New Hampshire, instead of Boston on Monday morning-and then work with car services to get their clients to final destinations.

This may be why private jet companies see increased business during poor weather conditions. "We see a substantial uptick on a day like this, versus what would happen if there had not been a storm. People at the margins, who sometimes fly private and sometimes commercial, will opt to fly privately. Private jets focus on the mission-critical people who need to get where they are going at any cost," says Raiff.

So while commercial airlines may fend off thousands of angry passengers, the wealthier margin is making its way over to private planes.

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Private Planes See Uptick as Commercial Airlines Cancel Flights

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Nearly 3,500 flights had been delayed and almost 3,000 canceled as of midday Monday, as a large storm threatened to cover parts of New England with two feet or more of snow and cause terrible winter conditions throughout the Midwest.