A new private business aviation company has launched today, as a reaction to dissatisfaction with fractional ownership and its perceived high costs.
The new company, Victor, describes itself as a "private jetshare community", composed of "high net-worth individuals". Victor offers a price comparison, booking and payment platform to charter private jets on any route at any time.
Charterers can sell surplus seats on their outbound or returning empty flights to other Victor members.
This allows members to buy individual seats for a fraction of the cost of a whole jet charter.
Victor said the new model will "open up private jet travel to a wider audience and, by growing the overall demand, will increase existing revenues for its aircraft operator partners".
Founder and chief executive Clive Jackson, said: "Victor is the world's first one-stop quotation, comparison and transactional online platform for chartering aircraft or purchasing a seat, and will be a massive game changer for the private aviation industry.
"Consumers are able to unite and leverage their considerable buying power under one brand and unifying transactional platform, and have the freedom to choose and compare quotes from any major operator, to get more competitive and fairer pricing and ultimately fly for less, by recovering some of their costs."
Victor, which soft-launched in February, has attracted more than 270 members and flown more than 60 flights.
It has a contracted fleet of over 120 private jets across Europe, through 22 partner aircraft operators, covering all major European destination.
Bernhard Fragner, chief executive of GlobeAir - an aircraft operator partner of Victor based in Linz, Austria, said: "It will increase the revenues of aircraft operators like myself by driving down the price of travel and opening up private jets to a greater pool of potential users."
Source: Flight International
