British Airways has unveiled a partnership with US private aviation company CitationAir, giving its customers “pay-by-the-trip” access to aircraft within North America and the Caribbean.
BA says the new “PrivateConnect” service will allow passengers to make use of private jet services while “avoiding the long-term commitment and up-front fees normally associated with private jet hire”.
To be eligible for the service passengers must be a member of BA’s Executive Club, have flown with the carrier in the last twelve months, or be employed by a company which holds a corporate account with the airline. While designed to enable it passengers to connect from US-bound BA flights onto the private jet services, there is nothing stopping a customer from using the service for US domestic trips which do not connect to or from a BA flight.
Payments are made by credit card, wire transfer, Visa, MasterCard or American Express, with hourly costs starting at US$6,464 for a six-seater CJ3 aircraft. Costs include fuel, federal excise and segment taxes, property, landing and other taxes, transportation if transferring between BA and CitationAir aircraft, and international fees for flights outside the US.
CitationAir is a subsidiary of the Cessna Citation Company – for more information visit flyprivateconnect.com, ba.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
