There’s an old story about a hedge fund manager trying to woo back his doubting fiancée with pledges of a better life and higher times. The Mayfair money man tried all sorts of persuasive arbitrage: swanky dinners, Sloane Street frocks, silly money shoes and bling jewellery before eventually playing his ace card. ‘I promise you darling, if you marry me, you will never have to turn right on an airplane ever again.’
The late Queen and her corgis disembarking from a private jet at Aberdeen Airport.
(Image credit: Anwar Hussein/Alamy Stock Photo)
‘Turning left’, on a long-haul aircraft meaning, of course, being politely ushered into the softly spoken, horizontally furnished, bubbles-enhanced environs of the Business Class (or, even better, First Class) cabin, while everyone else turns right into the sorry, cramped, poorly catered and bolt upright misery of Economy (or Coach to Americans). Turning left = good; right = bad. Right…?
But for the truly elite, upper echelons of rarified sky traveller, turning right can actually be the better option. Travelling from your Holland Park home in London, a driver ferrying you down the A40 for 10 miles, you turn right at the Target Roundabout for RAF Northolt. Following a short wait and a perfunctory documents check at the gate, the sedan sashays along the tarmac, right up to the stairs of your chosen Cessna Citation or Bombardier plane. Then, unless you happen to be the pilot heading for the cockpit, you will turn right again, into a caramel leather interior where warm almonds, sushi platters and cold Champagne awaits. This is where you will fly off for a meeting in Milan or Athens, or to Corfu or Mallorca, perhaps with friends and family in tow. Very possibly for a right good knees up.
(Image credit: VistaJet)
(Image credit: VistaJet)
(Image credit: VistaJet)
Flying private is one of those expensive and environmentally toxic things that you are frightened to try once because you know very well just how much you will like it… and also exactly how tough it will be going back to reality and to the back of the plane. It is — take it from someone who has flown private a dozen or so times and slummed it in cheerless commercial on many hundreds of occasions — an awfully long way down from Lear Jet to Easy Jet.
But having clearly put its morals and money worries aside, and apparently undaunted by Rachel Reeves’ 2024 budget announcing a 50% tax increase on domestic private jet passengers (the high Air Passenger Duty APD rate kicks in next year), the UK can now claim to be the private jet (PJ) capital of Europe. According to Greenpeace analysis the number of private jets taking off from the UK increased by a staggering 75% in 2022, and flights out of the UK are up 15% since the pandemic. It is estimated that a PJ takes off from a British runway once every six minutes, more than anywhere else on the continent — most of them on their way to Nice or Ibiza.
And it’s not just Londoners jetting off from Northolt, Biggin Hill, super smart Farnborough and glamorous Luton to the Balearics or the Cote d’Azur anymore. Increasingly, there are whole tribes of 0.003 percenter private jet-setters in Devon, Oxfordshire, Wales and Dorset too. The busiest runway outside London — and the largest, privately-owned landing strip in Europe — is Cotswold Airport at Kemble, its Gloucestershire runway, only two metres shorter than the one at Bristol Airport. Close to both Gatcombe and Highgrove, the Kemble airfield is owned by ex-model and former Prince Harry squeeze-turned CEO Suzannah Harvey — so it’s rather handy for HM The King and HRH The Princess Royal.
Down the road at Oxford Airport (turn right off the A44) more super luxe, private services are fueling up, just a 12 mile ride from David and Fiona Howden’s Cornbury estate and only a seven mile Maybach cruise from Jemima Goldsmith’s manse in Kiddington. These days calling for one — via NetJets, PrivateFly or VistaJet — is almost as easy as hailing an Uber. Sometimes phone-call to wheels-up can be sorted inside an hour and a half. This is how the other half do ‘speedy boarding’.
Of course, one of the biggest motivations for the countryside’s muddy flyers is that all sizes of dogs (and cats) zoom free and uncaged on PJs (operators like to call this service ‘Furs Class’). When Matthew Freud flew private to LA, California, in 2023, to collect a producer’s Oscar for the film of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, he took his beloved hound Vincent with him for the ride. Lady Carole Bamford of Daylesford empire fame always takes her Shih Tzus, Tequila and Margarita, on board as hand luggage. And with increasing numbers of Hollywood stars (and their dogs) moving to the Cotswolds, Kemble and Oxford Airport are now busier than ever. You don’t expect Portia de Rossi and Ellen De Generes, Wolf the Maltese-poodle mix and Mabel the standard poodle, to fly Ryan Air from Stansted, do you?
The convenience of an Oxfordshire to Rome-limo to Learjet, direct flight, bereft of any Gatwick-Wizz Air-baggage check nightmares is also music to the ears of superstar DJ Calvin Harris, new resident of a grand North Cotswolds home designed by Ben Pentreath. ‘Once upon a time, the idea of a DJ demanding a private jet (to travel to a show as part of his contract) would’ve been considered the most outrageous, gauche, over the top thing,’ says fellow DJ Pete Tong, now living near Great Tew. ‘It’s now almost become an industry standard.’
Aside from the convenience, luxury, speed, and the absence of normal people, what is the main appeal? ‘Time,’ says Mayfair jet-broker Steve Versano. ‘By flying by corporate jet (and not wasting hours queuing for check-ins and bag drops) an executive can save time and actually multiply his time by weeks and weeks each year, He can work harder and be more productive.’ And more horizontal and wetter, faster. ‘It is quite possible to do Cotswolds office to Ibiza poolside in under three hours,’ says John Hitchcox, resident and owner of The Lakes by YOO development at Lechlade, Gloucestershire.
In the modern, countryside idyll DJs, dealmakers and dukes alike have their favoured jet-broker on speed dial, are fluently conversant in the vernacular of tail numbers, fractional ownership and safety records, and able to explain exactly why the Pilatus PC-24 is what you need to land on the short and snowy air strip at Gstaad and how the Dassault Falcon 900LX is the greenest PJ in the hangar.
Engadin Airport — the gateway to St Moritz — is one of the most challenging landings for pilots to navigate and is not open to scheduled commercial planes. Suvretta House offer direct runway-to-hotel service.
(Image credit: Suvretta House)
They’ll also keep tabs on the sudden availability of discounted ‘dead legs’. So, if family wants to fly a home-sick son back to England from Institut Le Rosey for the weekend, the Swiss bank of Mum and Dad can shop around on the internet for a vacated cabin going back to the UK from Lausanne Blécherette Airport. With an estimated 40,000 flights a month making their return trips with only the pilot on board, and just 10% of those available legs ever filled by paying customers, there are bargains (around £5,000 from Nice to Northolt in a six seater — a saving of around 40%) to be had. Just take a look online, through a concierge service or via one’s smartphone apps: JetFlo, Victor and FXAir…
Just scroll — right.
10 unbreakable rules for flying private
- Whatever you see occurring after take off — drug abuse, infidelity, mile high club applications, a flagrant ingestion of carbs — keep it to yourself and don’t gossip. Don’t take any picture either. Over-excitable Facebooking, Tweeting and/or Instagramming is not only spectacularly uncool, but also very indiscreet. What happens in private air, stays in private air
- When you are boarding, let the host sit down first. He or she is paying and so gets their choice of window or aisle — plus first dibs on the loo, booze and luggage space
- If you are a (non-paying) guest, do not bring loads of luggage. PJ hold space is limited, so pack light and, if possible, is a soft suitcase
- If you feel scared, keep it to yourself. It’s rude to allude to the (incorrect) notion that small planes are more dangerous or that you ‘never feel safe in small spaces’. (Statistically, there is less turbulence on smaller jets than on larger commercial aircraft)
- Don’t be alarmed if one of the pilots suddenly leaves his seat and starts serving up the Champagne and quail eggs. This is standard practice on PJs, where crews are often just two people. And, ‘automatic pilot’ is a real thing
- Never ever poo in the loo. This is probably the most important ‘jetiquette’ rule of all. The smallest planes will have nothing more than a Heath Robinson-ish arrangement of concertina doors or curtains forming a temporary cubicle between the cockpit and the passengers, making any sort of relieving process showy, undignified…and instantly detectable
- Turn up on time. Actually, turn up early. Just because someone is wealthy doesn’t mean you should abuse his or her generosity. Your host will provide a ‘wheels up’ time indicating your PJ’s take off slot. Yes, private flying is more flexible than scheduled, but airfields and pilots (and charter customers) still have to work to a strict programme and someone will have to fork out extra if a certain someone else is late. In private jet world, time is most definitely money
- If someone refers to their new ‘PJ’ they are always talking about a recent private jet purchase, not their pyjamas
- Before you fly off, take a note of your aircraft’s ‘tail number’. This is the jet equivalent of a registration plate and useful to know so it can be passed on to your taxi driver when he shows up at Northolt to pick you up after landing. Air traffic control will probably have no idea that you are on board, but they will be very well aware of your jet’s tail number
- Bear this in mind before you board: Comedian Joan River always said that she hated flying on private jets. ‘Because I’m a guest, it means that whoever owns the jet is a lot richer and more famous than I am. And if that private jet goes down, the obituary in the New York Times will read: “International Oil Magnate Sheik Abdullah Muckety Muck…and Four Other (Poorer) People Die In Private Plane Crash”.’
