‘Every Plane’s Going to Be Booked’: Private Air Charters Spike as Corona Virus Spreads

One of the biggest business casualties of COVID-19 has been the commercial airline industry. Over the last few weeks, mass flight cancellations in fear of infection have slowed commercial air travel. German carrier Lufthansa, for instance, says it could cancel up to half its flights and ground all its Airbus A380 superjumbo jets because of the decline in bookings.

Private air charter firms around the world, in contrast, have seen sizable spikes in business. The majority of those increases are the result of coronavirus evacuations from impacted areas, such as Italy. In the US, for example,most family and corporate travelers are seeing charter as a way to avoid the commercial airlines.

Quintessentially, a London-based luxury lifestyle management firm, has seen requests for private jets quadruple in the past few weeks. The majority of inquiries are “from members wanting to fly their families out of infected areas, with most traveling within 24 hours of booking, if not the same day,” Annastasia Seebohm, CEO, told The Times of London.

Private aviation retains an edge over commercial flights because of the ability to stay outside of a large airport, avoid contact with strangers on the aircraft and the ability to bring business clients in and out of areas in a single day. The Covid 19 fear has prompted some operators to take greater measures in sanitizing their aircraft. “We implemented the highest level of sanitizing,” Jerod Davis, owner of Southern Jet, told Slate. That means “disinfecting the airplanes, even though that may not be necessary yet. We’re taking an extra half-hour to an hour [after each flight] just to really clean down the airplane. Then we’re going to

also detail the airplane on a regular basis, just to be ahead of the game.”