Air Partner Reports Busy Weekend Supporting Clients Through Travel Chaos

Air Partner - 28 May 2017

Air Partner, the global aviation services group, has swung into action to support its clients through the chaos that is currently impacting many commercial flights

Air Partner, the global aviation services group, has swung into action to support its clients through the chaos that impacted commercial flights during one of the busiest weekends of the UK holiday calendar, with people wishing to take advantage of the bank holiday and half term getaway period.

Julia Timms, Air Partner's Group Marketing Director, commented:

"Enquiries for Air Partner's private jet services have been up 76% compared to a typical bank holiday weekend."

"Colleagues have worked over the weekend to support new enquiries and our existing JetCard clients – to help get them to their destinations at the last minute."

"While private jets supply has held up - landing and take-off slots into popular and restricted destinations, such as Ibiza - have become hard to come by as the number of people turning to private jets increased."

"The most popular destination enquiries have been for Barcelona, Lisbon, Nice, Palma and Faro - often for family holidays."

"Many families had planned to go abroad for the bank holiday or half term holiday, and traditionally there are very few last minute seats available at this time of year – so some people have been turning to private aviation as an alternative."

"One client and his wife were separated from their two young daughters and nanny, when their original flight from London to France was cancelled. Air Partner arranged a charter as quickly as possible to fly the children and their nanny to Nice to reunite the family."

"However, we've also seen some clients booking ahead for business trips next week, as they're expecting the chaos to linger for a few days."

"One FTSE 100 CEO was unable to get from Geneva to Heathrow on a commercial service today, so called on us to charter an aircraft to Farnborough airport so that he could attend critical meetings."

"Clients flew out of the typical private airports – with Biggin Hill and Farnborough the most popular amongst our clients."

Air Partner offers private jet services to clients either as a "pay as you go" charter service, or via its award-winning pre-paid card service called JetCard. Air Partner's JetCard programme champions transparent pricing, with no hidden charges, and last year it reported a record year, with gross profit up by 9.3% to £10.2m, and JetCard utilisation up 41%, as membership grew to 222 card holders. JetCard purchases start at 15 hours. Air Partner operates 24/7 year-round and has 20 offices globally. Air Partner is listed on the London Stock Exchange (AIR) and is ISO 9001:2008 compliant for commercial airline and private jet solutions worldwide.