New private jet option for ?an all-you-can-fly aviation buffet? ? at £3,150 per month
From the public entrance at London City airport, it?s an eight-minute walk along the airfield perimeter to the private jet terminal opposite the Travelodge. When I went to check it out early on Friday morning, the main point of interest en route was a group of five young men sharing a joint. Fortunately they did not appear to be pilots.
I wanted to take a look at the business aviation terminal because it is about to become a hub for an intriguing new enterprise: Surf Air.
The premise of this Californian start-up is that travellers don?t much like busy airports and crowds, and the way that time is devoured at either end of the journey. Surf Air offers the well-heeled (or generously expensed) the chance to join a handful of other elite passengers at an executive aviation terminal, depart speedily and, on arrival, leave the airport while those of us on normal commercial flights are still waiting for the person blocking the aisle to sort out their implausible expansive cabin baggage from the overhead locker. With a maximum of eight passengers flying from London City to Zurich (and incurring £76 each in Air Passenger Duty), it sounds expensive. But that all depends how much you use it. Because Surf Air isn?t so much an airline as a club, which offers unlimited flights to members: an all-you-can-fly aviation buffet.
Surf Air began in California in 2013, and now operates in Europe as well. ...