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> Owning a private jet (no time lost booking a flight, going through security, etc) The problem with private jets is that they severely limit where you can tra
by magduf 7y ago
> Owning a private jet (no time lost booking a flight, going through security, etc)
The problem with private jets is that they severely limit where you can travel, unless you don't care about leaving the continent. Private jets tend to be small (unless you're John Travolta), and small jets have limited range. Accordingly, they can't easily cross oceans. If all you care about is going between NY and FL or CA, then they work fine, but if you want to fly to Asia, you'll have to book a ticket on a major airline like the rest of us.
- robk 7y agoYou just have to be rich enough. At this level these folks fly transatlantic without a second thought. Netjets/fractional level yeah you're scraping by at small airports but your own Gulfstream and you're at a whole new level.
- txcwpalpha 7y agoA Gulfstream 5 has a range of 12,000km. For comparison, a Boeing 787-8 (one of the longest ranged commercial airliners, often used for transpacific travel) has a range of about 13,000km. Even the smaller private jets, such as a Citation, have a range of 6,500km, which is still more than enough to go transatlantic in a single flight, or even US<->Asia in 2 hops. For comparison, a Boeing 757 (often used for smaller US<->Europe and US<->South America flights) has a range of 7,200km.
- JCharante 7y agoYeah I got my dreams crushed by looking into private jets. The distance to go from BOS to HAN is ~13,000km, of which only one of the newer gulfstreams with a range of ~14,000km might be able to do. I guess that's why a lot people still fly business/first class.
- ryanlol 7y agoThat’s a pretty exotic route with zero nonstop business/first class options available.
- magduf 7y agoI wonder if he meant BOS-HND instead, which is a very common route. (HND is Haneda airport in Tokyo.)
- JCharante 7y agoNo I meant BOS to HAN :) I'm not aware of any direct fligts, but usually it's just 1 layover away. It's a great city (Hanoi), although I have no doubts that Tokyo is awesome too.
- spookthesunset 7y agoOne thing that I'm always amused with is for some reason or other many of these business jets can fly way higher than commercial planes. Most commercial air traffic don't fly higher than like 41,000 feet. If you go into any flight tracker app that lets you filter air traffic by altitude, you'll find many of these business jets buzzing around up at 50,000 feet or so. Not sure what regulations (or lack of) lets them fly so much higher than normal commercial aircraft but there you have it....
- jdsully 7y agoThey have a better power to weight ratio and the smaller air-frames can handle the pressure differential better.
- magduf 7y agoTaking multiple stops to cross the Pacific is still greatly lengthening your trip, and not just because of the pit-stop. See the other response here from JCharante about flying BOS-HAN; you can't do that with a 6500km range. And you can't stop in the middle, because there's no airports near the North Pole. So you'll have to do something like stop on the west coast, then stop again in Hawaii or Guam. Your total trip will be much greater. Why bother with this when you can do it non-stop in first-class with JAL or ANA? You'll have more comfort and better service than on your Citation too.
- kitteh 7y agoThe price is cheaper (in thousands of dollars) if you're willing to take a smaller range jet and take a few hops. The tech stops to refuel are usually quick, unless you are landing in countries known to have stricter checks (LATAM, Africa and some parts of Asia).
- TomMarius 7y agoA mid-size jet Cessna Citation has range of 5,100 miles - it's one of the most popular mid size jets.
- magduf 7y ago5100nm isn't nearly far enough to go from the east coast of the US to Asia.
- TomMarius 7y agoIt is not, but that much range is an exception even with airliners.
- magduf 7y agoIt's not an "exception", it's totally normal for the huge jets that Asian airlines fly for their intercontinental routes. Sure, you don't need that much range to go from NYC-LON, but I'd argue that that's an "exception" as such a short route that happens to cross an ocean and is also popular. The Pacific is a much larger ocean. You're not going to get between any major Asian destination (China, Japan, Korea) and other major endpoints (Australia, US, Europe) non-stop with such short range, but the Asian airlines do these routes all the time.
- TomMarius 7y agoAre most airliners intercontinental? I am not sure, I know data for Europe.
- magduf 7y agoMost airliners? I doubt it; the smaller ones like 737 are usually used for shorter routes. By numbers, I would guess the large majority of air traffic is shorter-route, and with smaller planes. Most air travelers, after all, are not traveling between places as far apart as Syndey and NYC. But that's not the issue here; my contention way above was the private jets aren't any good for extremely long-distance intercontinental routes, and no one has disproven this assertion yet, though several have tried.
- manigandham 7y agoModern private jets have ranges competitive with commercial airliners. They can also land and refuel in many places along the way that big jets can't. I know a few people who travel across oceans in private jets. Even with the stops, you can come out ahead in travel time and total comfort.
- magduf 7y ago>Even with the stops, you can come out ahead in travel time and total comfort. I seriously doubt that. I've been in corporate jets like Citations. They're really tiny inside; I can't stand up in them at all. Small jets do much worse with turbulence, and being so small inside, they just aren't going to have the amount of space available that you get with a first-class "cubicle" that you get on one of the top-tier international airlines. And no, you won't come out ahead in total travel time; those little planes just can't cross the Pacific in one hop, especially if you're coming from the East Coast US. The people you know probably just go from the East Coast to London or something, which is a pretty short trip. Try flying to Australia or Japan instead.