Sky-high luxury

AS Covid-19 raged on through 2020 and 2021 and the travel industry spiralled, a small, but mighty sector was bucking all the trends and doing rather well. Private-jet travel. The figures speak for themselves: in 2021, Fly Victor’s bookings were up 36% yearon-year and Lunajets operated 8,000 flights, 65% more than in 2021 (www.flyvictor.com; www.lunajets.com). According to the former, the new customers are travellers who, prepandemic, would have flown first or business class. Typical departure cities include London, Paris and Geneva, says Lunajets CEO Eymeric Segard, and top destinations are the summerholiday hotspots of Palma, Ibiza and Athens.

Increased demand means increasing emissions and, to help combat this, Fly Victor offsets the carbon from all of its flights twice over and, this month, put a new opt-out sustainable aviation-fuel scheme in place. It’s not only newbie flyers who are well catered for, either. Privatefly recently launched its Aviator Membership programme for loyal repeat customers. Benefits include short-notice cancellation terms and added-value services —inclusive de-icing and London helicopter transfers (www.privatefly.com).