Cheapo pvt.-jet service storm

An airline company is offering the private-jet experience at business-class prices — and that’s earning it plenty of industry enemies.

JSX, a Dallas-based carrier, is exploiting a loophole in US Federal Aviation Administration regulations that would allow the company to sell single-seat tickets for scheduled charter planes for affordable prices and much quicker security checks.

“I spent months without sleep, just looking at all the rules, looking for ways why it couldn’t be done,” co-founder Alex Wilcox told Bloomberg.

While charter planes are not subject to the same strenuous safety and security requirements as passenger planes with more than nine seats, FAA rules prevent them from specifying flight times or cities or selling single tickets.

To overcome the stringent rules, the entrepreneur created two companies that would work together: one makes flight schedules and sells tickets while the second flies the plane on specified routes at set times and dates.

The loophole also allows JSX to sell tickets at a much lower price than private-jet competitors do.

JSX has earned love and adoration from frequent fliers who can enjoy the luxury of skipping long Transportation Security Administration baggage-screening lines in place of bag swabs and weapon detectors.

That loophole, however, is what JSX’s competitors are targeting, claiming the company’s practices are unsafe.

“If you’re going to be a scheduled carrier, whoever you are, follow the rules for a scheduled carrier,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in an interview with Bloomberg.