The Asia Jet Card: The ultimate time saver for high-flying executives

For busy high-flying corporate deal makers, business travelers and expatriates, commercial flying can be a real hassle. After all, even flying business or first class on commercial flights may involve extended check-ins, lost luggage, unnecessary connections and of course unexpected delays. In fact, there is a 20% to 25% chance that every commercial passenger flight will either be delayed or cancelled.

Hence, Hong Kong based private aviation service company Asia Jet along with fleet operator Metrojet have teamed up to offer the Asia Jet Card - a program that gives card holders access to a fleet of five gulfstream jets with as little as 12 hours of notice. Three prepayment programs are priced at US$100,000, US$250,000 or US$500,000 while flight time is charged at a fixed hourly rate of US$5,900 plus handling fees which are usually around US$2,000 per hour. To arrange a flight, card holders simply contact Asia Jet and they will then email an all-inclusive quote with expected flight times.

According to the company, the benefits of the program is that they can create a profile of what a particular client likes and dislikes and hence, offer more personalized service over other traditional chartering services or commercial passenger options. More importantly, their service can save as much as several hours over a trip involving commercial passenger airline travel and they are better able to serve more remoter and non standard destinations. Thus and although roughly 65% of the firm’s business is in Southeast Asia, Asia Jet expects significant growth in servicing large second tier Chinese cities that are poorly served by commercial passenger carriers. Moreover, their service is less expensive than owning and maintaining a private corporate jet.

So if you and other executives at your firm need to quickly move about the region without the hassles of dealing with commercial passenger aviation but still need an affordable option over owning and maintaining a corporate jet, consider looking into becoming an Asia Jet Card member.