Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
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Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#2A long time ago, some friends and I rented out a wave pool at a Disney water park so we could have the waves all to ourselves. So after the tourists were kicked out, we put on our own music on the sound system and shared waves, a group of 10 friends. I think it cost $100 each. This is the same thrill, I'd imagine.
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#3A bunch of people have tried this before... I can't think of the names off-hand, but names in a similar space that I've seen recently are http://www.emptylegmarket.com/ and http://www.flyruby.com/
I don't see how this will work - you need a huge marketplace, and even then it will generally be a lot more expensive than flying commercial. There are some limited uses like bowl games that I could see, but even then, why do you need socialflights? There are plenty of travel agents that charter flights for bowl games.
What I don't get is how a site like this got in Fast Company, and what's up with that "baked in" image? (it's part of this series http://www.fastcompany.com/tag/baked-in but why?)
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#4I checked out their website and found a lot of deals on international flights as well. This isn't just something to consider for quick flights within the U.S.
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#5I don't understand this article. What does the "social web" have anything to do with why this is now possible?
Even their example, flying three planes of sports fans out to another city, seems like something that could easily be arranged by the president of the fan club or something.
If what they mean is that the "social web" makes this easier, then firstly, I'd love to know in what way exactly (they don't really describe how this works at all), and secondly, there's a big difference between making this easier, and making once impossible things possible (which is what this article claims).
All in all, looks like I'm missing something
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#6A bunch of people have tried this before... I can't think of the names off-hand, but names in a similar space that I've seen recently are http://www.emptylegmarket.com/ and http://www.flyruby.com/ I don't see how this will work - you need a huge marketplace, and even then it will generally be a lot more expensive than flying commercial. There are some limited uses like bowl games that I could see, but even then, why…
The economics of "luxury" travel are less than you think. Example: in my last company, we had an office in London and an office in Nottingham (northern England, the place where Robin Hood comes from), and people frequently traveled between the two. Well if 6 people needed to travel, it would have been cheaper to hire a fancy stretch limo and driver for the day and cruise around like rockstar pimps than it would be to take the train - and we'd have gotten more work done on the journey too! We never actually did of course, but only for appearances sake, financially it made perfect sense.
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#7I don't understand this article. What does the "social web" have anything to do with why this is now possible? Even their example, flying three planes of sports fans out to another city, seems like something that could easily be arranged by the president of the fan club or something. If what they mean is that the "social web" makes this easier, then firstly, I'd love to know in what way exactly (they don't really des…
It means a dozen random strangers who happen to want to do the same itinerary can now meet each other and get a Learjet. It's a matter of scale.
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#8The article is a bit disingenuous. While this might bring the cost down, it's certainly not going to be an alternative to commercial flights.
Let's look at a flight that I would love to take right now: Phoenix to Seattle.
Here is a map of the route you [could] take for this flight:
http://wh98.fltplan.com/mapgenerator/index.cfm?UdTimer=40838...
This 1028 miles, but lets say (for ease of calculation) that it's 1000 exactly.
Now for an aircraft. The Citation V is a nice plane, holds about 7 people, and is something that would be appropriate for what the article seems to be describing. Cruising speed for this aircraft is 495mph[1], but again, for ease of calculation, say 500mph.
Flight time is 2 hours each way, for four hours total. The citation 5 burns 210 gallons of fuel per hour of flight, so this means that round trip (4 hours), you're burning 840 gallons of fuel.
Current fuel cost at Cutter Aviation in Phoenix is $5.58/gallon, so total fuel cost for this trip is 840 * 5.58 is $4687.
That's just fuel. If there are 7 passengers, that is $669.6 per person.
You still have to pay a crew, pay maintenance on the jet (which is an enormous cost), pay airport fees, pay administrative overhead, etc.
[2] Estimates that cost/mile on a Citation V is $3.81 - My trip to Seattle costs $7620.0, or $1088 per person ($952/person if we use the jump seat). This now includes maintenance, but not administration, pilots, etc.
I don't know about you guys, but that's not even remotely close to something that I can afford.
According to hipmunk[3], even a super-short-notice flight to Seattle that leaves tomorrow is only $500. Even a first class flight is only $700. $700 is getting close to something comparable, but implying that this is something that is for more than just "the wealthy", is kindof wrong.
Cool, but there is a reason only the very wealthy fly privately: flying privately is an absurdly expensive thing to do.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Citation_V\
[2]http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:edFt-3bDiGgJ:w...
[3]http://www.hipmunk.com/results?to=SEA&s=swz7fkx5vev&...
edit: Just to be clear, I'm not saying that this is a bad idea. The aviation industry has been screaming that this is the direction that commercial flight is going to take for quite some time now. I'm saying that the article's implication that the everyman can now fly "like you're rich" is a misrepresentation of what this service is actually aiming to do.
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#9The article is a bit disingenuous. While this might bring the cost down, it's certainly not going to be an alternative to commercial flights. Let's look at a flight that I would love to take right now: Phoenix to Seattle. Here is a map of the route you [could] take for this flight: http://wh98.fltplan.com/mapgenerator/index.cfm?UdTimer=40838... This 1028 miles, but lets say (for ease of calculation) that it's 1000 ex…
I think it's aimed at the space between the average consumer - you or I - and Wealthy McGuy who owns or rents his own plane. The whole idea is aimed at people who can schedule a vacation for an indefinite time period - because there's no guarantee that the flight you want will actually fill up, you have to be very flexible with your vacation days, and that's not available to everyone.
Re: Fly Like You're Rich With Social Flights (And Private Planes)
#10The article is a bit disingenuous. While this might bring the cost down, it's certainly not going to be an alternative to commercial flights. Let's look at a flight that I would love to take right now: Phoenix to Seattle. Here is a map of the route you [could] take for this flight: http://wh98.fltplan.com/mapgenerator/index.cfm?UdTimer=40838... This 1028 miles, but lets say (for ease of calculation) that it's 1000 ex…
I think you've missed several huge things here. First, the plane goes specifically where you want it to go, on the schedule you need, modulo agreement with the other people who need it too (which tends to work out particularly well if going to the same event/destination). Second, "slightly more than a first-class ticket" seems a lot more appealing than "absurdly expensive". Third, no airport security circus to deal with. And fourth, note from the article that they take groups of varying sizes; they mentioned one group of 90 people who managed to fly cheaper than commercial.