Some celebrities probably don’t want to be broke when their career is over.
Anyway, flying commercial isn’t nearly as bad for wealthy people as it is for the masses. I fly a lot for business and have racked up enough status and greased enough wheels that I have access to a lot of perks that rich people pay for:
[ol]
[li]I don’t have to go through the main security line because I have TSA Pre-check. No line; shoes on.[/li][li]I don’t have to go through the Customs line when coming back because I have CBP Global Entry. Scan my passport at the thingy, show my ticket and walk right into the country.[/li][li]I have elite status so I can always board in the first group, even if I’m not in first class[/li][li]I frequently get first class upgrades[/li][li]I have access to the first class lounges so I don’t have to sit with the hoi polloi in the terminal. Free booze! (Which I don’t actually partake in because I don’t like to drink when I fly. But I can!)[/li][/ol]
With all those privileges I find commercial flying to actually be pretty fun. And I’m sure many celebs do as well. And you can get all that for significantly less than $6000 an hour.
The cost of paying a pilot to be on call is pretty insignificant to the cost of owning and maintaining a jet. The pilots end up with a pretty sweet gig, with lots of down time but it puts some limitations on their personal life. They also get tasked with the logistics of repairing and maintaining the jet and grocery shopping to keep the jet stocked.
Considering how much that adds up to compared to what you may be making for the event, that kind of thing might be a big ego boost, but in many cases it is economic suicide.
707s are beautiful aircraft, but they are not by any measure “quiet”.
Also, wow-- not a lot of space in that little parking spot/hangar for it. Must be a challenge to maneuver out, unless he also has a tractor somewhere that just isn’t in the photo.
It depends on how much your time is worth. With a private jet, most flights are nonstop direct flights, limited only by the range of the aircraft. And they can fly directly into small airports, so there’s much less driving on both sides of the trip. If you’re travelling across the country for a meeting, a private jet can easily turn it from a 2-day travel to a day trip.
I got to fly on private plane recently. I’m not sure if it was a charter or a fractional ownership thing (I didn’t ask). I was traveling with a group on business, and on the last day we had a C-level exec with us, and he offered all of us a lift home on the jet. It was full of awesome. The car taking me home picked me up right on the tarmac.
It was also fast. The time from climbing into a car in Manhattan to sitting on my couch in California was just less than 7 hours, with exactly zero hassle. I didn’t have to worry about what I packed and the status of that stupid ziplock bag, or the unholy hassle of getting all the electronics equipment I was traveling with past the TSA. I used my iPad during takeoff and had internet the whole flight. We got stuck in traffic getting out of the city and were 1/2 hour late to our expected wheels up time. NBD, the plane waited. It was the single most pleasant and stress free travel experience of my life.
I have a good friend who owns a jet. He is the pilot, and is certified for almost everything. I’ve never flown on it, but my son has several times, including a few weeks ago from Dallas to Indy. He got to fly in the co-pilot’s seat since my friend knows he is very interested in getting into flying. The most interesting things to him was the actual amount of “flying” involved. There were severe storms and they were moving in and around them constantly. My friend commented that everyone thinks he is a good pilot based on how smooth the landing was but they have no idea how many times he took them out of danger on the way home. The people in the back were blissfully unaware as they were relaxing and enjoying the ride.
He uses it as a part of his business which is spread out all over the US. He can hit several locations in a day and still make it home for dinner.
I know the guys lucky enough to have jet warbirds need to bring both gas cards when they fly, with fuel and other costs exceeding $1,000 an hour. I don’t think I want to know what a 7-something eats on a two-hour flight.
There are companies that you can hire to provide pilots as needed, as well as handle many of the other tasks associated with owning a private jet, if you do not fly often enough to warrant a full time staff.
Many owners make their jet available for private charter when they are not using it to subsidize some of the costs of ownership. In addition, there are charities that act as intermediaries between sick or disabled individuals in need of air transport, and owners who are willing to donate the use of private/corporate aircraft that are not being used, or have available seats.
There are smaller models that are considerably cheaper. The Cessna Citation Mustang runs between three and four million. That takes it out of the realm of the filthy rich and into into the real of the merely grungy rich.
We were in St Louis or maybe Kansas City when some guys had the bright idea to have my friend fly us out to Vegas for a few hours. He wouldn’t fly since he’d had a couple of drinks but said he had a number he could call and get us a pilot. All we had to do was pay expenses but we could use his jet. We found out it would be somewhere between $12k and $20k for the trip. For some reason nobody was interested anymore.
He had a de Havilland Vampire on eBay that I almost bid on (it was early in the auction and the opening bid was crazy low) except I didn’t want to get stuck with it if nobody else bid.
Boss took a bunch of us to a trade show for a day in a chartered King Air because Gramps had the family Gulfstream. He figured it was cheaper than not having us around a second day and paying our mileage and hotel rooms. Ah, I remember when I was a valued employee! The King Air was a Pierre Cardin edition that I recognized instantly because the styling was the same as on my SIL’s Pierre Cardin '74 AMC Javelin. Chic in 1974 and heading toward tacky-cool in 2001.
Had a customer who had to buy a jet because his wife couldn’t stand flying with other people so she would buy all of first class for herself. We were finishing his 120-ft beginner yacht and designing his 125-ft interim yacht that he would suffer with until his proper 215-ft big boy yacht got built. Parvenus. :rolleyes: Some people really do have too much money. Personally, I’d divorce that bitch (our installers reported that she is indeed a horrible human being, but he’s not much better), take the half I had left, and invest it, same way he got it in the first place. And take trips playing “Who Dat?” in first class.
Another celebrity who used to do his own jet piloting was John Denver.
The owner of my local airport is a former Indy car driver who is still flying his own airplanes.
So some rich people who own planes/jets may well be doing the actual flying. Other times they might hire someone - I seem to recall hearing that when Travolta’s son died he didn’t want to be pilot on the way back to the US so he hired someone else to do the flying. (It’s not recommended to act as pilot when under extreme emotional distress)
There are many ways to “own” a jet or any other airplane, from full private ownership to fractional ownership to leasing to something like Netjets where you own access to airplanes but not a particular airplane.
No discussion of private jettery is complete without Iron Maiden (it was a charter, but Bruce Dickinson has a dozen of his own planes and owned part of the holding company the plane was chartered from anyway.)
So if a private jet flies to another country, they have to go through Customs and Immigration, right?
I don’t know anyone who travels by private jet, but I do know someone who has taken a fairly-serious boat with passengers across the border, and there was an elaborate set of rules to follow when you arrived on the other side: everyone except the master of the vessel is required to stay on board, and the master of the vessel may disembark only to contact Customs and Immigration. Once Customs and Immigration arrive and clear everyone, then they can disembark and enjoy the pleasures of the port. (This was at least 15 years ago, pre-9/11, so I don’t know what it’s like now.)
There are strict rules but they are streamlined for people with private jets or other private planes flying into smaller airports. The pilots generally file an IFR flight plan so everyone knows where they are and when they are expected to arrive at the destination. There are a whole lot of small ‘international’ airports especially within the border zones of Mexico and Canada. It usually just requires being met with a border agent at the landing airport for permission to enter into the country fully. It isn’t the same thing as getting off of a 747 at a large public airport. They do a quick check for paperwork and everyone is allowed in.
Sometimes it can be more of a hassle than regular passenger plane travel however. Certain countries especially in South America and Africa love to see wealthy people from the U.S. fly in so that they can give them a shakedown for additional fees paid directly to the Customs Officers. The pilots know to have cash on hand to make sure the process is handled smoothly.
In the US they can. They can open up and inspect everything if they choose. In practice however they don’t. They aren’t all that concerned about the CEO of a major company smuggling in contraband on their private jet.
They rich aren’t just like everybody else, they get laws written in their favor.
The King Air was a Pierre Cardin edition that I recognized instantly because the styling was the same as on my SIL’s Pierre Cardin '74 AMC Javelin. Chic in 1974 and heading toward tacky-cool in 2001.