Airbus A380 Double Decker
Al Waleed bin Talal (pictured) so far is the only individual to purchase one of these $380 million behemoths for personal use. (Bin Talal ordered an upgraded $500 million version.) It seats 525 commercially.
15 Mart 2013 Cuma
Bombardier vs. Gulfstream: How Private Jet Companies Are Fighting Over Hollywood Stars
The tony, exclusive companies are pulling out all the stops to woo the entertainment industry, one of the last enclaves for showy wealth.
A version of this story first appeared in the Sept. 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
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As the sun set Aug. 28 in West Hollywood, Barry Bonds, NBCUniversal partnerships and licensing head Jonathan Treisman, Prince Frederic Von Anhalt (aka Mr. Zsa Zsa Gabor) and more than 150 other attendees gulped wine and listened to a five-piece jazz band while standing in a line that stretched to nearly 20 minutes long just to check out the event's headliner. What could keep such a disparate group of high-net-worth partygoers dutifully waiting around? A plane fuselage lacking wings, of all things, parked next to the plaza fountain of the Pacific Design Center. The cabin mock-up of the eight-seat, $18 million Learjet 85, the fastest Learjet to date -- whose first 100 units already have been ordered and will begin hitting the market next year -- was placed there by its manufacturer, Bombardier, a Canadian aerospace firm that has made it its business of late to become the brand of choice in Hollywood.
Fans already include Oprah Winfrey and Michael Eisner, among many others, and Bombardier has been making a more aggressive pitch to the Hollywood crowd, bringing on APA talent agency as a branding consultant last year, hiring aviation devoteeJohn Travolta as a brand ambassador and even throwing a luncheon for Oscar nominee Viola Davis at Hotel Bel-Air in the spring. In addition to offering on-board screening rooms as a hook, Bombardier takes care to support such industry and industry-oriented institutions as BAFTA, the Shoah Foundation, the Milken Global Conference and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Such strategies pay off in Hollywood, where clients pay $3 million a year to own and maintain private jets such as the top-of-the-line Bombardier Global Express or Challenger (Ted Turner has one, andBeyonce bought an 850 for Jay-Z for Father's Day) or Gulfstream (list prices start at $50 million) or as much as $70,000 to charter a round trip from Los Angeles to New York. (Other popular industry options include fractional leader NetJets, patronized by Seth MacFarlane, and the ascendant XOJet, which, unlike most services, owns its own planes.) Not to mention, a well-accepted love of luxury here dovetails with an actual need for efficiency in terms of travel. As the top end of the private-jet market keeps growing, so does the competition to get the top clients.
Among those buying private planes in recent years are director Peter Jackson, who upgraded to a Gulfstream G550 in 2010 for an estimated $68 million to fly from New Zealand to Los Angeles without a refueling stop. The Google triumvirate of Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are believed to have amassed a fleet -- not company-owned -- of eight jets, including two G5s, a Boeing 767 and a Boeing 757.
In an age when international distribution increasingly is a key part of a film's success, few studio execs can imagine putting on a global PR road show without deploying the corporate jet. "What we often do," says a studio exec, "is fly talent commercially to Europe for the start of the press tour then get a private jet within Europe to fly them around to different cities." (That recently was the case for Jeremy Renner on The Bourne Legacy tour.) "Though there are exceptions," adds the exec. "A star likeJohnny Depp can get flown trans-Atlantic."
Other stars who rate private privileges include Robert Downey Jr., who is said to have flown in from the London set of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows on the Warner Bros. jet to present at the 2011 Golden Globes; Tom Cruise, who, says a source, was lured back to the third Mission Impossible film in 2006 with the promise of a certain number of hours on the Paramount jet; and Brad Pitt andAngelina Jolie. (Usually, it's stars only and no reps who fly, but, according to this source, Jolie's manager Geyer Kosinski has it written into some deals for the actress that he flies as well. He denies it.)
Flying private also is the only surefire way to avoid getting trampled by paparazzi at LAX. And that is something many publicists say is worth the price in terms of privacy and security. Marvels one top PR rep, whose A-list actress client always flies private: "I never understand. Madonna has all the money in the world -- why do I see her in airports? Why are the Beckhams in airports?" (Less deep-pocketed talent has been known to request -- when a studio isn't footing the bill for a G550 -- "a G-II with duct tape on the wings," notes one insider.)
Being a master of the skies has been a Hollywood high as far back as the 1960s when the likes of Hugh Hefner, Richard Burton (who needed more luggage space for himself and Elizabeth Taylor) andFrank Sinatra all purchased their own rides. The Chairman of the Board famously ferried the Rat Pack between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Palm Springs on his Lear Jet with the tail number N175FS;Elvis Presley borrowed it for a spin to elope with Priscilla Wagner to Vegas in 1967. Beginning in the '70s, Gulfstreams supplanted Lear Jets as the industry's trophy toys when former Warner Bros. chief Steve Ross favored talented like Clint Eastwood and Barbra Streisand with flights on the studio's G-II. "He used it like candy and people got addicted," says Glenn Hinderstein of Glencoe Aviation, who advises a lenghthy client list of Hollywood names, many of whom he's worked with since his days as senior vp sales at NetJets, on their private jet travel.
For those who don't want the bother of ownership, chartering is a popular option and has been chosen by the likes of Nicole Kidman, Oliver Stone, Kanye West (who, according to electronic-music artist Skrillex, serves tempura and filet mignon on his flights) and the fickle Ben Stiller (who has been known to go flightily from charter company to charter company, unusual in a sector so relationship-driven). A Hollywood event planner describes what can happen when a talent lineup changes last-minute and someone like Rod Stewart ends up on Lil Wayne's charter. "It happened so fast that we couldn't change the catering order, and Stewart got stuck with Lil Wayne's order of fried chicken, popcorn, cotton candy and Welch's strawberry soda," says the planner. "Who knew they even made strawberry soda?"
Consultants say that for a mogul, top-level exec or blue-chip producer who flies more than 400 hours a year, private is easy to justify. (Until President Obama's American Jobs Act takes effect in 2013, business jets will continue to depreciate more quickly than commercial planes in a tax loophole that has benefited corporate owners.) Looked at one way, 400 hours is the equivalent of three to four round-trip itineraries a month between New York and L.A. That's 16 solid days a year in the air. "Use of a private aircraft typically reduces total travel time by a third," says private aviation consultant and acquisitions specialist Mark Bloomer of Bloomer deVere, citing the elimination of arriving early for commercial flights, going through security and waiting for baggage.
Among the current cream of the crop is Bombardier's Global 6000, which, for $58.5 million, not only has a range of 6,000 nautical miles (that handles London to Tokyo) but also can easily be configured with a shower offering 40 minutes of water capacity. "For a movie producer or a head of a studio, you can hit the ground running. You don't need to go to a hotel room for two hours to shower," says Bombardier vp U.S. sales Brant Dahlfors. (The other latest primo model, Gulfstream's G650, due out next year for $65 million, will be the fastest nonmilitary aircraft on the market, with a 7,000-nautical-mile range for globetrotting execs.)
Film producer Randall Emmett, who has Alex Cross and End of Watch coming out in the fall, recalls a week this year "when I flew from Los Angeles to Toronto for two days, then New York for eight hours, then to Cleveland for the shooting of Alex Cross for just a night, then got a plane for another movie we're doing in New Orleans and then back to L.A. To do that commercially is very tough." Emmett until recently owned a Hawker 800 jet, which can seat eight. He's in the market for a new plane. "It's about the luxury of time," he says.
Hours in the air become more productive as private airplanes increasingly get tricked out with high-speed WiFi, large HD screens and videoconferencing capabilities. The top entertainment conglomerates average three jets in their corporate fleets. According to the most recent FAA records obtainable, Viacom has a Global Express and a G4; Disney execs fly a pair of Gulfstreams and a pair of Bombardiers; News Corp. has a G4, a G5 and a Boeing 757; and Sony and Comcast keep three Dassault Falcons apiece. (NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke and Bob Costas high-fived on one last year when they learned NBC had won exclusive U.S. rights to broadcast the London Olympics.) "We try to fly them as full as possible," notes a rep for one of the companies. Often an exec needs to be at the vice chairman level to requisition a flight.
None of these companies, when contacted by THR, wanted to comment publicly about their use of corporate jets. Nearly four years after General Motors and Ford sold theirs in the face of public outrage that their CEOs flew them to Washington to ask for government bailouts, very few in the business want to be conspicuous -- especially as private jets are known to carry the excesses of the infamous and profligately wealthy, from the airplane standing by when Warner Bros. tried to get then-Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen into rehab in early 2011 to former Dodgers co-owner Jamie McCourtincluding jet travel in her spousal-support demands from ex-husband Frank. (Don't even talk aboutKarl Lagerfeld's cat Choupette, who flies in the cockpit on the way to St. Tropez.)
In her A-list days, Demi Moore was said to have successfully demanded that a studio pay for an extra jet for her hair and makeup team. THR recently heard of one-percenters using their jets to fly in breast milk or an ice cream flavor from another city for a daughter's birthday party.
Reports of outrageous amenities don't help either, from gold sinks and bidets to operating theaters to -- for Saudi billionaire investor Al Waleed Bin Talal's double-decker Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, which can seat 525 -- an on-board garage that can accommodate two Rolls-Royces, a horse and camel stable and a prayer room that can rotate toward Mecca, all of which is expected to cost more than $500 million.
Lingering perceptions aside, global private-jet travel has shown signs of a post-recession rebound, with sales of luxury jets inching up during the past couple of years. "Our clients fly for very primal reasons that didn't go away with the downturn," says Aviation Portfolio's Craig Ross, a private-jet consultant.
Like other rich sectors of the economy, the top end of the private-jet market thrives most. From 2007 to 2011, sales of the largest business jets grew 23 percent, while sales of small- and medium-size jets fell. Judging by the portfolios of Hollywood's biggest players, the order of covetability starts with Bombardier and Gulfstream, followed closely by converted Boeing commercial jets, which are far more expensive than most Bel-Air mansions. Fuel costs alone can run more than $3,000 an hour. To own one, says a private-jet broker in Los Angeles, "I think you should have a minimum net worth of $100 million. Minimum."
On the other hand, there's a glut of used jets out there; those who will settle for pre-owned aircraft can find there's a buyers' market right now, with older Gulfstream G-IVs going for as low as $12 million to $15 million (compared with $35 million to $38 million new).
Of course, private jets -- most in the L.A. area fly in and out of Van Nuys Airport, as well as Santa Monica, Burbank and LAX -- can be glammed up with everything from mohair banquettes to four-star chow. Barbara Davis remembers husband Marvin saying in their Gulfstream: " 'Let's circle around for another half-hour.' We were having the most marvelous meal. It was like a flying delicatessen." But the truth is, "The ability to travel anywhere without worrying about a schedule" is a luxury in and of itself, says John Dunkin, chief pilot of Donald Trump's Boeing 757 business jet, which the mogul purchased in 2011 for about $100 million from Paul Allen. The experience is so night and day from being herded into a commercial jet that, according to Blair LaCorte, CEO of XOJet, some of his most successful clients (who reportedly include Justin Bieber) remain anything but jaded. "Even for the people who fly regularly for either business or pleasure, the idea of private air travel still retains a certain mystique," says LaCorte. "It's not uncommon to see the most hardcore fliers pause as they walk across the tarmac toward their plane. They stop just to take it all in. Flying on your own plane is truly a unique emotional experience."
Indeed, those highfliers who once lived the dream of having a plane at their disposal and now must settle for snagging a ride on a friend's -- or even, good heavens, traveling merely commercial first-class -- certainly can attest. Tom Freston, years after losing his crown as CEO of Viacom, still was publicly mourning the loss of private-skies privileges during a January interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. Said Freston, "I think about it every time I'm taking off my shoes to pass through security."
Additional reporting by Mike Espindle.
Private Jets 2013
One of the biggest modern symbols of wealth and power in private jets. But the world's most luxurious 10 Have you ever wondered who owns a private jet? Here's the answer ...
02/08/2010 16:50
In the old days the rich people to show their power, made us take expensive palaces and mansions. As time progresses started buying special vessels for this requirement. Today, cars are expensive in general is seen as a symbol of wealth. (Most Expensive Fair: Farnborough Air Show)
Jets flying palaces today
However, people who are one step ahead of this social class is going to have their private jets flying palaces. Cost of private jets, but it does not stop with just him. Technical maintenance for a safe journey, the talented crew comfort you need to get to work. (Aircraft Accident Amazing salvation)
No Have you ever thought of the world's most luxurious private jets to whom? That means the stars of the world luxury jets and the owners of the 1 to Airforce.
Türkçe
Private Jets 2013
Held each year in London, the capital of England and the aviation sector, which brings together Farnborough Airshow this year the participants had a memorable moments.
30/07/2010 18:00
The biggest players in the aviation sector Farnborough International Air Show held in London every year, the capital of England are coming together. (The World's Most Expensive Combat Aircraft)
Outstanding performances, exhibitions and major agreements were signed is actually a giant media companies are launching latest models.
Each type of aircraft is doing at the fair show of strength
Billion Dollar Fair
Which lasted a week, during which time a total of 47 billion dollars of the most impressive images of the signing of the treaty Farnborough International Air Fair, we have compiled for you. (Aircraft Accident Amazing salvation)
Air ambulance services �?anakkale: handling emergencies
Air ambulance services �?anakkale: handling emergencies
My husband has always loved flying as he is a pilot for one of the major airlines. He always made decent money, but he couldn't afford to buy his own $plane until I started working a high paying job for a big business. Then we could afford to buy the best of everything. We worked out that the $jet would save us money when we wanted to travel for pleasure. He parked the plane at the Imroz Airport in the �?anakkale, and he took it out a couple times a week. We even flew our friends to the following �?anakkale, and gave them world class service. I grew to appreciate the $aircraft even though it couldn't fly to country's across the ocean. It still made our lives easier!
What is considered as the crown jewel of rich lifestyle? What it takes to make you the limelight of every eye? Well, if you want to enjoy that limelight you need a jet by which you can roam around the world flourishing your exquisite taste of lifestyle. Flying from airport to airport, country to country, without the burden of changing aircrafts again and again is something, which proves that you have both style and taste of premium quality. Now, if you want to enjoy luxury and lifestyle of rich and famous, you need a plane with predefined schedule so that you don’t have to waste your time waiting for your jet. That is why it is better define schedule in the following way:
�?anakkale
�?anakkale
Imroz Airport
Now next time when you want to enjoy the lifestyle and luxury of rich, then enjoy your travel in a charter aircraft.
A private airplane is a compact plane with a limited amount of of space. The plane was designed for people who travel often for business. It is known that only the affluent will take a jet instead of waiting for in a airport for the commercial airplane. A private jet can hold anywhere from four to twenty people depending on the size of the craft. Travelers in a jet can leave and arrive anytime that is convenient for them. The jets usually arrive a bit earlier to �?anakkale than normal planes because they don�t have to stop no more than gas if its a long trip. Just being able to ride in a private jet just gives you a higher status since everyone can�t afford to travel in one.
18 Ekim 2012 Perşembe
Frankfurt Airport Opens New Lufthansa Lounges
Frankfurt Airport Opens New Lufthansa LoungesPosted: Oct. 10th, 2012 | Comments 0 | Make a Comment |
Photo Courtesy of Frankfurt Airport
If you find yourself traveling through Frankfurt Airport frequently, you'll be pleased to find out that a new A-Plus Concourse was just opened, as well as five new lounges from Lufthansa. According to Air Nation, Lufthansa lounge network is one of the largest in the world, with hundreds of lounges all over the world. The Senator Lounge, First Class Lounge, and Business Lounge at Frankfurt can all be found on the EU Departures and Arrivals level, while additional Senator and Business Lounges are located in the Non-Schengen area.
The lounges are supposedly pretty roomy, with the Senator Lounge in the Non-Schegan area coming in at 2,100 square meters and acting as Lufthansa's biggest lounge. Frankfurt is planning on adding even more lounges in the future so ultimately, passengers will have 13 to choose from. The Business and Senator lounges were designed with customers in mind and the airport even invited them to partake in focus groups to evaluate the plans. The design aesthetic is meant to make you feel calm and at ease, featuring backlit walls (including forest themes), leather, and oak. |
| Read More on AirNation.net |
| You might like : Aviation News |
Enter to be Virgin Atlantic's "Red Hot Reporter" for the NFL International Series
Enter to be Virgin Atlantic's "Red Hot Reporter" for the NFL International SeriesPosted: Oct. 9th, 2012 | Comments 0 | Make a Comment |
Photo Courtesy of Virgin Atlantic Airlines
Are you an obsessive fan of the NFL? Is your favorite team The New England Patriots or the St. Louis Rams? If so, you have a great opportunity ahead of you. As long as you are at least 21 years old and have some connection to Facebook or Twitter, you can enter to win a spot on your favorite team’s Virgin Atlantic luxury flight to Wembley Stadium in London for the sixth annual NFL International series.
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 Through social media, Virgin Atlantic is searching for two “Red Hot Reporter's” with an adoration for The Patriots and Rams to be their football ambassador and correspondent. As the partner for this year’s (and the past four years’) series, Virgin Atlantic provides the airfare for the teams, each on their own personalized charter. One lucky fan from each team will be able to travel with the team and get exclusive access to press conferences, parties, practices, and even the Virgin Atlantic Suite at Wembley Stadium. All of those perks and your only obligation is to cover the game live on October 28, and document the whole experience on your social media page. Photo Courtesy of The St. Louis Rams |
 Entries will be sifted through with a filter putting the most social media savvy person at the top of the list of potentials. Enter on Facebook or Twitter through the Virgin Atlantic pages, preferably with a video submission. Your entry should be a convincing argument as to why you are worthy of this opportunity, emphasizing your far-reaching circle of followers. If you think you have what it takes, the contest is open for submissions October 4-15. Photo Courtesy of The New England Patriots |
 Photo Courtesy of Virgin Atlantic Airlines |
 Photo Courtesy of The St. Louis Rams |
 Photo Courtesy of The New England Patriots |
| Read More on Virgin-Atlantic.com |
| You might like : Aviation News |
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