Flying like a celebrity
The thought has probably occurred to you while standing in a long security line at the airport, wondering if you’ll make your flight. Wouldn’t it be nice to live like a celebrity? No, celebrities don’t get to cut the security line. If they’re flying commercial they’re stuck like everyone else. Yet the biggest stars forego that process entirely. Instead they fly on their own personal jets. It must be some life.
There was a time when even more A-list celebrities and other recognized personalities owned private jets. While the economy was booming in the late 90s — and fuel prices were still reasonable — plenty of celebrities took to the skies in the super-popular Gulfstreams. Once the purview of big-time Wall Street power brokers, celebrities started to buy them up and fly them at will. That trend has changed a bit, though.
See, even celebrities have limits on how much they’ll spend on extraneous luxuries. Once fuel prices stated to climb and the economy sank, many sold. That must have been quite the downer, right? After all, can you imagine going from flying on your own personal jet to waiting on line at airport security? Of course, celebrities didn’t make quite that drastic a downgrade. Instead they turned to fractional ownership.
This is still a preferred method of travel for many A-list celebrities. The costs of fuel and maintenance make a private jet unjustifiable even for some of the richest celebs. Some companies saw an opportunity here, though. They created something like a timeshare for private jets. Celebs — or anyone who can afford it, really — pay into a pool, and get to use the jet if it’s available. These payments are smaller than normal payments, but pooled together with others it helps take care of fuel and maintenance costs.
What’s odd is that some of the celebrities whom you’d think would own private jets actually pay into the fractional fund. Think Jerry Seinfield and Tom Hanks are hard up for cash? How about Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts? They all use the fractional ownership company NetJet. In fact, according to TMZ, Roberts flew 1,749 miles while shooing My Best Friend’s Wedding. This seems to be the most popular choice for many celebrities.
Still, there are those who would rather shell out the dough to own the jet outright. It must be nice. Of course, you’ll notice that these are the top of the top listing celebs: Oprah Winfrey, John Travolta, Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, and Tom Cruise all fly in complete privacy. Travolta is a story unto himself. He not only flies his own private jet, but he actually owns a Boeing 707. He even has his pilot’s license, which surely helps him get where he’s going in the quickest time possible. Plenty of others fly their own jets, though they’re very much the realm of CEOs and other business magnates.
The rest of us, of course, have to fly in the traditional way. We go to travel sites and try to find cheap flights that leave at acceptable hours. We try to bundle hotels and rental cars to save even a few pennies. That’s par for the course though, right? We schlubs have to pull out all the stops, and even then we have to wait plenty before we get to our destinations. It must be nice, flying in privacy and style, like the celebs.
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