Luxury Aviation & Private Jet Charter

VAN NUYS, Calif., Oct. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Elite Aviation, the premier global private jet company with an extensive and diverse fleet that serves high net worth individuals with flights worldwide and Piaggio Aero, makers of the renowned Piaggio Aero P180 Avanti II turboprop aircraft, announced today a partnership to expand aircraft sales in North America. Elite Aviation will be the West Coast sales center for Piaggio, serving California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada, and spearhead sales of Piaggio Aero’s P180 turboprop aircraft out of their office in Van Nuys, California. The move into sales is a logical extension for Elite Aviation, known for providing the highest levels of personal service to their clients in the air and on the ground.

“This relationship cements Elite Aviation’s status as a full-service charter jet company assisting our clients in the acquisition, management and maintenance of aircraft,” said Chris Holifield, president and CEO, Elite Aviation. “We’re honored to be working with Piaggio Aero in multiple states, and through this partnership we’ll be able to provide clients with additional guidance enabling them to make smart purchasing decisions.”

Elite Aviation is the female-owned premier global private jet company specializing in full-service aircraft management from turnkey acquisitions to maintenance to crew selection and aircraft sub-leasing. The company provides 24-hour access to staff, industry-leading concierge services and catering.

“We’re focusing efforts to expand our presence in North America and this new partnership will help us achieve this goal,” said John M. Bingham, President and CEO of Piaggio America. “Elite Aviation has the experience and capabilities needed to connect with buyers, coordinate negotiations and influence purchasing decisions.”

For more information on Elite Aviation visit www.eliteaviation.com . For further information on Piaggio Aero visit www.piaggioaero.com .

Irvine-based JetSuite, a private jet charter company, now offers customers SuiteShare on its four passenger Phenom 100 aircrafts. The company hopes to provide more affordable and accessible options for private air travel for both business and leisure travelers.

“Furthering our mission to provide private jet travel to more people than ever before, SuiteShare allows you to open up your flights to others, and so avoid the hassles of commercial travel at an even lower cost than our already renowned pricing,” said JetSuite CEO and former JetBlue founding executive, Alex Wilcox.

With the new SuiteShare option the price of each ticket decreases as more people join the flight. If a plane reaches maximum capacity, the person that bought the first ticket flies free. JetSuite encourages businesses and individuals to consider private aviation as a comparable option to commercial travel.

Customers interested can visit JetSuite’s website to request the departure and arrival location for a specific time. If the request is possible, then the rate will be supplied. Seat cost reductions are issued after the flight is flown. If a flight cannot be found on the website’s search then customers are asked to call JetSuite.

ShareSuite is available to all of JetSuite’s SuiteSpots, that includes major cities in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Utah. Outside of the U.S. options include Canada and Mexico.

A new community promising to sell spare seats onboard luxurious private jets launched last week, potentially putting private aviation within reach of mere mortals for the first time.

Victor is billed as the world’s first private jetshare community and acts almost as an AirBnB for private jets – matching operators with spare seats to fill with travelers who are willing to pay for them.

The idea was conceived by serial entrepreneur Clive Jackson and launched to the public August 15 after six months of testing, during which some 60 Victor-enabled flights have taken off.

Now, it’s aiming to take on the wider world, allowing its members to pay far below the odds for a flight on a small private jet.

“Victor is the world’s first ‘one stop’ quotation, comparison and transactional online platform for chartering aircraft or purchasing a seat and will be a massive game changer for the private aviation industry,” said Clive Jackson.

“Consumers are able to unite and leverage their considerable buying power under one brand and unifying transactional platform and have the freedom to choose and compare quotes from any major operator,” he continued.

Although the website is necessarily limited by where its jets are flying to, it initially appears to have been successful in bringing down the cost of private jet use – current seats showing as available on its website include a trip aboard a Learjet 40XR from the UK’s Farnborough Airport to Mallorca for just £750 (€855)

The system is also set up to reduce prices as seats are sold – meaning, for instance, that the seats aboard a listed flight from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle to Farnborough have dropped in price from £2,185 to £846 (€2,490 to €965) as more users joined the flight.

Alternatively, users can bid for a seat, and the flight’s operator can decide whether or not to accept the price they have offered to join them on board.

Victor says that it currently uses a contracted fleet of 120 jets across Europe, a number which is likely to significantly expand if it takes the service global, as planned, in 2012.