Jet Scion Offers Lower Charter Rates For More Notice

A new charter jet card called Jet Scion is promising preferential rates for customers who don't generally need to book flights at short notice. Flight-hour rates for the light and midsize jets offered by the U.S. company are priced at between 15 and 18 percent less if customers book with at least five days' notice, compared with a 24-hour notice period.

There are no membership fees for Jet Scion and the minimum commitment is $100,000. “Most jet card companies are built around the needs of last-minute flight bookers, and they are in the minority,” founder Jon Mende told AIN. “With Jet Scion, the majority of customers are not subsidizing them by paying more for shorter notice periods that they don’t need.”

Jet Scion books flights with Argus-rated Part 135 operators that provide aircraft no older than around 15 years. In the midsize category, it offers jets such as the Cessna Citation Excel and the light category includes types such as the Embraer Phenom 300 and the Citation CJ2. The new company is competing with jet card and membership programs such as Delta Private Jets, Wheels Up and Flight Options.

The five-day-notice flight-hour rates (including taxes, fees and in-flight snacks) are $4,600 for the light jets and $6,300 for the midsize jets. These rise, respectively, to $5,100 and $6,800 for a 48-hour notice period and to $5,600 and $7,400 for a 24-hour notice period. International flights (mainly to the Caribbean) require a seven-day notice period with rates of $6,250 for light jets and $8,450 for midsize jets, and a peak day hourly surcharge of 10 percent and a daily minimum of 1.5 hours.

Since its launch this summer Jet Scion has sold around $10 million worth of cards, said Mende. Most customers are based east of the Mississippi River and each is assigned a dispatcher to make their flight bookings.