Story ID: 
Flexjet Braces for the Holiday Surge
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: Flexjet is predicting a very busy holiday season, with air travel up nearly 5 percent over last year.
Word Count: 228
With more than a third of Americans expected to travel this holiday season, including more than 7 million by air, private aviation providers are expecting a year-end boost. Flexjet noted that the surge started several weeks ago.

“Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Flexjet typically sees more travel than at any other time of the year, and this year was no different,” said COO Megan Wolf, adding this past weekend’s bookings exceeded those totals.

She attributed the rise in private jet travel to the overlapping of Hanukkah with Christmas, heading into the New Year’s celebration. “With the holidays coinciding this year, more people will be traveling at the same time, crowding the skies and making private jet travel more appealing than ever,” Wolf explained.

Also appealing for private aviation is the ability to directly access 5,000 airports in North America, rather than the 500 served by commercial aviation, allowing users to land closer to their destinations and reduce travel time on crowded roadways.

Based on its past three years of travel patterns along with early bookings, Flexjet divided up its most popular destinations into four categories: Sun (Palm Beach, Miami, and Naples, Florida); Ski (Aspen and Vail, Colorado, along with Bozeman, Montana); Islands (Nassau, Bahamas, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and Montego Bay, Jamaica); and International (London; Bordeaux, France; and Venice, Italy).