Private plane operators have seen a “considerable uptick” in enquiries from passengers eager to travel to or from China, in an attempt to avoid infection with coronavirus and navigate around international travel bans.
The worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 (informally known as coronavirus) coincided with international celebrations for the Chinese New Year, leaving many travellers left feeling stuck, either inside or outside of mainland China.
In light of the outbreak, many countries have introduced strict travel bans to and from the region, and many airlines have significantly reduced or completely halted any passenger travel to or from China, both of which have contributed to a spike in demand for private charter plane services.
Justin Lancaster is the group commercial director of Air Charter Services, a broker service facilitating private plane charter, who stated the agency has seen a significant influx of demand for services, both for private transportation and for the delivery of medical supplies to affected regions.
“Since the outbreak, our offices around the world have been arranging flights on local charter aircraft as the world deals with the travel disruption and overall cut to capacity to the region,” Lancaster said.
“We have flown everything from four passengers on a private jet, to hundreds on larger aircraft, to 100 tons of surgical masks. It has been all systems go since the epidemic was first reported.”
Similarly, VP of charter sales in the Asia-Pacific region for Paramount Business Jets, Darin Voyles, stated that the New York-based company had received a “considerable uptick” in charter requests to and from China, many of which would be impossible to fulfil.
He stated it was simply not viable to send aircraft or crews into mainland China, considering the risk of infection and the operational difficulties.
“Aside from the risk of exposure for the crews, the operational and business concern is that when they return from mainland China they will essentially be unable to work for two weeks as they will have to go into quarantine immediately,” Voyles said.
MyJet Asia, a private jet operator based in Singapore, reported an increase of up to 90 per cent in quote requests, mostly from travellers attempting to get back into China following the New Year celebrations, according to CEO Logan Ravishkansar.
However, the company is “massively restricted” on where it can fly, and airlines are unwilling to charter out their planes, despite travellers willing to pay big money to do so.
Elsewhere, paranoid and wealthy travellers have reportedly turned to private plane operators in an attempt to avoid exposure to the disease, even when their travel plans contain no contact with China.
“Some customers have tried to avoid infection by flying with their families on private jets to avoid travelling on commercial aircraft with a large amount of people,” Lancaster said.
According to Lancaster, fear of the virus has made arranging private flights of these nature increasingly difficult, particularly in light of increased demand for travel in the restricted regions of mainland China.
“We have faced various challenges in booking the flights, including passengers requesting crew that had not been to China since the beginning of January, clients not willing to put their cargo on aircraft that have recently been to the region, obtaining diplomatic permits, and staff from our three regional offices working from home to minimise their risk of infection.”
