Discount seating on empty private jet flights

We wrote about on-demand airline DayJet on two different occasions before it closed its doors a few weeks ago. Now a new Swiss company is taking a different approach to private jet travel by making the most of existing empty leg flights. Launched in May, Geneva-based LunaJets takes advantage of the fact that many private jets fly empty when they return home after dropping passengers off or when they head out to pick passengers up. The company works with a select set of jet operators to maintain a database of all such “empty leg” flights, as they are known, and allows users to browse that database to find flights that match their own needs. Travellers can book anything from a single seat to a whole cabin on flights shorter than 2h30m; on longer flights, they must reserve the whole cabin. Booking and payment can both be handled online, and prices are fixed and open, beginning at EUR 890 for a single seat on a flight up to one hour long. Discounts are available for multi-seat purchases, and LunaJets can also work to reroute empty legs to suit a given member’s itinerary. Weekend shuttles, on-demand services and a forum for members interested in sharing a cabin are available as well. LunaJets operates throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia and the USA. Membership on the site is free for passengers and operators alike. By offering benefits to both travellers and jet operators in the form of discounts and increased efficiency, LunaJets’ model offers a win-win proposition that could prove to be more sustainable than creating a brand-new airline was for DayJet, particularly during difficult economic times. For travellers, this is one to try out; for operators, it’s one to get in on ASAP! Spotted by: Julian Lander