Wealthy turning to private jets to escape coronavirus outbreak
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Big businesses and wealthy people are chartering private jets for “evacuation flights” out of countries hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
Adam Twidell, the chief executive of the private jet booking service PrivateFly, said the company had been inundated with requests from multinational firms arranging the mass evacuation of staff from China and south-east Asia.
Twidell said rich families were also chartering private jets to reduce the risk of exposing their families to the virus by avoiding commercial flights and busy airports.
The number of private jet flights from Hong Kong to Australia and North America in January jumped 214%, compared with the previous year, according to data from the business aviation monitoring company WingX.
Commercial airlines have been among the hardest hit. American Airlines Group Inc., United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. have lost about a quarter of their combined market value since the start of the year with analysts warning that the drubbing may get worse as the disease curbs demand for travel.
All three have suspended direct flights to mainland China through April, severing what had become a key business route. British Airways Plc and Air France-KLM have enacted similar restrictions. United, the biggest U.S. carrier on trans-Pacific routes, pared more service to Asia, including cancelling flights to Tokyo’s Narita Airport from Los Angeles and Chicago.
