Demand for private jets has risen to historic levels, even as the private aviation sphere contends with rising fuel costs, staffing shortages, and other pandemic-related logistical issues. Against the background of the U.S. Open—one of the biggest sporting events of the year for private jet travel—Magellan Jets President and co-founder Anthony Tivnan spoke with Bloomberg reporter Janet Wu about this skyrocketing demand, the issues facing the private jet providers, and a wide range of other topics covering the state of private aviation today.
Wu and Tivnan discussed how the pandemic and the resulting supply chain issues have affected Magellan’s network of aircraft and created new challenges.
“It’s really about the availability of the aircraft,” Tivnan explained. “If a flight crew becomes contaminated, now that plane is out for five days. If we’re waiting on parts, where usually you could get a part in 48 hours, we’re seeing parts that won’t arrive for six weeks. It’s really this backlog of a lot of the supply chain issues and things that we’re seeing around COVID. The availability on a daily basis really shrinks, and when you couple that with the historic spikes in demand, it’s certainly a recipe for some serious thinking and pivoting and making sure everyone gets to where they need to be.”
Tivnan said rising fuel prices were the leading cause of a spike in operational costs, leading to more expensive trips for customers. However, Tivnan said business is still booming for Magellan.
“In the last 60 days, we’ve had historic purchases in our programs—people buying 25-hour jet cards, jet memberships,” he said. “For us, that’s a good leading indicator on what we can see over the next six months, and we definitely don’t see a slowdown. We’ve raised our prices a couple of times out of necessity to continue to provide our customers great service, and that has not slowed our sales down by any means.”
Wu and Tivnan also spoke about bringing private fliers to the U.S. Open, the effect of supply chain issues and staffing shortages on aircraft availability, how private aviation weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. Click below to listen to the full interview from the Baystate Business Hour Podcast.
