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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

What I like about this pandemic is exposing inequalities that have been commonplace.

Colorado to Sardinia in a private jet? That's a wild flight! How big would it have been?

A typical European summer option for some, and to think it wouldn't have been news if it wasn't rejected at customs.

I'm a bit surprised the rich take private jets as much as they do. They are about as dangerous as cars on a distance basis, and considering how far a trans-Atlantic flight is, I don't know... I'd be hesitant to do that much driving in my car even.

>I'm a bit surprised the rich take private jets as much as they do. They are about as dangerous as cars on a distance basis

Source for this? I know that general aviation travel tend to be much more dangerous than commercial airlines. This is mainly due to them using single engine planes with little redundancy (eg. cessna 172), and inexperienced pilots (you are doing it for fun). However, is the same true for "private jets"? I'm not sure what the exact model plane they used, but the pictured plane has 2 engines and looks about the right size for 10 people. The dual engines alone probably makes it safer than your average cessna. I'd also think that someone rich enough to operate a private jet probably has enough money for a professional pilot.

The aircraft shown is a Hawker 800, it can accommodate 10 people but would need a multi-stop itinerary to make that flight.

More likely the actual aircraft involved was a Gulfstream G650 or Global Express.

There have been many private jet flights from the USA to the EU in the past week so it's hard to pin down without further details.

If you fly something like netjets where they have experienced crew, and you’re flying a bigger and new jet into a large airport, I don’t really think there’s much safety difference vs. commercial.

Does anyone know what it would cost to charter a flight like that? Is it relatively reasonable if you split it amongst 10 people, or are we still talking 10/15K per head?

As a rough estimate, assume $10k per hour of flight for a rented plane + crew. If you own the plane, it would be more economical.

On NetJets or ExecJet which is like kind of an Uber for private jets owned by Berkshire Hathaway you could probably get to $15k a head.

It is not reasonable at all. I looked at chartering a small plane domestic for 6 people and it was cheaper to fly commercial.

Going across the ocean will cost you a lot more.

I would expect many multiples over the code of business class. So more like 50k pp.

This is a guess, though I feel 10k in private jet from Colorado to Italy would be a steal.

  it was cheaper to fly commercial

Coach? Business class? First class?

Private Jets are stupid expensive.

I ran up a quote on a private jet site, and it gave an estimate of "From" €113 960 (~=USD$128K).

So your 10/15k/head isn't far off, and likely with other additional fees, transfers, baggage handling, catering, etc it'd probably go over that $15k mark.

e: Also, looking at the quote it generated, that's based on filling every seat and using the cheapest option - for them a Falcon 2000EX EASy (10 seats).

If you go for a different aircraft (more seats, faster) then you won't be getting much change back from half a million for an Airbus 319 Corporate Jet (30 seater) at "from" USD$437k.

this quote is cheaper than usual. I'll just leave it at that.

Yeah, I suspect that there's quite a lot of additional fees that arn't being shown. But this is just some site I found by obvious keywords, and they want me to give details to go further.

I googled around a bit.

Stratosjet quotes ~80k for a flying from New York to Italy. The recommend the Challenger 604 and the Bombardier Global 6000 which seat 10 or 14 people respectively.

For a direct flight, you're looking at about a ~10hr flight (~5620KM's). For that range, you're looking at anywhere between 10-15k/hour average price (eg: G-IV, G-650 type planes). In reality the price is higher because if you're paying for just one way, then you have to pay the same hourly rate for the plane to fly back to Colorado. If you're paying round trip, then you have to pay daily parking charges + crew fee, which adds up quickly.

New York -> Las Vegas one way costs approx. $34k which includes: Aircraft One-Way Rate, Fuel Adjustment, Additional One-Way Fuel Adjustment, Flight Crew, Crew Layover, Crew Meals, Ldg/Hdlg/Ap-Fees, Use Tax, and Federal Excise Tax. Those line items are a copy/paste from a real invoice. I’m sure you can extrapolate what a private flight from US to Italy would cost.

Btw, when you fly private, I don’t think it’s courteous to split the tab...normally, one party handles it all.

It's actually kinda hard to extrapolate what is based on distance/fuel and what is just a per-trip fee.

Ah bummer, that explains why I got bunch of odd reactions after I sent venmo request after my last private jet trip :)

Joking aside, do you have first hand experience of this? How does it compare to traveling by business class on a national carrier?

A weird thing about air travel is that going one step up from first/business class to a private jet comes with a massive decrease in the quality of travelling (exceptions are choice of route, flexible departure times and hopefully less time in boarder control/airports).

In most other walks of life, incremental increases in price come with incremental increases in quality

What are you loosing in the quality of travelling from first/business to private jet?

I'm assuming the first step up is a small private jet. I took a small business jet from Omaha to I can't remember anymore South Dakota and 1980's business class from Oakland to Omaha was a lot nicer.

How so? The quality of a transoceanic private jet is unmatched. It's basically a flying luxury apartment.

If you fly business class you get waited on hand and foot the whole time, get plenty of space to lie down and sleep, and a reasonably quiet environment. On the next step up (ie not spending millions and millions of dollars on your own plane), you’ll be on a much smaller (probably noisier) plane with fewer comforts (you’ll likely be back to sitting instead of lying down), worse food, fewer supplies of things you might want to ask for (that you didn’t specifically request in advance of the flight). Depending on how your flight is organised you may also have stricter scheduling requirements (maybe you could turn up a few hours early or late but maybe you couldn’t rebook your ticket for a different day). And for all that, you’ll pay a lot more.

Imho America is the only country where it's easiest to make money and where probability of your business succeeding is much higher than elsewhere. Partly due to America not trying hard to kill incentives which capitalism offers to entrepreneurs

How come there are much fewer businesses per capita in America than almost everywhere in Europe, then?

I think they get acquired by big companies which provides nice exist to founders for majority of small businesses.

How about comparing number of new businesses started/companies registered?

Unfortunately I can't find data on acquisitions vs. bankruptcies. But Europe also ranks higher in new businesses per capita, although the difference seems to be less pronounced. I used total businesses because your comment seemed to imply to me that policy in the US would make it easier for businesses to survive and total number of businesses seems to be a measure of that.

You know that has nothing to do with why people had a private jet right? It could have just as easily have been the Italian passenger's 700 year old family office bankrolling it.

I mean the Governor of Sardinia is distraught about it! lol.

It is more interesting that the flight happened at all and the Americans couldn't stay.

Inequality? How is it surprising that being rich affords you more options?

Because Colorado to Sardinia is a long flight and I am curious about the size and comfort of that craft, which was clear from the post.

Stop projecting your own angst onto me.

What does "exposing inequalities that have been commonplace" have to do with the aircraft? Sounds like the angst is in your own comments.

well since you really really want to talk about that word, I am referring to all parts of the socioeconomic spectrum that have been laid out to bare regarding COVID19 outcomes.

this time it happens to be about a very long flight to a European tourist island for summer that otherwise would not have made news.

you are assuming my opinion on that is negative and it could just as equally be fandom, which is why I greatly question what axe you have to grind and why

You said "exposing inequalities" and I'm simply questioning what was exposed. What's with the wild assumptions and defensive comments?

And I believe it's news because it shows how American's are being targeted, regardless of their wealth or mode of travel.

ok sure, how would you imagine a response that your setup wasn't defensive?

whats being exposed is the non-news of a long private flight from colorado to sardinia, thats a really long and really awesome trip and yet it wouldn't have been news if it wasn't turned away. This is now the fourth time I've explained that.

With you, I'm either reiterating what I already said and you not being satisfied, or I'm explaining how what you think I care about isn't what I care about but thats defensive to you and you're still not satisfied.

This is probably not going anywhere bro.

It's news because of why they were turned away. American's being targeted for being American is newsworthy, especially in context of a global virus that doesn't discriminate, a flight where the others were allowed with quarantine, and in Italy which is notorious for its own poor response to the pandemic.

Nobody cares that rich people fly private, the same way a billion people without running water don't care that you have a car and internet. No inequality that's suddenly exposed unless you were clueless about the world. But you're right, this isn't going anywhere.

a direct flight from Colorado across the Atlantic to a mediterranean island is interesting to me and other people have pointed out what kind of plane would likely be capable of doing that.

you were not capable of understanding that or chose not to despite repeated clarifications. hard to tell which is worse

You being interested in that flight while others aren't isn't an example of socioeconomic inequality, exposed or otherwise. And your responses are full of personal vitriol. Let's end it here.

The inequality is not more money affords more options, but why do some have exponentially more money than others?

Usually better answered by asking: why should they not?

Being on HN to discuss this most likely means you're much better off than billions of people on this planet.

Exactly. Not only the world but the US.

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percen...

If you are an average CRUD developer in most major cities in the US - Excluding the west coast and NYC, you can easily be making $130K before you’re 30. That puts you right at a household salary that’s at the 80th percentile.

Within two years of working at Big Tech, you could be clearing $200K and that puts you at the 90th percentile.

HN users love to talk about income inequality. But to many people in the US, the salary of your average software developer, let alone a software developer working for $BigTech is just as unattainable as most of us earning $100 million.

Surely most people know that private jets exist. I don't understand your shock. Using the word "inequalities" suggests you feel it's unfair that some people are much richer than you, but so what? Some people are also much poorer than you. We're obviously not all identical drones and that's a good thing.

Using the word inequality does not suggest that I feel its unfair. It is also an accurate word. Try again?

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