The article is a bit disingenuous. While this might bring the cost down, it's certainly not going to be an alternative to commercial flights.

Let's look at a flight that I would love to take right now: Phoenix to Seattle.

Here is a map of the route you [could] take for this flight:

http://wh98.fltplan.com/mapgenerator/index.cfm?UdTimer=40838...

This 1028 miles, but lets say (for ease of calculation) that it's 1000 exactly.

Now for an aircraft. The Citation V is a nice plane, holds about 7 people, and is something that would be appropriate for what the article seems to be describing. Cruising speed for this aircraft is 495mph[1], but again, for ease of calculation, say 500mph.

Flight time is 2 hours each way, for four hours total. The citation 5 burns 210 gallons of fuel per hour of flight, so this means that round trip (4 hours), you're burning 840 gallons of fuel.

Current fuel cost at Cutter Aviation in Phoenix is $5.58/gallon, so total fuel cost for this trip is 840 * 5.58 is $4687.

That's just fuel. If there are 7 passengers, that is $669.6 per person.

You still have to pay a crew, pay maintenance on the jet (which is an enormous cost), pay airport fees, pay administrative overhead, etc.

[2] Estimates that cost/mile on a Citation V is $3.81 - My trip to Seattle costs $7620.0, or $1088 per person ($952/person if we use the jump seat). This now includes maintenance, but not administration, pilots, etc.

I don't know about you guys, but that's not even remotely close to something that I can afford.

According to hipmunk[3], even a super-short-notice flight to Seattle that leaves tomorrow is only $500. Even a first class flight is only $700. $700 is getting close to something comparable, but implying that this is something that is for more than just "the wealthy", is kindof wrong.

Cool, but there is a reason only the very wealthy fly privately: flying privately is an absurdly expensive thing to do.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Citation_V\

[2]http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:edFt-3bDiGgJ:w...

[3]http://www.hipmunk.com/results?to=SEA&s=swz7fkx5vev&...

edit: Just to be clear, I'm not saying that this is a bad idea. The aviation industry has been screaming that this is the direction that commercial flight is going to take for quite some time now. I'm saying that the article's implication that the everyman can now fly "like you're rich" is a misrepresentation of what this service is actually aiming to do.