How snow impacts private jet travel
With heavy snow affecting the east coast of the USA, including New York, Boston and Chicago, airline travel is disrupted from many airports.
For advice on chartering a private jet at short notice or during snow call +44 (0) 1747 642 777 (24 hours).
Private Jet Flights during snow
Demand for private jet travel usually increases when heavy snow hits. Obviously extreme winter conditions impact private aviation too – but certainly not to the same extent and private jet charter is still able to keep passengers moving when airlines can’t. So why can private jets fly when scheduled flights are frozen?
Private jets can use many more airports
In Europe, private jet charter flights can take their pick from 3,000 airports – ten times more than the 300 airports used by airlines. Snowfall and temperatures can vary considerably even over a relatively small area of the country, so this allows the pilot to switch to an airport than is less affected – not an option open to inflexible airlines.
At smaller airports, snow clearing and de-icing can actually happen quicker, as there is a much smaller area of taxiway and fewer aircraft to keep clear (plus many private jets are kept out of the cold in hangars which reduces deicing requirements).
This was seen in the UK during heavy snowfalls a couple of years’ ago: Heathrow and Gatwick were less able to cope with clearing snow, despite their greater resources, than smaller airports such as nearby Farnborough Airport in Surrey, which managed to stay open for much more of the time.
Private jet travel allows for flexible schedules
When you hire a private jet, you agree a departure time and route but, unlike airline flights, this plan is very flexible and either the customer or the pilot can change the schedule up until about two hours ahead of takeoff.
So bringing a flight forward when further snowfall is forecast – or switching the route to find ‘gaps’ in the weather or to avoid closed airports is a very real possibility. Airline schedules are simply unable to work like this – their only option is to cancel the flight.
Private jets can start moving again very quickly
Inevitably the most extreme of winter conditions will affect some private jet charter flights. Safety is the primary consideration and there will be times when it is simply unsafe to fly due to extremes of temperatures or severe ice on runways.
However the agility of private jet charter is a huge advantage when conditions begin to thaw. With enormous backlogs and so many aircraft out of position, airlines can take days to return to normal – leaving passengers stranded even after the snow is cleared.
With so much more flexibility, private jet flights are usually able to start operating almost immediately. At PrivateFly we have access to thousands of private aircraft worldwide, tracking their live locations and availability. So we are particularly well-placed to help passengers needing flights at short notice – finding aircraft that are already waiting at the closest airport.
For advice on chartering a private jet at short notice or during snow call +44 (0) 1747 642 777 (24 hours).
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