The Sunday Times reports that the Queen of England is in the market for a new plane. No Air-Force-One-sized jet for the Queen though, word from Buckingham Palace is that they are in the market for a small executive plane like a Gulfstream or Learjet. The plane would also be available for use by Gordon Brown and senior ministers.
The plane w ould be paid for by taxpayers and would include the usual private plane bells and whistles such as catering facilities and in-flight entertainment. The Queen had previously been able to use larger planes provided by the RAF. Also in the past, Prince Charles and other royals have chartered planes or flown first class for their royal tours, which they will still have to do for longer trips. The new plane will be best for short jaunts. The prime minister opted against a larger plane for himself and the royals because of the price. A decision on the type of plan and specific purchase details probably won't be available until later this year.
What's particularly interesting about the comments section of the article is that many of those who wrote in believe the Queen (and to some extent Gordon Brown) should have a bigger plane.
As some business jet services like MAXJet and Eos are folding, while fuel costs and other annoyances plague private plane owners, a company called Talon Air apparently sees nothing but clear skies ahead. The on-demand luxury private jet charter and management service just added the ultra-luxe Legacy 600 (pictured here) to its fleet in order to meet increasing demand. We asked Adam Katz, Talon's owner and founder (and full-rotation pilot) to explain his apparently incongruous bullish outlook.
"The luxury travel sector will continue to improve," Katz tells Luxist. "The absence of those jets in the market just increases the demand for ultra high-end services like ours. Operators providing safe, luxury travel with all the amenities that are associated with these services will continue to prosper." As for onerous tariffs, "The government's inclination to impose further taxes on the general aviation and corporate or luxury travel operators will not change the broad demand for high end services," he insists. "People will always be willing to pay a fair price for exquisite, safe and convenient travel."
The twin-engine Legacy 600 (see the gallery below) can accommodate up to 13-passengers in its plush, Wi-Fi equipped 6-ft. tall cabin. It cruises at a speed of up to Mach 0.80 and has a range of 3,250 nautical miles, enough to fly nonstop from New York to London, from London (or Geneva) to Dubai, and from Singapore to Beijing. And judging from the glowing testimonial on Talon Air's website, tennis ace Pete Sampras is a big fan.
Summer vacation season is still a month off but the NY Sun deliver some bad news for the wealthy who are planning to travel by private plane or yacht. A number of states are looking to tax private planes and yachts that come to their states and stay for a short time. Currently New York does not tax nonresidents who bring aircraft or boats into the state but Maine charges pilots who have their plane in the state more than 20 days a "use tax." A use tax is a form of excise tax levied on personal property. The NY Sun article reports that a Massachusetts pilot got a bill for more than $25,000 for keeping his plane in the state in 2003.
The Maine state government website has addressed the use tax controversy clarifying their policies by saying that "in most situations, nonresidents flying into Maine do not owe the tax and are not at risk of being assessed." They also stress that the Maine use tax is not a possibility unless an aircraft comes into Maine within the first 12 months after its purchase by a nonresident and that if the aircraft is present in Maine within the first 12 months for purposes other than repair and maintenance, no Maine use tax is due if a sales or use tax of 5% or more was paid in another state. In the case of the pilot in the NY Sun article he had not paid sales tax when he bought the plane in Massachusetts because Massachusetts does not charge sales tax on planes. Pilots are also wary of traveling in Florida, Illinois, and Washington which have all toughened enforcement of sales and use taxes on aircraft. Each state has its own policies on use tax so it's a good idea to check the state website if you are planning to keep your yacht or plane in a state other than your home state for longer than a couple of weeks especially if your plane or boat is a new purchase and you did not pay sales tax.
And there was more bad news from the Senate recently. The U.S. Senate voted in favor of legislation to raise taxes on gasoline for private jets. The tax hike will help pay for updating the FAA air traffic control system. The bill will have private jet owners paying 36 cents per gallon in tax up from 21.8 cents.
Ever since I heard about the Airbus A380, I knew it would make someone one very luxurious private plane. We've seen pictures of the proposed interior before but until now we didn't have owner to put with all that luxury. A while ago it was rumored that Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich was the owner but Airbus has announced that Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is the first private buyer of an A380. Prince Alwaleed's Flying Palace will not be his first plane, he already owns a Boeing 747-400. A gallery of the desert-themed designs for the A380 done by Edese Doret can be found here.
Earlier this week I mentioned that Mukesh Ambani is the newly minted world's richest man and one of the world's most profligate spenders. He did his legend proud with his latest gift to his wife Nita. Ambani spent $59 million on an Airbus 319 for his wife's birthday. Her new toy is a corporate jet with a bar, a master bedroom, showers, an entertainment cabin with games, music and movies as well as a cabin for business with wireless and satellite systems. Nita turned 44 on Thursday.
The latest Learjet from Bombardier Aerospace is a new midsize plane that will seat eight passengers in a stand-up cabin. The Learjet NXT has a a high-speed cruise of Mach 0.82 and a transcontinental range of up to 3,000 nautical miles. The plane is set for a public unveiling in October 2008 and so far the company has received over 65 letters of intent for this aircraft to purchase this new model.
The latest aircraft from Piper is the Matrix, a cabin-class, six-seat aircraft which is based on the Malibu Mirage model but is an unpressurized aircraft which reduces the price but also limits the pilot's ability to fly above bad weather. The Matrix has a 350 horsepower piston engine and has a maximum cruise speed of 215 knots with a fuel range of more than 1,345 nautical miles at the aircraft's maximum operating altitude of 25,000 feet (where supplemental oxygen is necessary). Piper has announced that they have received over 100 domestic orders for 2008 production. The Matrix sells for $757,000.
And you thought a ticket for the first ride on an Airbus A380 was expensive, how would you like to have the bank account of the man rumored to have bought one? When it comes to the extravagances of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich I'd be prepared to believe almost anything. After all, the multiple-yacht-owning soccer team owner is one of the world's flashiest spenders. But did he spend $300 million to buy the first Airbus A380 for personal use? I've seen a flurry of reports saying that the Chukotka governor and Chelsea FC owner bought the plane to add to his fleet which includes a Boeing-767 and a Boeing-737. A spokesperson for Abramovich says the story is not true. Airbus has neither confirmed nor denied the report yet.
Everyone is flying charter these days. The latest charter news comes from the Vatican. The Vatican's travel office has partnered with a small Italian jet company, Mistral, to offer flights to holy sites around the world. The jets will have interiors decorated with sacred inscriptions and will travel to a wide-ranging variety of holy sites in the Holy Land, Spain, Mexico and other places. BBC News reports that the first flight will be on August 27 from Rome to Lourdes, France and that the vicar of Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, is expected to be on the first flight.
The whole idea of having a private jet, besides the obvious privacy aspect, is that you get to have it decorated however you want, right? Maybe not, depending on exactly what features you're after. Any plane that wants to fly in U.S. airspace has the Federal Aviation Administration to comply with, and no matter how fancy you make it a plane just isn't any fun when it's stuck sitting on the ground.
On the bright side, many features can be modified or changed to where they're still enjoyable but don't break any laws -- like chandeliers are okay if they're retractable, and you can have all the heavy mahogany and big screen TVs you want as long as you're willing to trade off in terms of increased fuel and lower over-all capacity for things like passengers and cargo.
So what isn't okay, ever, on a plane? An open flame, which automatically rules out features like fireplaces and gas stoves.
John Travolta, seems to have forgotten one of the greatest truisms in life: those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. At the British premiere of his motorcycle buddy pic, Wild Hogs, Travolta took it upon himself to hold forth on the topic of the environment. The actor, who owns five planes and has a home with a private runway in Florida asked his fans to do their part to help tackle global warming. This Is London calculates that the flying Travolta has done in the past year adds up to a hefty 800 tons of carbon emissions. Travolta made his comments after driving down the red carpet on a Harley Davidson. Travolta blamed his flying on the movie business and also said that perhaps we should be thinking about other planets and "dome cities" as possible solutions. He did admit that he is not the best person to lecture on the problem of global warming due to his love of flying planes. So far he has not done what other actors and performers (and Al Gore) have done and purchase carbon credits to offset his pollution. In a related story, after leaving London on his plane, Travolta went to Germany for another premiere. While flying his private jet from Germany to New York, the Boeing 707 suffered "technical difficulties" mid-flight and he was forced to make an emergency landing at Shannon airport in Ireland.
Upddate: TMZ reports that there was never an emergency, that Travolta's plane made a routine fuel stop and problem with the #2 engine was discovered and a starter was replaced.
I was hoping against hope that when we finally saw a picture of the interior of that private VIP Airbus A380 jumbo jet that has luxury watchers so curious it would be of the 600-plus-square-foot master bedroom , the game room, the desert-themed lounge with the fiber-optic mosaic or maybe even the whirlpool tub. Instead, the design firm, Edese Doret, has shown us a picture of the dining room. Don't get me wrong, it's a fabulous dining room and of a scale that I have never seen on a plane before. Imagine being able to look past your dinner companion and out into the clouds. I just can't wait until we get to see the rest of the jet.
Can an iPod help you fly a plane? I found this article in General Aviation News fascinating. Apparently the LoPresti Fury, a fun little flyer we first wrote about way back in 2004, now has the iPod integrated into its systems. The iPod does more than just rock out your Top Gun playlist, it can be used as a digital data recorder with the ability to record some 500 hours of flight time and replay audio on demand. RJ Siegel, vice president at LoPresti is bullish on the iPod, calling it "the complete antithesis of aviation electronics: cheap, easy to replace and available on almost every street corner." He also says that prgrammers can develop all sorts of applications for the iPod.
Here's a bit of a risque idea for a Valentine's Day adventure, how about a mile-high club flight? The Observer has a story onEngland's first mile-high club service, which takes off from an airfield in Gloucestershire on a twin-engined Piper Aztec, outfitted for two. Couples can arrange for a "quickie" flight which is 30 minutes up to a "VIP" flight which lasts 90 minutes. After your flight you get a certificate ( would you really want to hang that on your wall?). Prices start from £250 for a 'Quickie' (30 minutes), and go up to £750 for a 'VIP' (an impressive 90 minutes). Discretion is promised and at the end you get a certificate. The service is due to start later this year.
Here in the States you can find a variety of similar services. A website devoted to the mile-high club lists companies that offer these types of flights and there are whole businesses such as Mile High Atlanta dedicated to helping couples reach their goal.
We recently mentioned Oprah's home improvements. Ever wonder how she commutes to her California home when she does her show in Chicago? Private plane, of course, and she will soon have a new plane to decorate. It has been reported that she will soon receive a custom-built Global Express XRS from Bombardier Aerospace. The $47-million executive jet has seating for 10 passengers and has a leather interior with designer fixtures for the bathroom and galley. There is an aft stateroom for naps as well as a crew rest area and of course a large main cabin with every amenity Oprah could possibly require.
The Sunday Times reports that the Queen of England is in the market for a new plane. No Air-Force-One-sized jet for the Queen though, word from Buckingham Palace is that they are in the market for a small executive plane like a Gulfstream or Learjet. The plane would also be available for use by Gordon Brown and senior ministers. 
