Air Partner, the international charter broker, has recently launched an executive jet service for British Airways’ passengers. Manager of Air Partner’s executive aircraft division Justin Barber said: “The whole scheme is geared for new users, we are basically targeting BA premium cabin passengers.”

Air Partner says chairman Tony Mack approached BA with the idea, after finding great difficulty locating a user market for business jets. Barber explains: “We have in the past targetted chairmen of PLCs worth more than £50 million and the response can be disappointing. At the same time, we noticed that the business jets we do arrange often coincided with first and business class scheduled traffic.”

It now has BA’s entire customer database, and other resources such as a list of everyone who has ever flown by concord. Air Partner believes that BA will help it connect with first and business class scheduled traffic.

“BA has given us the opportunity to brand our service, because Air Partner’s not a household name. We feel passengers may then feel more comfortable chartering a business jet for the first time,” said Barber.

The service will work in conjunction with BA’s existing network, rather than replacing any existing operations. Barber makes it clear that Air Partner offers complete flexibility, with aircraft capable of being booked at two hours notice: “The service is worldwide, and where commercial carriers only fly to around 200 airports within Europe, business jets can fly to approximately 2000. This gives passengers the benefit of being able to fly to airports closer to their final destination.”

The major difference for passengers Air Partner says, is a transparent price policy, allowing customers to know preset costs without making a phone call. Three price classes are identified: Turboprops cost UK£2,900, including 500 free miles, a small jet is £3,900, including 600 miles and a medium sized jet (such as the Lear 60) costs £6,900, including 700 miles. These prices are daily rates and if the free mileage is exceeded there is an additional charge per mile (between £5 and £7).

Barber believes the only competitors are the fractional ownership charters, including Flex Jets and Net Jets, who offer a similar flexible, tailor made service allowing customers to go anywhere at

any time.

But he claims Air Partner differs as there are no hidden charges, normally encountered when chartering a business jet. Barber concluded by saying: “Its a very high profile marketing campaign, in an effort to get new charter customers into the market. We’re not going after the existing users.”