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(29 Apr 2016) LEAD IN:
A new UK-based tech company is attempting to make the often luxurious and glitzy world of private aviation accessible to mainstream travellers.
Stratajet developed a high-tech price comparison website which gathers details and prices on private jets in seconds, rather than requiring potential customers or brokers to manually gather that information.

STORY-LINE:
When booking a holiday trip, many travellers would expect hiring one of these private jets to be way out of their price range.
Not so, according to Jonny Nicol, the founder and CEO of UK-based tech company Stratajet and former pilot.
He spent five years developing the algorithms required to deliver what he describes as a "game-changer": Stratajet's private aviation price comparison website.
"It's exactly the same way as you would interact with Skyscanner or KAYAK or anything aviation-based price comparison sites," explains Nicol.
"It has a few differences, you can go postcode to postcode, not just airport to airport.
"But at its heart, you say where you want to go, when you want to go, and it will give you a range of options of different aircraft – some like this one – and it will give you as price, you pay it and away you go."
A number of private aviation flights are currently manually handled and calculated by brokers.
Stratajet's search engine computes the vast number of variables, including taxes, landing and handling fees, in around ten seconds.
A number of logistics, including whether aircraft of particular size can use certain airfields, are also considered.
It then delivers a list of flight options, similar in appearance to many flight price comparison websites.
Nicol claims that by also allowing travellers to search so-called "empty leg flights" – meaning empty private jet flights without any passengers on board – Stratajet is able to offer journeys at a reduced cost.
"What we're able to do is make it accessible right now to everybody," he says.
"There is obviously a question over cost and by increasing utilisation, by decreasing empty legs – and empty legs are literally just burning fuel for the sake of it – and by using those to move people around, we're able to across the board to not just make it cheaper for the super wealthy to fly privately, but far more importantly, make it possible for your mainstay traveller to fly privately as well."
To demonstrate how Stratajet's technology can be used, the Associated Press attended a media trip from near London, UK to the west of Ireland.
Passengers flew from Luton Airport, around 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of central London, to Ireland West Airport Knock, around 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Galway in Ireland. The flight took around 75 minutes.
In the space of a few hours, passengers visited Ashford Castle, a luxury hotel in County Mayo, and hopped on board a private boat trip along the picturesque shores of Lake Lough Corrib.
Nicol says that by using private aviation, travellers can access a new level of freedom.
"We left when we were ready to leave, we flew back when we were ready to fly back," he says.
"We weren't beholden to a schedule of an airline, and that is one of the intangibles because we got control of our lives back and I think that's really what Stratajet is all about, it's about freedom of being able to travel without putting our lives in the control of other agencies when we do that."
Stratajet joins a collection of online private aviation tools, including Netjets and Jetsmarter.
According to Sean Tipton, media relations manager at the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), growing wealth is pushing the private aviation industry to new heights.
"At the very top stratum of society, there are people doing very well," he says.

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