For those stuck in freezing cold cities this winter, youmay find yourself constantly daydreaming about booking a last-minute flight tosomeplace warm and sunny. Well, the folks over at JetSmarter, a mobile marketplacethat allows users to book private jets directly from their Smartphones, werethinking the same thing. After getting swamped with calls by people wanting toget out of New York, the tech-savvy company decided to offer free private jet flights formembers in New York to and from cities such as Los Angeles via itsJetShuttle.

So, howdoes it work exactly? JetShuttle is a sharedaircraft charter, offered at a fraction of the price. Users can choose from single seats on already scheduledflights in select markets at discounted rates for non-members, and free formembers. Or, you can create your ownJetShuttle, which is a shared aircraft charter offered at afraction of the price, where the cost of a flight is split amongsttravelers who seek the same itinerary. Flights arealways guaranteed and booking is available year round.

“JetSmarter offers instant pricing and availability

for private jets across the globe, allowing users to book a flight themselves

without the hassle of dealing with a middle man,” CEO and Founder, Sergey

Petrossov, tells zzdtravel.com. “Users can booking their flight in a matter of

minutes and then fly within six hours.” You also save time compared to

flying on a commercial airline. Flights

offer free helicopter transfers and allow travelers to avoid hours of security

lines, and lost baggage, and you have the ability to hold the plane if you’re running late.

Though convenient, you’re probably thinking this service

costs an arm and a leg. While it isn’t cheap, it certainly is less expensive

than traditionally chartering a flight. In fact, the JetShuttle service is free for JetSmarter members (after

paying a $9,000 annual membership fee). Standard private jet charters, on the other hand, can cost

any where from $1,600 an hour to $8,600 an hour. So, if you’re making the cross-country

flight frequently already, it can add up to quite a bit of savings. If you’re a

non-member you’d have to pay $9,980 per seat for this route.

To make things even more appealing to frequent flyers, the

company has also created JetDeal, where they provide free flights to members

in bundles of two to five seats per flight — and family and friends can join free of

charge. “We want to make private flying easy and accessible for more than

just the one percent who are used to chartering private planes,” adds Petrossov. “My

outlook for the private jet industry is that mass travel between 100 to 1,000 miles will all be private air travel in the future, and large airline-style commercial aviation will be a thing of the past in 20

years. I also believe that operational costs will significantly decrease due

to hybrid electric aircraft, and with proper sharing technologies

(like JetSmarter app), private aviation will be priced at a level accessible to the

masses.”

While it may still seem out of reach for many of us,

Petrossov says his business is steadily growing. “We’ve had a great

response,” he tells us. “We’re constantly growing at 15 to 20 percent each

month and have over 300,000 downloads since we launched in 2013.”

And

the company is already planning to expand. “We want to make this service

accessible to consumers across the globe,” adds Petrossov. “Because

of that, we are continuously expanding our services and enhancing our JetDeal

and JetShuttle offerings. Just this week alone, we’ve launched more

coast-to-coast JetShuttles including New York to Los Angeles, New York to Las

Vegas, New York to San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles, and Fort

Lauderdale to Las Vegas. We are also expanding our JetShuttle offerings across

Europe and Asia this spring.”

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