Height of luxury:
Private jet tours

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — On a cold, windy February morning, a coach sped along the road between Reykjavik and the airport in Keflavik. Many of the two-dozen advisors and media onboard had arrived at the same airport a little over 24 hours before. But the group was awake and excited as the bus pulled into the parking lot and the advisors received their boarding passes and sped through Icelandair’s Saga Lounge. Soon, they were about to see it.

First obscured by a bright-yellow DHL cargo plane, it suddenly came into view: A pristine, pearly-white Boeing 757-200, nearly the same color as the frozen Icelandic landscape, with an enormous blue ampersand emblazoned on the tail. The airstairs were already rolled up, the door flung open in welcome. Naturally, there were flutes of Dom Perignon waiting inside.

Also waiting to welcome advisors was Ann Epting, the senior vice president of private jet and special interest travel for Abercrombie & Kent, and an executive dedicated to A&K’s private jet experiences. This ultrararefied form of travel involves flying a small group of travelers on lengthy itineraries that stop at a half-dozen or so places for two or three days of exploring in each location. A&K travelers sleep in luxury accommodations on land, but the plane — this plane — whisks them in plush, tan leather, first-class, lie-flat seats to Australia, the Amazon, throughout Africa and to remote islands around the world. 

For A&K’s 25-day Wildlife Safari private jet tour just completed in March, travelers were offered a bucket-list itinerary: Guests flew to Japan to view snow monkeys; to the Philippines for tarsiers and whale sharks; to Malaysia for honey bears and orangutans; to India for tigers; to Madagascar for lemurs; to Uganda for gorilla trekking; and to Kenya for the Big Five. Interspersed with the wildlife-viewing activities were a guided visit to the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, a spa day in Kamakura or a walk through a Ugandan community with a member of the Batwa tribe. And if a guest doesn’t find the day’s activities interesting, they can make other arrangements.

But the jet seems to be the focal point of these itineraries as a unique, ultraluxe mode of transportation; a home away from home; and a “social club in the sky,” as Sonja Stoerr, A&K’s sales director for New York and the Northeast, put it.

And the travel advisors had come to get a tiny bit of the private-jet experience. They had flown into Iceland with the primary purpose of flying out of Iceland. 

Strong demand

A seat on A&K’s Wildlife & Nature trip this fall from Hawaii to Fort Lauderdale (by way of Fiji, Tasmania, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Zambia and Brazil) costs about $168,000 per person. The private jet product is A&K’s most expensive off-the-shelf offering, and it “absolutely is on the upswing,” Epting said. 

The demand does ebb and grow with global economic health. Private jet tours were removed after the 2008 downturn, for example. But the mode appears to be moving into a new golden age: For A&K, there will be five private jet tours on offer next year, and six in 2026. 

“We do see peoples’ investment in travel continue to be strong,” said Karen Magee, the president of Valerie Wilson Travel and a participant on the A&K flight. “Especially when we have clients that have more time. Maybe they’re newly retired; they’ve worked hard their whole career, and now they can take a 28-day adventure. People look to travel as a way to enhance their overall quality of life.” 

Onboard, the plane is warm and welcoming, with an attentive and friendly crew. It is operated by Icelandair, with whom A&K has worked for about 20 years. When the partnership began, the plane was configured for business-class seats; it upgraded to first-class seats in 2014.

A&K charters the plane for the duration of each itinerary. To go into service for A&K, 50 leather, lie-flat seats are installed, Champagne and other fine dining provisions are loaded on, Molton Brown bath products are put in the lavatories, and the plane is painted with A&K’s livery. Once the charter is over, the seats come out, the livery is painted over, and the jet is readied for a different service. 

A&K’s jet is not the only one crisscrossing the skies on tours. TCS World Travel is a known leader in the segment. It has operated its own private jet tours for nearly 30 years but also white-labels private jet tours for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Smithsonian Journeys and Kalos Golf. Last year it brought into service two Airbus A321neos operated by Titan Airways. Each time the plane goes into service for a brand, it gets a specific cabin configuration, soft goods and exterior livery. 

“There was a big boom after the pandemic,” said Shelley Cline, TCS president. “We stayed very close to our guests, we had a lot of pent-up demand.”

National Geographic Expeditions, which is advertising a half-dozen private jet tours in 2024, and Adventures by Disney, which is offering a chance to travel around the world to its parks (plus stops in India and Egypt) twice this summer, are also using an Icelandair 757.

Just this month, Four Seasons opened up an option for guests to create their own customized tours using the plane. Marc Speichert, Four Seasons’ executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said in the announcement that it decided to offer full charters “in response to the many inquiries we have received from families and groups of friends interested in custom itineraries and traveling for celebratory events.” Four Seasons set aside two blocks of time in August and December for guests to book private charters and said it would work with them to design their preferred itinerary. A booking for up to 48 guests staffed by 10 crew starts at $115,000 per day; transfers, overnight accommodations, on-location meals, tours and tickets would be extra. 

The client profile

To be sure, a private jet vacation is a niche product. First of all, clients have to have the discretionary income to spend nearly six figures or more on a vacation. 

“They haven’t had time off from their careers,” Stoerr said of A&K’s client profile. “So now, they do have time, and they have money, and they want to start exploring the world.”

Ideal passengers might be those who want to tick off bucket-list experiences but might be starved for time and can only do a 24-day trip instead of, say, a longer world cruise. It could appeal to those who crave adventure but appreciate the safety and structure of an organized group or to those who are loyal to a particular brand, like A&K or Four Seasons. Advisors also said that private jet trips are huge draws for single travelers who like the built-in camaraderie. 

The trips are pricey, but execs and advisors say they offer demonstrable value. Epting said that a private jet trip with 55 hours of flying time would equate to about 150 hours of commercial flying, not including connections, overnights and layovers. 

TCS also runs numbers showing the value in time saved: Its flagship Around the World expedition includes 19 flights, compared with 26 if the same itinerary were to be done commercially; and nine hours in airports versus a whopping 84. 

But before committing, ultrahigh net worth clients want to know what they’re getting. 

“I think for the first time, if a client’s never done something like this, it’s not a fast sell,” said Kendra Thornton, the owner of Winnetka, Ill.-based Royal Travel, who also traveled with A&K. “Even clients who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, they don’t just say, ‘Book it.’ They want to understand it.”

Stoerr said that a private-travel team at A&K is in charge of helping advisors and travelers understand the private-jet product. “People always have a lot of questions,” she said. Epting or other execs can jump on the phone with an advisor to answer questions, inspire clients and help close a sale. 

Epting said that on some tours, the repeat rate can be 40% — and as high as 95%. “We’re constantly creating new programs because they want to continue to travel by private jet,” she said. 

Drinks, dancing at 40,000 feet

The A&K jet departing from Iceland was en route to Portland, Ore., where guests booked on the Wildlife Safari tour would board for Japan and points west (the itinerary moves westward to take advantage of the time difference). But on the seven-hour leg between Iceland and Oregon, the advisors got a sense of what a longer journey would be like. 

Guests were welcomed with Champagne, and each tray carried by a flight attendant included a spray of roses. A leather-bound lunch menu gave guests a choice of arctic char, lamb or vegetarian lasagna. Caviar service was offered as we soared across Greenland. 

One hesitation for clients, advisors said, was the group-travel aspect of flying in private jets, especially for those at this price point who don’t consider themselves group travelers. But sellers seemed to be reassured by the small group size and pleased by the festive atmosphere. Four Seasons’ 48-seat configuration on Titan’s A321neo includes a lounge area in the back of the plane, but even without that space on A&K’s 757 it was easy to see how each seat’s “buddy seat” enables fellow passengers to drop by for a chat, drink or meal. 

At TCS, Cline said, “by the end of the trip, they’re sitting in each other’s seats … they’re standing in the aisles, they’re dancing down the aisles sometimes. It’s a very social place.”

The plane can also be a forum for lectures from destination experts or enrichment classes like mixology. 

But the other option is for guests to recline their seats to read, watch movies or nap.

The plane’s seats have the option to convert to sleeping positions, but for the most part the flying is done during the day, and nights are spent in luxury hotels. The Four Seasons product, naturally, features Four Seasons hotels, and, as its partner, TCS itineraries also lean into the Four Seasons properties. 

A&K spreads its resort brands a little more widely. Epting and Stoerr both emphasized that if A&K is flying into a destination without a five-star property, they’ll elevate one — by bringing in toiletries, tea or espresso-makers; repainting walls; replacing linens; or adding staff.

A complex operation

Such tasks bring into focus the complexity involved in a single private jet tour.

Each jet travels with pilots and flight attendants — Cline said TCS planes have 14 crew on the Titan side alone — plus tour managers or concierges, a baggage manager, a chef, a doctor and other experts such as a photographer or guest lecturer. 

Advance teams fly ahead of the jet on commercial routes to make sure the hotels are ready and the welcome mat is rolled out when guests arrive.

There are also employees who create the itineraries and manage the visa paperwork. And then there’s the ground network of local guides, drivers, waiters and officials who might, say, close off a museum or historical site for a private tour or dinner. Cline estimated that on average, 500 people “touch” every TCS trip. 

Both Epting and Cline said that an itinerary of this magnitude requires about two years of planning. Everything from the jet’s range to the destination’s offering has to be taken into account.

And Epting pointed out that, beyond the itinerary and back-end planning, the team works to personalize the experience for each traveler. “It is truly custom-made as much as possible,” said Rob Clabbers, the president of Q Cruise + Travel in Chicago. “I think that’s something people don’t really realize.”

Correction: An earlier version of this report incorrectly gave the name of private jet operator TCS World Travel.