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Private planes to fly at public prices

By Peter Pae, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 8, 2007
Flying in a private jet has been typically reserved for the privileged few who can easily drop $20,000 for a weekend ski trip to Aspen, Colo.

But two Santa Monica High School graduates are starting a no-frills discount "air taxi" service that could allow more people to join the jet set.

Next year, the company, JetAviva, will begin offering seats on a new line of small planes that it says will bring airline affordability to the private-jet experience.

For about the price of first-class airline travel, a party of three can drive right onto the tarmac at Van Nuys Airport, hop on one of JetAviva's Eclipse 500 jets and be in Las Vegas in 45 minutes, avoiding airport security, airline schedules and, of course, strangers. Travelers rent the entire four-passenger plane rather than a seat at a time.

"It'll be like flying in your own private jet but at airline prices," said Cyrus Sigari, who founded the Van Nuys-based company 18 months ago with his boyhood friend Ben Marcus.

Both are barely 25 years old, but the West Los Angeles natives are hoping to be at the cusp of an emerging industry thanks to the development of small jets that are selling at a fraction of the cost of the current generation of private jets.

Known as Very Light Jets, or VLJs, the planes can seat as many as five passengers and range in price from $1.6 million to $3 million. That's far below conventional private jets, which can cost from $9 million for a six-passenger Learjet to $50 million for a 16-seat Gulfstream G-550.