The new coronavirus that originated in China has unfortunately led to a global panic thanks to the media sowing fear and hype around the world.
Airports and movie theaters are ghost towns, events are being canceled, consumers are raiding grocery stores for bottled water and toilet paper, even March Madness was canceled.
But one industry is absolutely booming thanks to the coronavirus.
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Comedian Whitney Cummings – executive producer of “Roseanne” and creator of “2 Broke Girls” – recently posted a picture of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) that gives you an idea of what travel is like right now.
LA airport is a ghost town pic.twitter.com/ztk6WaT48p
— Whitney Cummings (@WhitneyCummings) March 10, 2020
People are growing increasingly terrified to venture out in public even if there hasn’t been a reported case in their local area.
And they’re buying soap and hand sanitizer by the bulk.
Of course, the irony is that hoarding all those items for yourself doesn’t help much if everyone else, especially those infected by the virus, can’t sanitize their hands.
It’s complete chaos out there and people want to avoid each other at all costs.
And that’s why the private jet industry is absolutely booming right now. In fact, the demand for private charters has increased “tenfold.”
Jerod Davis, owner of Southern Jet, explained, “About two weeks ago, the requests and demands just increased tenfold. We’ve been busy the past three or four years, and that goes with the economy. But we would have to, you know, go out, and our sales forces would have to go find clients and book parties. And now the demand is basically coming to us. We might get five, 10 requests a day. And the request lines are just crazy right now. We’re booking out to where we don’t have any airplanes available.”
“And that is never really the case in private charter. We never before booked out 30 days at max capacity. So it was kind of shocking. I think it was organic. We did put out a press release, saying, ‘avoid the congestion of airports,’ that maybe got us a little more traffic. But the last thing we want to do is instill fear.”
Davis went on to explain that he’s getting clients who have never flown private before. Unless you’re super wealthy, why spend tens of thousands of dollars on something that lasts for only a few hours?
There are approximately 1,800 private jet operators in the United States, and Davis says there’s always a mass shortage of private jets over the holidays. So now that the coronavirus has taken hold, it’s like every day is a holiday for this industry.
And as if the advantages of new clientele wasn’t lucrative enough, oil prices have also plummeted thanks to the coronavirus – meaning the industry’s margins are going way, way up. The number one cost of jet travel is fuel.
The good news for the rest of us is that April is right around the corner and there are theories that the outbreak will significantly decrease as the weather gets warmer. Both coronaviruses SARS and MERS did the same as summertime approached.
Still, once you taste the sweet nectar of a private jet, it’s hard to go back – that is, if you can afford it.
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