BizJournals Portfolio
Home >   Business Views, Opinions and Blogs >   Business Blogs >   Market Movers >  

The A380 Not The Worlds Most Convenient Private Jet

Market Movers

by Yves Smith and Felix Salmon
Main
Signs of Caution in Private Equity?   Is Citigroup Too Big?

Recent Blog Posts

Links

Jun 19 2007 12:00am EDT

The A380: Not the World's Most Convenient Private Jet

Some bright spark with more money than sense has just dropped $300 million on an Airbus A380 superjumbo jet – for his personal use. That works out at about $30,000 per square foot of cabin space, before paying for fuel, pilots, refits, or anything else.

If you don't care about destroying the planet, then private jets are certainly a great way to fly: they're vastly more comfortable and convenient than flying commercial. For one thing, you never need to worry about being at the mercy of major airlines' hub-and-spoke systems: you can fly from wherever you are to wherever you're going, without changing planes.

Unless you own an A380, of course. The superjumbo is so enormous that it can only land at a very limited number of airports, and I'm quite sure that none of them are in rich-peoples' playgrounds such as Aspen, Nantucket, or Bermuda. Which means that our A380 owner, who I'm sure won't stay anonymous for long, is going to have to downsize to a smaller private jet any time he wants to fly somewhere without a major metropolitan airport.

blog comments powered by Disqus
Real Business, Real Results
Out of the 'Family'

Did anyone at Microsoft ever watch the (gasp!) offensively funny show Family Guy?

Cruz Missile Lands

Ex-Morgan Stanley exec Zoe Cruz is now heading her own hedge fund. Are Wall Street's leaders done?

Scandal Chic

Martha, Bernie and Skilling know that what you wear for court can go a long way in public perception.

spotlight on

Health Care

Bad to the Bone No More

Companies such as General Mills say they're stepping up efforts to change employees' bad behavior and promote healthier lifestyles. Read More