Bookajet courts private jet owners

CROWDED airports and inflexible airline schedules have led to a boom in business jet travel.

But one corporate travel group is turning the market on its head by chasing the owners of business jets rather than the bankers and celebrities that are increasingly using them.

Air charter group Bookajet has launched what it is calling an 'asset alliance programme' in which it wants big business - private-jet owners such as Royal Bank of Scotland and Big Food Group - and rich people to turn their underused corporate jets over to the company. For a fee, Bookajet will then utilise the aircraft as fully as it can.

It has launched its new service with four aircraft - three medium-range eight-seater Citations and one Gulfstream 550 (the sort owned by retail billionaire Philip Green) capable of crossing the Atlantic - having signed deals with an unspecified 'household name'.

'Our aim is to make corporations think again about retiring the company aircraft, an asset which can be perceived as an expensive toy by shareholders,' says Chris Rooney, Bookajet's 39-year-old managing director who cut his teeth operating the air charter business formerly owned by Icap's Michael Spencer.

Rooney wants Bookajet to emerge as an alternative to other corporate jet operators, which market so-called fractional ownership commitments and blocks of hours usage per year. He says Bookajet will have 14 aircraft by the end of the year with an annualised turnover of £20m.