On commercial airlines, traveling in coach is a pain, while the wealthy are well looked after in first class. But for the ultrawealthy, there's a whole other level available.
A new Boeing 777 features a large cocktail-bar area, with seating for 24 guests to mix socially. To pass the time on a long flight, the tabletops in the bar can be inverted to offer video games or gaming. A typical 777-200LR airliner like this one carries slightly more than 300 passengers, but aft of the bar on this jet is a passenger cabin with just 88 first-class, lie-flat seats.
It will make its debut during China's "Golden Week" holiday, at the beginning of October, when a group will take off from Hong Kong for a nine-day tour with stops at luxury hotels in Nairobi, Kenya and Tahiti. The cost is $45,000 per person.
The plane was handed over to Crystal Air Cruises — the company offering the chichi flight — in a ceremony at Boeing Field.
After it was built in Boeing's Everett, Wash., factory, the plane spent two years getting a customized interior — mostly white, with stone veneer and marble accents.
Accepting delivery of the jet was Edie Rodriguez, the chief executive at Crystal Cruises. Now owned by Chinese cruise and resort holding company Genting Hong Kong, Crystal offers high-end travel packages that include ocean cruises, river cruises, yacht expeditions and air charters.
Hockey players hop aboard
Rodriguez touted the jet as "the most luxuriously appointed aircraft in the private aircraft industry."
Guests are cosseted by a crew of 20, including a chef, a sommelier, a mixologist and a dozen mostly young women whom Rodriguez insisted on calling butlers, "not flight attendants."
Rodriguez said that initially Crystal intended to treat the luxury jet like a cruise ship in the air, planning high-end itineraries and selling seats individually. But the company discovered that though their target market, "the top 2 percent of the world's wealthiest," could afford such air cruises, they are too time-strapped to slot easily into a preset schedule. So Crystal switched gears to offer the jet instead as a private charter.
Rodriguez said one couple have just chartered the 777 for their anniversary, along with "one of our floating assets."
It's also possible to just charter the plane on a private flight from city to city. Rodriguez said such a one-way flight from New York to Paris would cost $375,000, or just about $4,300 per person with all 88 seats filled.
In September, the Vancouver Canucks National Hockey League team has chartered the plane for its trip to China, where the team plays the L.A. Kings in a couple of preseason exhibition games in Shanghai and Beijing.
"The world is getting wealthier by the minute," Rodriguez said, citing data that China has "more than a million millionaires and more than 400 billionaires."
And, boosting the private charter model, "a lot of the wealthy like to travel with, in quotes, people like them," she said.
A high-flying crew
The crew has been gathered mostly from the world's high-end airlines. One Austrian pilot previously flew 777s for Emirates of Dubai. The South African executive chef was poached from Etihad of Abu Dhabi.
But at least one flight attendant — or butler — has seriously elevated her career. American Priscilla Martinez came to Crystal from Spirit Airlines, the Florida-based ultra-low-cost carrier that offers absolutely no frills and provides the most frugal flying experience in North America.
Martinez said she loves flying and appreciated her start at Spirit but is happy now to add a "customer service" dimension to her job.
Crystal's operation is customer service at a level Spirit passengers may barely imagine.
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