Memberships are typically for people who have infrequent needs for private jet travel. There are different versions of memberships and the initial similarity is that there is an annual membership fee, renewable each year. Some programs offer new aircraft at an hourly rate 2-3x higher than charter, jet cards or even fractional hourly rates and some offer aircraft, generally reserved through the same aircraft brokers that provide charter and jet card flights, with the associated variability in quality and reliability.

The “when should I buy my own airplane” rule of thumb has traditionally been as follows: full ownership is either for individuals who specifically want to control all aspects of an aircraft themselves (e.g., paint color, interior finishings, etc.) or for individuals/organizations who see a need to fly 250+ hours every single year. Ownership equates to the most complex option because you need to create an entire infrastructure to handle all aspects of aviation (such as FAA regulatory issues, pilot hiring/training/benefits, scheduling and dispatch, maintenance, etc.); or, full-owners need to find a Management Company, which represent massive additional costs and no personal service commitments. Lastly, full-ownership does NOT equate to full-time access; there will be many times a year when the aircraft can not fly due to annual inspections, maintenance issues, staffing conflicts, etc. With SkyShare’s LiftOff, owners are guaranteed no “gotchas” when it comes to planning their trips.

SkyShare is both a product (a share in an aircraft) plus a service (first-class travel concierge), where Jet Card memberships are targeted at flyers of 25 hours or less per year who want a fixed cost and don’t care about ownership benefits. On the backend, the jet card provider’s motivation is to find the lowest price option in order to make the anticipated margin on each trip. There is significant variability in age and quality of the aircraft. Additionally, most jet card programs have 2 levels – aircraft older than year 2000 and aircraft 2000 or newer that are often times no longer manufactured. Service falls into the “not so much” category.