Victor launched today

Victor is a private jetshare community with a membership consisting of high net-worth individuals and business leaders who are fed up with fractional ownership, jet cards and paying over the odds.

Victor offers a price comparison, booking and payment platform to charter private jets on any route at any time. Uniquely, charterers can sell surplus seats on their outboard or returning empty flights to other Victor members – allowing them to simply and easily buy individual seats for a fraction of the cost of a whole jet charter. Through this aggregation of demand Victor is dramatically cutting the cost of private jet travel whilst delivering the highest standards of travel.

Victor’s model will open up private jet travel to a wider audience and, by growing the overall demand, will increase existing revenues for its aircraft operator partners.The business is the brainchild of Clive Jackson, a successful serial entrepreneur who pioneered digital marketing in the UK when he set up Global Beach in 1993.

Jackson, the company founder and chief executive said: “Victor is the world’s first one stop’ quotation, comparison and transactional online platform for chartering aircraft or purchasing a seat and will be a massive game changer for the private aviation industry.”

“Consumers are able to unite and leverage their considerable buying power under one brand and unifying transactional platform and have the freedom to choose and compare quotes from any major operator, to get from more competitive and fairer pricing and ultimately fly for less, by recovering some of their costs.”

“It’s a massive task, but I have done this before in the automotive industry so I know how to make it work.”

Victor had its beta launch in February, has attracted more than 270 members primarily through word of mouth and flown over 60 flights.

It officially launches today with a contracted fleet of over 120 private jets across Europe, through 22 partner aircraft operators covering all major European destinations. Its objective is to operate Europe’s largest fleet by the end of Q3 this year and take its market-changing model global in 2012.

Victor has used its beta phase to stress test its quote, booking and payment system and, with the help of its small but growing membership, enhance and refine its service offering.

Jackson added: “I also wanted to significantly raise the bar on consumer protection and whilst it was important for Victor to get CAA approval and obtain our ATOL License, I felt we should go further as the ATOL scheme only covers passenger on private jets with over 19 seats.”

“Consequently, we introduced an enhanced level of consumer protection guaranteeing that client monies will be protected in a separate HSBC client account and only used to pay operators before a flight. This offers unprecedented peace of mind and financial protection for our members.”

For partner aircraft operators, Victor provides new channels to market with extensive detail of each company and its fleet on one website. And it offers its luxury travel brand partners an extension of their overall service by enabling them to offer private jet travel on a one-stop booking platform.

Jonathan Sumner, Victor’s managing director, says: “When we first took Victor to our prospective aircraft operator companies, naturally we were met with scepticism, as they have all seen a number of poorly thought through empty leg or jet share schemes before.”

“But now, having seen the concept go from inception to launch in just six months and having already generated a significant number of bookings, they are overwhelmingly supportive and enthusiastic. They recognise the considerable investment and thought that lies behind Victor and the great potential for new customers and growth we bring to their business.”

Bernhard Fragner, chief executive of GlobeAir, an aircraft operator partner of Victor based in Linz, Austria, said: “The Victor jetshare concept is a truly transformational and radical innovation in the private jet industry. It will increase the revenues of aircraft operators like myself by driving down the price of travel and opening up private jets to a greater pool of potential users. Within our first week of working with Victor we took our first bookings via their platform.”

Steve Westlake, founder and chief executive of European Skytime based in Farnborough, UK, said: “Working with Victor is a win win for us. In the space of just four months, we’ve taken 14 bookings and operated 12 flights for their members, providing us with new revenue and increasing the utilisation of our aircraft. We look forward to a longstanding business relationship with them.”