Alfred Rapetti, former chairman of Avantair has launched a new venture that seeks to mate airline affordability with business jet seating and convenience. Tapping a nationwide network of existing charter firms, Rapetti’s Business Jet Seats, Inc. saw its “soft launch” in July, acting in association with Earthjet and allowing passengers to book by the seat, instead of by the aircraft. Business Jet Seats owns and operates exactly zero aircraft. A major factor in the business model is profiling the travel patterns of target passengers and finding seat availability to match that demand. For that, Rapetti has special software that acts as a market simulation tool, allowing his business to understand demand in a geographic sense. While the price of a flight through Business Jet Seats may be more on par with last minute business class airfares, the “product” could save a special slice of the market from the headache of modern airline travel and roughly 50 percent of the cost (when compared to chartering an aircraft). Now, Rapetti’s business has an exclusive arrangement as the only per-seat charter offering on CharterX.com. Rapetti says his first month of business saw 4,000 travel inquiries.
