The rich, as F. Scott Fitzgerald noted in his short story The Rich Boy, “are different from you and me.”
Those capable of renting private jets, yachts, or even islands are certainly having a very different coronavirus pandemic to the rest of the Western world, whose inhabitants, for the most part, are shivering at home under leaden winter skies.
Even if we wanted to go anywhere, there are hardly any flights. But for the rich, there has never been a better time to travel. As one luxury travel broker told The Daily Beast: “If you can get to wherever you want to go, you have the place all to yourself.”
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It may be for this reason that not traveling appears to be the last thing on the mind of many of the planet’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
Take, for example, the case of Petra Ecclestone, billionaire heiress to the Formula 1 fortune built up by her father Bernie.
Ecclestone and her fiancé Sam Palmer and her four kids have, in the past year, hopscotched around the globe from London to Croatia to Los Angeles, then Switzerland, France, Monaco and the Maldives and then back to Monaco.
In what could only be described as a post-ironic summary of her motivations, Petra told The Times of London “We’re very Covid-conscious. We’ve flown completely around the world to try and miss it.”
Ecclestone, who sold her LA home for over $100 million in 2019, said: “I’m a huge hypochondriac. I hate germs and anything that I’m not in 100 per cent control over gives me anxiety. So this whole virus... it scares me and it isn’t great for my anxiety.”
Her fiancé told the same interviewer that the rich who flaunt their pandemic travels shouldn’t be judged. Apparently as ready with a tin-eared quote as his fiancée, Palmer said: “Pre-coronavirus there were people starving in the world. Everyone was still posting pictures of food... It’s like the world has to pretend there isn’t wealth anymore.”
Palmer added that the couple’s new podcast (can’t wait!) shows that despite it all, they really are, “very normal people.”
The extraordinary thing is that in their circles, this kind of behavior absolutely is normal.
Private jet bookings, which crashed, along with all other aviation, to around 10 percent of normal volumes in March and April last year, have bounced back in a way that commercial airlines could only dream of.
Fractional jet ownership company NetJets, for example, said in a recent update that it is consistently operating at 85 percent of typical flight demand, and that leisure travel, which used to be 60 percent of their business, is now 80 percent.
It’s the same story at VistaJet, which operates on a “pay for hours flown” fare structure.
Thomas Flohr, founder and chairman, told The Daily Beast he expects “private aviation” to play a “critical and growing role” in global connectivity. VistaJet says it saw a 29 percent increase in new subscription memberships in 2020, “the fastest rate since the Company’s foundation.”
Germaphobia, as one might imagine, has a big part to play. Flohr said: “One of the key draws for new members in the current climate is the small number of touch-points when flying private—20 as opposed to 700 when flying commercial.”
Asked what were the most popular routes of the pandemic era, Flohr said that one noticeable trend is “an increase in domestic travel” in North America.
Indeed, Four Seasons Resorts in Hawaii are actively promoting a new offering in which the territory’s five luxury resorts have partnered with full-service private aviation company Jet Edge to offer a new private flight service.
If that’s not quite exclusive and bio-secure enough for you then perhaps consider the logical next step of booking out an entire private island all to yourself.
Velaa private island in the Maldives, for example, has remained open throughout the pandemic. It was once booked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman for a days-long blowout; in the book Blood and Oil, authors Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck described how the prince flew in prostitutes from around the world to entertain his guests.
Several other super-premium resorts in the Maldives say they have seen astonishing booking numbers from their wealthy clientele.
The FT recently reported for example, that Soneva Fushi and its sister resort, also in the Maldives, Soneva Jani, enjoyed their most successful November ever in 2020 with room occupancy up 16 per cent on November 2019 and revenue up 45 per cent.
In December, occupancy was up 14 per cent compared to the previous year and revenue was up 50 per cent, which the FT attributes to “guests booking more expensive room types and spending more on food and drinks during their stay.”
Room rates start at a very chunky $2,270 per night at Soneva Fushi; $3,690 at Soneva Jani.
Not all resorts have weathered the storm, even in the Maldives, which has made a virtue of being open for business. Twenty-five of 166 resorts are still closed and overall, national visitor numbers are still down on pre-pandemic levels by 43 percent, the FT says.
If you can’t afford to take the whole place and an island resort has you panicking about germs, then a yacht may be the perfect solution.
Jamie Edmiston, CEO of the eponymous yacht brokerage Edmiston, told The Daily Beast: “There is a very strong demand for charter, although there is of course still an eye on COVID. We’re seeing this demand right through the size and price range.”
Edmiston said a key trend from his clientele is for longer stays: “This follows on from what we saw in 2020. Initially it went quiet but it ultimately ended up being a good year, partly because people took boats for longer. We are seeing the same this year; people who might have booked for a week are booking for two weeks, people who booked for a month are taking two months. Clients are extending their stays.”
In this they are aided by the fact that WFY is considerably easier these days due to modern communications systems.
Incredibly, January 2021 was the busiest January on record for yacht sales according to Stewart Campbell, editor-in-chief of Boat International magazine which publishes Boat Pro, a brokerage market intelligence tool.
“January was an extraordinary month. Thirty-six superyachts were sold on the brokerage market, the most for the month of January since we’ve been collecting records.
“December 2020 was even better. Fifty-seven superyachts were sold on the brokerage market, the second best month for superyacht sales in over a decade (and probably ever). The only month that beat it was May 2017 when 59 yachts were sold. Superyacht sales are on an absolute tear at the moment.”
“You cannot get any more bio-secure than on a yacht,” Edmiston said. “All the crew are in quarantine, and you are in your own biosphere, so you have got complete freedom on the boat. That is one of the great appeals of a yacht at the moment.”
No man, the poet John Donne said, is an island—although the super-rich are trying their hardest to disprove that notion in the era of COVID.
