The much celebrated “Uber for Private Jets”, BlackJet has ceased operations.
Launched in 2012, Blackjet promised to plug the gap that was absent in the on-demand ecosystem. It even had the likes of Ashton Kutcher, Jay Z’s Roc Nation, Marc Benioff, Tim Ferriss and even Uber co-founder Garrett Camp, backing it.
BlackJet offered private jet seat booking and its private jet seat service was said to be the perfect complement to fractional jet ownership programs and private jet charter. BlackJet was not an owner or operator of aircraft. Flights were provided by professional aircraft operators who were authorized by the FAA and DOT to provide on demand air charter service for hire. BlackJet handled the booking, concierge, logistics and membership services related to the private jet seat service and private jet charter offerings.
Blackjet required an annual membership plan which meant jet-setters would pay to get access to their network of private jets to book a flight.
Along the way though, BlackJet repeatedly hit turbulence between massive layoffs and a service suspension in 2013.
In Business Insider’s discussion with Clive Jackson the CEO of Victor, which claims to be the world’s fastest-growing on-demand private jet charter company and has raised more than $24 million investment to date, Jackson said that “Uber for airplane” operators who try to operate shuttle services should “really go and talk to O’Leary [CEO of Ryanair] or Stelios [owner of EasyJet] about how to do shuttle. Intrinsically, they are not flying small planes, they are flying larger planes with more seats.”
In an interview with Fortune, BlackJet CEO Dean Rotchin cited investment problems for his company’s ceasing of operations. “We probably did more with less than anyone but it’s a critical mass business. There’s a reason why ‘critical’ is part of ‘critical mass’.”
Rotchin also blamed an article from TechCrunch last month that inaccurately prematurely reported the company had shut down for accelerating the BlackJet’s closure.
