JumpSeat offers seats on chartered planes - if you pass the interview

Imagine flying to Las Vegas on a private jet for a little more than $500.

It might be possible - provided you pass the interview stage.

A new service called JumpSeat seeks to pair spontaneous travelers with wealthier individuals and families who have already chartered a plane but want to lower their costs. The idea is to fill seats that otherwise would go empty without greatly changing the experience.

But you can't just buy a ticket and board the plane. For now, founder and chief executive Justin Sullivan or one of his colleagues interviews all prospective passengers. The goal: to ensure the extra travelers don't bother whoever paid $4,000 or $10,000 or $50,000 to charter the plane. Often, that means keeping conversation to a minimum.

"Ultimately, it is a social exercise," Sullivan said. "It is going to be a cultural phenomenon. But part of building community is instilling a sense of proper etiquette. "

Massachusetts-based JumpSeat, which has been offering the service for about a month, is one of a handful of relatively new operations that seeks to open private jet travel to more people.

Most of the new entrants seek to remedy inefficiencies in the jet market, in which planes often fly either empty during repositioning flights or with many unfilled seats. Many of JumpSeat's competitors have generally focused on renting entire jets for cheaper-than-market prices, rather than individual seats. JumpSeat offers customers both options.

Sullivan, a seven-year veteran of the private jet industry, said it is wrong to assume charter customers have unlimited funds and don't worry about spending. Even many wealthier customers jump at the chance to save money, especially if they can do it by carrying a couple of passengers that they'll hardly see once on board.

"What we have found is that if they don't have to compromise anything else - they can still pick their equipment, they still don't have to deal with the TSA, they can still select their itinerary - they are willing to share empty seats on their aircraft if it offsets their costs," he said.

David Rosenblum, a Florida-based businessman, said he used JumpSeat recently to rent out two seats of an eight-seat Cessna Citation X for a flight between Miami and Van Nuys. JumpSeat took a cut of his take - that's how the company makes money - but he still made out well on the deal.

"Basically, I got $10,000 back," Rosenblum said. "They were a nice couple. They didn't really talk a whole lot. We sat in one area, and they sat in the other. For four people on an eight-passenger plane, there's plenty of room. "

At most airports, private jets passengers don't go through security, which means JumpSeat needs to be careful about whom it selects to fly. The company advertises that it does background checks on passengers and checks names against the federal government's current no-fly list.

Sullivan also wants to ensure his passengers are relatively well behaved. He does not, for example, want to sell a seat to a financial planner whose main goal is to pitch a product to a wealthy person who chartered the plane.

"This comes up all the time," Sullivan said. "People ask, 'How do I know my counter party is someone I want to share a plane with?' We want to get some basic level of comfort for people we are going to essentially vouch for. "

Sullivan likens his site to Airbnb, which allows people to rent out rooms, apartments and houses to travelers. Many of the prices on that wildly popular site, operational in 192 countries, go for less than the price of a hotel room.

Richard P. Rumelt, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, called JumpSeat's business model intriguing but expressed skepticism about how the company might attract regular customers.

"Typically, the value proposition of a private jet is the flexibility - I get to go where I want to go when I want," Rumelt said. "But if you schedule it like a commercial airline, I don't see what the value is - at least the value that might be repeated. I can see people doing it once. "

Take March 31, when two seats are available from Los Angeles International Airport to Eagle, Colo., near popular ski destinations, for $5,000. That's a great deal for a flight on an eight-seat Cessna Citation X, but the cost is far greater than the price of a first-class ticket. And since the plane will leave at some point between 9 and 11:30 a.m. and has no return leg, it's only appropriate for adventurous travelers with lots of disposable income.

For JumpSeat to become less of a social experiment and more of a money-making enterprise, it may need to build up its network between major cities. It could work well on routes where there is considerable private jet travel, such as between Van Nuys and Las Vegas. If Sullivan can sign up enough customers who have planes, he might be able to offer seats on several flights to Las Vegas in one day, giving fliers choices.

And with the flight to Las Vegas so short, the price would be considerably lower.

Sullivan said users might be able to find a last-minute seat to Las Vegas, perhaps on a four-seat light jet, for somewhere between $500 and $800.

"As the community builds to a critical mass," he said, "you'll be able to set your watch to the notion that you will be able to hop on a JumpSeat. "

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