Jet pooling takes off among Shanghai's high flyers

Wang, a senior employee with a Shanghai finance company, recently took his wife and daughter on a holiday to Thailand. Theirs was no ordinary flight.

Wang's family and the families of two friends pooled their resources to rent a nine-seat Legacy 450 business jet.

They arrived at the Hongqiao International Airport two hours before their scheduled takeoff, finished all the exit procedures in only 30 minutes and were told their private jet could take off any time they wanted.

"I always thought that corporate jets were the realm only of billionaires," said Wang. "But we found out that the price of renting a private jet, divided up among several people, is actually about the same as flying first class commercially."

Wang and other people who take advantage of "jet pooling" are reluctant to give their full names. Many refuse to talk about it at all. In the midst of a national government crackdown on ostentatious lifestyles, no one is keen to test the boundaries of "living too high on the hog."

Like car pooling was once, jet pooling has become a popular new trend. For those who can afford it, a hiring a corporate jet is well worth the cost. It's private, convenient and a bit of a novelty.

Since June, seven jet pool business planes have taken off from the Hongqiao airport bound for holiday destinations like Thailand and the Maldives, said Chen Tao, an official with the Hongqiao airport immigration inspection station.

Business jets passengers seem to enjoy faster exit processing. Their aircraft can take off at any interval between two commercial flights, Chen said, and apart from bad weather, there are few delays.

"It will normally take less than 30 minutes for a business jet passenger to complete exit procedures, compared with up to two hours for commercial flights," Chen said.

Like Wang, most of those who rent private jets are senior employees in Shanghai multinational corporations — the so-called "golden-collar" workers with monthly salaries of 50,000 yuan (US$8,128) or more, Chen said.