Private Jets Are Scarce. Blame the Gusher of AI Wealth
Silicon Valley’s enormous surge in riches has turbocharged the market for new and used planes, energizing startups that offer innovative ways to gain access to an aircraft.
After Bill Papariella, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.–based entrepreneur, sold his private jet charter business for nearly $1 billion in 2022, he took it easy for a couple years. But as the number of ultrawealthy continued to climb in the U.S., another business idea struck him: a company that offered fractional jet ownership, like NetJets, but with a service designed as an even more premium product.
Last October, he launched Bond, planning a private plane fleet with interiors lined in Loro Piana textiles, custom crystal from French brand Saint-Louis and cabin attendants on every flight. To give Bond a heightened sense of exclusivity, Papariella capped the company’s initial membership at around 100 people, who pay between $1.1 million and $3.5 million a year depending on the aircraft. Its members have an average net worth of $500 million, and about 30% of them hail from Silicon Valley—founders, researchers and engineers at companies like xAI, Anthropic and OpenAI, many of them under the age of 34, Papariella said. (He wouldn’t comment publicly on anyone’s identity.) Flights on a fleet of 20 airplanes will begin in 2027.
“The amount of influx we’ve had from the youth has been something I did not see coming,” said Papariella, speaking from a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea recently. “That’s only happened over the last two months.”