Elite Traveler Summer 2022

etr li at ve eler SUMMER 2022 59

Greg Rai ff CEO, Private Jet Services Group

When Private Jet Services Group announced in 2019 it would include carbon o ff sets in its pricing, it impacted more than individual private jet fl yers. The New Hampshire-based company’s core business is large group charters for teams that have won over a dozen Stanley Cups, 10World Series and hundreds of NCAA championships. The entertainers it fl ies have accumulated 139 Grammy Awards and 108 MTV VMAs, including The Rolling Stones and Beyoncé. Founder and CEO Greg Rai ff talks about helping make our favorite sports teams and performers green. How did your program come about? We started on a voluntary basis in 2016, and we decided the only way to have a meaningful e ff ort was to invest the cost into the program ourselves rather than asking customers to do it. The hard part about sustainability in private aviation is that the extraordinary people we support are making their own signi fi cant contributions. It wasn’t that people were unwilling. Not one of the RFPs mandates us to run these programs. It was just an ine ffi cient use of everyone’s time to have it as part of the discussion; hence, making it part of our proposals. We have grown fi vefold in the last six years, and I believe some of that is attributable to consumers

of private aviation voting for companies that have been proactive. It’s a competitive business, so you can’t necessarily just add the cost of o ff sets and win business. Taking the costs out of pro fi ts was the only way for me to go home at night and look at my kids. Is there a reason your benefactor programs are all US-based? We do signi fi cant business supporting multiple political campaigns, and their fl ights are supported by American donors. We fl y half of the NHL’s US teams. Sports teams tend to be very community-focused. It just seemed to make sense that the reforestation projects were happening on US soil. It makes themmuch more expensive, because labor here is more expensive than what you often see in projects elsewhere. Since you include o ff sets in your quotes, have any customers asked you to take them out to reduce the cost? Some clients have asked us if we could lower the price and eliminate carbon o ff sets, and we’ve politely declined, and I think the good news is we still won those contracts. pjsgroup.com

Clive Jackson Founder and Chairman, Victor

Victor is not one of the largest players in the industry. A broker, it neither owns nor operates any aircraft. That hasn’t stopped its founder and chairman, Clive Jackson, from being one of the industry’s loudest voices regarding sustainability, speaking out to the media with a message that the industry needs to do more. The serial entrepreneur tells us why he has been so vocal and how things have changed. What was the reaction when you began highlighting the industry’s role in global warming back in 2017? From the get-go, a large proportion of the industry wasn’t particularly supportive because we had called out the industry, including ourselves. It was not the sort of thing that won a lot of applause. I’m now hugely encouraged by the more forward thinking leaders and their e ff orts to create sustainable, meaningful programs — for which I have nothing but applause and admiration. This isn’t a one-man crusade. We can talk to the customers who fl y in our planes, who are the opinion makers, and draw it to their attention.

Previously, companies were afraid customers didn’t want to hear this — you don’t want to rock the boat. What should the industry be doing next? It doesn’t stop here. In 2019, when we threw down the gauntlet (by including double carbon o ff sets in pricing), we asked the visionaries to follow suit. I happily praise Vista, NetJets and Directional for doing that. Where we are in 2022 is a far cry from where we were then. Beyond them, we need to make sure that companies making claims substantiate them. We called for companies to publish how many fl ights, what was the fuel burn and what they did to o ff set that, dollars spent on carbon o ff sets, dollars spent on SAF, dollars spent on the contrails. I think that’s a very important next step forward. It’s an uncomfortable step because you can see how much business a company is doing right away. [The industry] needs to demonstrate to people looking in, who might think we are greenwashing, that we actually walk the talk. fl yvictor.com