An all-you-can-fly service takes off

The airspace between traditional business jet access models (charter, fractional ownership, and jet cards) and first-class airline travel has been active lately, even if there’s not much to show for it. But while some would-be per-seat charter providers and fledgling “flight club” programs appear to be in a holding pattern, one alternative operator in California has quickly taken off: Surf Air, which offers more than a dozen scheduled daily flights between off-the-hub airports in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

“It’s an all-you-can-fly club,” says CEO Jeff Potter, who was Frontier Airlines’ CEO during its early growth years. “You pay a monthly fee, and you get to fly as much as you want during that month.”

Using the Swiss-built, seven-passenger Pilatus PC-12 single-engine turboprop, Surf Air’s flights operate from plush private aviation terminals at smaller airports around San Francisco and Silicon Valley, including L.A.’s Hawthorne Municipal and Burbank; Santa Barbara Municipal; and San Carlos Airport. Parking is free and passengers can arrive 15 minutes before the flight and receive concierge service. (They don’t have to undergo security screening since it isn’t required for commercial flights on aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of  less than 12,500 pounds.) A rental car or taxi will be waiting steps away at the other end if requested.

Since commencing operations in June of last year, Surf Air has developed a devoted membership that credits the service with helping to grow businesses and enhance lives.

“I wouldn’t have envisioned expanding in L.A. so rapidly,” says Heather Rafter, an attorney in Portola who counsels small businesses. “At least 50 percent of my client base is now in L.A., and I love it.” Rafter drives 15 minutes to San Carlos Airport for a flight to Hawthorne several times a week after dropping her daughter at school. “My clients can meet me at the [Hawthorne] airport. We use the conference room [in the private aviation terminal],” she says, adding that she recently toted along snowboarding gear from home for her son, who’s attending college in the area. “I feel like Wonder Woman,” she says.

Surf Air assesses a one-time $500 membership fee plus monthly dues ranging from $1,599 to $2,999, depending on the number of “flight passes” in the member’s plan (two, four, six, or eight). Friends and Family memberships cost $1,499 to $2,899 monthly, also depending on the number of flight passes. Each pass is good for one flight booking, and once the flight is concluded, another can be booked. There are no cancellation fees. Surf Air likens its offerings to Netflix, which lets you watch as many movies as you want but limits the number you can request at any one time.

“We have not seen members who join and fly 20 times in a month,” says Potter, pointing to research showing that rather than binge flying, customers seem satisfied simply “knowing they have that flexibility” to fly when they want to.

“I travel a quarter-million miles a year,” says Richard Torin, a wine merchant in Santa Barbara who flies Surf Air to San Carlos to connect to Hong Kong flights from San Francisco, and also to visit his son at U.C. Berkeley. “I have no desire to do any more local traveling than I have to.”

Balancing supply and demand is critical to Surf Air’s success. Membership, which now exceeds 400, has been limited to avoid system overload, and applicants are selected in part according to their reported travel needs. (There’s currently a waiting list to join.) Tom and Martha Ritchey of San Ramon—he’s the founder of Ritchey Design, a pioneering mountain-bike manufacturer—fly about weekly to check on a house they’re building in Santa Barbara. “We hardly ever find ourselves in a jam to need more” flight passes than the two they each have, Martha says.

For some members, Surf Air is simply Airline 2.0. For more than 20 years, former San Carlos mayor Sally Mitchell commuted weekly from her law office in San Carlos to her home in Los Angeles on Southwest Airlines, flying out of San Jose. “Southwest was a wonderful partnership for all those many years,” she says, “but the convenience of this [membership] is irreplaceable.” Mitchell adds that Surf Air costs “about the same” as Southwest, considering the eliminated parking expenses and the reduced wear and tear on her car—not to mention the time saved.

Surf Air’s initial success stands in contrast to other recent efforts to launch airline-alternative services. Arrow Flight Club, which had been slated to commence an all-you-can-fly service between Seattle and San Francisco in 2013, is retooling its offering and plans “to be operational this year,” the company says. Services that aim to sell individual seats aboard chartered aircraft on a per-flight basis have also stumbled. The “jet sharing” program announced by Massachusetts-based JumpSeat in 2013 appears dormant, and the company didn’t respond to inquiries regarding the service. GreenJets, which changed its name to Blackjet in 2012 as part of an expansion effort, has suspended its per-seat offering. Blackjet CEO Dean Rotchin says not enough potential per-seat customers are familiar with the model. “We need budgets to create awareness, and we’re raising that money now,” he says.

Meanwhile, Surf Air added service to Las Vegas and Truckee Tahoe this spring without increasing its three-aircraft fleet, which has caused some customers concern.

“To expand, they’ve made some adjustments to the schedule and had to take away some flights,” says Rafter. “We, as members, are enamored of the schedules that enticed us [to join].”

The company will add more aircraft “in the later summer or early fall,” Potter says. “The foundation is set, and now we’re entering chapter two.”

James Wynbrandt is a private pilot and a regular contributor to BJT. A version of this article first appeared in Barron’s.