VistaJet CEO Thomas Flohr announced earlier in this month that he is establishing Vista Global Holding to secure his variety of aviation industry ventures, which includes aircraft leasing and financing company Vista Lease, aviation tech firm TechX. The last is of course VistaJet, which offers global membership and on-demand air service to 187 countries around the world.
Vista Global Holding was originally planned to be based in Dubai and received a $200 million investment from the Rhône Group private equity firm. Now, a few weeks later, the primary reason became crystal clear as Vista Global Holding announced the purchase of XOJET, the largest on-demand charter brand in North America. The time of this purchase couldn’t be any more perfect as both VistaJet and XOJET experienced double-digit growth in the first half of the year, with VistaJet touting a 32-percent increase of participants in its membership program and XOJET reporting a 12 percent increase in total revenue, according to Robb Report.
Vista Global noted the air carrier wing of XOJET will continue to be independently operated under United States control and leadership, which is a requirement from the Department of Transportation. Therefore, customers of the carrier will not be noticing too many immediate changes as a result of the purchase. However, for Vista Global this purchase is a major deal allowing the company access to some of the cutting-edge technology developed by XOJET. Some of the technology includes programs driven by machine learning to determine pricing in real time.
Vista Global will also gain access to XOJET’s fleet of 43 super-midsize jets including Cessna Citation Xs and Bombardier 300s. The most important of all is that this acquisition will assist Vista Global in making inroads that lead to the U.S. market, which makes up more than 70 percent of the global private jet flights every year.
The recent announcement provided by VistaJet CEO Thomas Flohr, comes shortly after the announcement of Directional Aviation taking over PrivateFly, adding to its portfolio that already includes FlexJet and Sentient Jet. Will the market consolidation benefit consumers? Only time will tell, but there’s already speculations that the luxurious touches that distinguish private air travel will begin to fade as providers continue to expand.
