Raghav Belavadi, the founder and CEO of Hype Luxury Mobility, recently launched an aircraft rental service following the success of the luxury car rental service. He shares the company’s plans for the new venture with BusinessLine:

What has been the initial response to the launch of the private jet rental service?

We have just done a soft launch. But the response so far has been encouraging. It is quite convenient, especially for business travellers. About 80 per cent of the demand is from business people as of now.

How different it from travelling in the commercial jets of regular airlines?

Almost everything is customised for the travellers starting with the food menu. Once the payment is done, customers are picked up from their home or office and taken up to the aircraft. As far as Bengaluru is concerned, one doesn’t have to go to the international airport. These jets take off from the HAL airport which is inside the city.

There are quite a few companies that are already into this business. What distinguishes you from the rest?

We are more like a super aggregator. We are an aggregator of aggregators. This way, the pricing is much more competitive and we end up having a larger fleet to choose from. So, we have access to about 100 aircraft because we work with more than one partner.

So, how competitive is the pricing?

For a private jet, it can be as low as ₹1.5 lakh or even ₹1 lakh for a helicopter. It can go up to ₹6-7 lakh depending on the type of aircraft the customer wants. Renting out a Gulfstream will obviously cost more.

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