Directional Aviation acquires PrivateFly in booking platform expansion
PrivateFly was acquired today by Directional Aviation to form one of the world’s largest online booking platforms for private jet travel.
In a deal which is likely to reshape the consolidation of the digital on-demand private airplane market, Hertfordshire-based Private Fly will be taken over after 11 years after it was first launched.
Onesky, the broker arm of Cleveland-based Directional Aviation, has fashioned itself as a pioneer of the aviation technology revolution in the last two decades.
PrivateFly co-founder Carol Cork told City A.M. that the company’s growth is down to a growing trend of “people using private aviation who have been keen to look at private jet travel just as they would with booking car hires or flights”.
Cork said: "When we launched in 2008, the start of the global downturn, people thought we were absolutely nuts launching a platform for private jet travel bang smack in the middle of a crash, but the market for private jets since has been growing significantly".