Hurricane? No fear for the Lear jet set.

As Frances bears down on Florida, private planes enlisted
in rescue effort -- if you can afford it.

Peter Kuitenbrouwer
National Post, with files from news services

Saturday, September 04, 2004

While about 2.5 million people jammed highways heading out of south Florida yesterday, fleeing the path of Hurricane Frances, or fought for scants seats on commercial flights, a lucky few took a more comfortable route: chartering their own jet.

Companies like Blue Star Jets, based in New York, were only too happy oblige those who had the cash. The cost ranged from $1,800 to $4,500 an hour, depending on whether the evacuee would settle for a Lear 35 or refused to flee in anything less than a Gulfstream G4.

Those escaping in style did not invite others to fill vacant seats on their jets, however. That is just not done in the world of private travel.

"There's no such thing as shared private aviation", said Howard Moses, a Blue Star spokesman.

"The shame of it is, in an evacuation we would love to see people give up empty seats."

"But that goes against the whole principle of the flexibility, privacy and luxury experience of traveling on your own jet".

Frances weakened yesterday into a strong Category 3 storm packing 190 km/h winds and potential to push ashore waves of up to 4 meters high, and was expected to hit Florida last night.

The state ordered about 2.5 million people to evacuate, the largest in the state's history. Residents crowded shelters, rushed home to fortify their homes with plywood and storm shutters, and waited in line for water, canned food and gas. Others piled into their cars and headed north, joining the bumper-to-bumper traffic clogging the state highways.

"I am a prayerful person and I will pray. I know a lot of other people are praying right now that this storm moves in a different direction.", said Jeb Bush, the Florida Governor.

Meanwhile, close to 75 Canadians remained stranded in the Bahamas after an Air Canada flight, the last scheduled to leave Nassau before the hurricane, failed to take off on Thursday, passengers said.

Irena Karshenbaum, a securities regulator who lives in Calgary, was completing a two week stay at Club Med's Paradise Island on Thursday when the hotel told her to hurry and get ready for an early departure.

"The van drove at breakneck speed to the airport," she said. When she got there, she found the locals boarding the airport's windows and was shocked to see Canadians getting off the Air Canada flight from Toronto.

"They were all hooting and hollering to be arriving in the Bahamas," she said. "They did not realize the seriousness of the situation.". Ms. Karshenbaum and her fellow holidayers then boarded the jet, but it failed to take off because of engine trouble.

Now the Canadians, including the Air Canada flight crew, are holed up at the Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino, on the airline's nickel. The windows are duct-taped shut and the winds are bending the palm trees to horizontal position, Ms. Karshenbaum said.

"Nobody is allowed to go outside. It's raining, there are massive gusts of wind. There are huge waves and gray, gray skies."

"You never think when you plan your vacation that this would happen."

Back in Florida, Blue Star Jets, which has eight offices in the United States and one in Montreal, was doing a roaring business.

"Our office juts lit up with calls", Mr. Moses said. "We filled between 75 and 100 flights."

However, most of the 40 staffers who work for the company in the Boca Raton, Fla, had to find their own way out of the hurricane zone. Asked if any of them caught a private jet, Mr. Moses said, "A couple of them might have, the ones that sell the most, or if they had a client who offered them a seat."