Flying privately means the aircraft waits on you rather than the other way round, and the arrangements on the ground ought to behave in the same fashion. Which comes down to a car standing ready well before you need it, a chauffeur who knows how that particular airfield operates, and no assumption that what happens at Farnborough happens at Luton, because it does not.
Here we set out how private aviation transfers get planned around London and the South East, what each field is like to arrive at and depart from, and, just as much to the point, where the limits of any chauffeur company's promise actually sit. We are an independent chauffeur service and hold no official partnership with any airport, terminal operator or fixed base operator.
London's private aviation airfields
Down in Hampshire, Farnborough is the field most bound up with business aviation into London and was built around it from the ground up. Luton carries a heavy volume of private movements alongside its scheduled traffic, with several handling agents working out of separate facilities, so knowing your handler counts for as much as knowing the airport. Over on the south-eastern edge of London, Biggin Hill is the obvious choice for anybody based in Kent, Surrey or the City.
Closest of all to the financial district is London City, used for smaller aircraft and offering the shortest ground transfer of the lot. Stansted and Northolt each take private movements under arrangements of their own. Which field you use is usually your operator's decision rather than yours, and the transfer time out of central London swings enormously between them, from something near half an hour to well past ninety minutes at the wrong hour.
All that variation is why we ask for the airfield and the handler, not just the town. Two aircraft leaving the same airport inside the same hour can mean entirely different buildings, different entrances and different approach roads, and turning up at the wrong one is a real setback when the whole point of flying was that nothing would keep you waiting.
Airside access is not ours to promise
Plenty of clients expect to be driven right up to the aircraft steps. Sometimes that happens and sometimes it does not, and the call is never ours. Airside vehicle access rests with the airport and the handling agent, granted on their own security and insurance terms, and it shifts by field, by aircraft, by handler and now and then by day. Any chauffeur company guaranteeing it beforehand is overstating its position.
Our own part is plain enough. Where your operator or handler has arranged airside access and confirmed the procedure, we follow it to the letter: the pass, the escort, the route, the timings. Where they have not, we meet you inside the terminal or at the FBO entrance, which at most of these fields amounts to a few dozen steps and no hardship at all.
So the practical upshot is simple. Your operator or your handler makes that arrangement, not us, and we will always say plainly what has been confirmed and what has not rather than let you assume. Where airside access has not been granted, very little is lost. From an FBO door to a waiting car is a matter of seconds, and no more than that.
Departures: how early is early enough
Flying privately shrinks the airport experience down to almost nothing. Most fields will take you fifteen to thirty minutes before departure, and some a good deal less than that. A genuine luxury, certainly. It also means the drive has become the longest and by a distance the least predictable part of the whole business, which changes how we set the departure time.
Departure times get built around the worst traffic that is plausible rather than the average, and twenty minutes in a comfortable FBO lounge beats five minutes watching the M25 refuse to move. Take an early-morning slot and the roads behave, the timings come easily. Take a Friday afternoon departure out of Luton or Farnborough and we will suggest leaving noticeably sooner than the distance would imply.
Slot moved? Let us know the moment you hear. Private aviation slots move often, sometimes by whole hours and now and then the night before, and adjusting a departure in advance is a great deal simpler than salvaging one at short notice. Ten at night suits us a great deal better than seven the following morning, when there is nothing left to move.
Arrivals: what actually happens when you land
Coming in, your chauffeur will be in position ahead of the scheduled landing and will hold at the agreed point until you are through. Planning runs off the published or filed arrival time together with the usual clearance process at that field, not off live tracking, so the most useful thing you can do is message us once you are on the ground.
Should the handler permit it, and should your operator have confirmed the arrangement, the car can come to the aircraft or wait immediately outside the FBO. Where that is not on, your chauffeur stands inside the FBO arrivals area with your bags taken care of and the car a short walk off. Whichever it is, the aim stays the same: from aircraft to a seat in a warm car without a pause.
Late-night arrivals come up often in private aviation, so for those we confirm the chauffeur and the vehicle the evening before and ask for a message once you are on the ground. Nothing gets worked out at one in the morning, and your chauffeur is already in position rather than setting off as you land. Of everything here, it is the easiest to get right.
Luggage, crew and the second car
Luggage on a private flight tends to sit at one extreme or the other: hand baggage for a day trip, or skis, golf bags, sample cases and hard-shell equipment for everything else. Declare either and both are simple. A luxury MPV takes the bulky end without complaint and is often the right call for a family arriving on a light jet with a full week's baggage.
Crew transfers sit apart and repay raising early. Where a second vehicle is wanted for crew, for baggage or for an accompanying party, we quote it alongside the principal car and arrange for both to leave together from the same point. That is often a good deal more elegant than compressing everybody and everything into one vehicle at the aircraft steps.
One last thing: say so if the party might change. Passengers join and drop off private flights far more often than they do scheduled ones, and upgrading a vehicle the night before is a small matter, while the very same request made at the aircraft steps is not. An evening message costs nothing and heads off the one problem we cannot fix on the spot.
