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Article: Travel Special: How to join the high-fliers Affordable fun? No thanks. Stephen Bayley says it's time you joined the jet set - or at least got in with the Smart crowd
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- January 20, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2002 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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I was sitting at lunch next to one of those American billionaires
and the chatter turned to the matter of that afternoon's trip to New
York. "Oh yes," I said engagingly, "and what time does your flight
leave?" He turned to me with a look of pity that blurred into blank
incomprehension. After a designed-to-be-humiliating pause he said,
"My flight goes when I tell the pilot we go."
To enjoy the best of travel you need your own plane and I don't
mean a puttering Cessna 17. A propeller plane is very low-church. No,
you need a proper jet and the one plutocrats favour, the beasts
seasonally stacked over East Hampton in a helix of conspicuous
consumption, are Gulfstreams: this is what Learjets ...