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California, Texas ‘all-you-can-fly’ airlines merge

Surf Air offers private aircraft flights around California. (Image: Surf Air)

Small airlines in California and Texas that use a similar business model – charging a monthly membership fee for “all-you-can-fly” service – are merging.

Santa Monica-based Surf Air said it has acquired Texas-based Rise; Surf Air offers small private aircraft flights in intra-California markets, and Rise does the same in Texas.

 The company said that together, Surf Air and Rise will operate 445 flights a week to 17 destinations.

The companies will also add new markets: “As part of the agreement, the combined entities also announced plans to quickly expand to additional markets within the next 18 months,” Surf Air said, including Las Vegas, Nev.; Bentonville, Ark. (home of Walmart headquarters); Midland, Tex. (a major energy center); New Orleans, La.; Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Taos, N.M. Certain membership levels will also qualify for weekend service to leisure destinations like Cabo San Lucas, Aspen and Sun Valley, the company said.

A Rise King Air 200. (Image: Rise)

The Rise brand will be changed to Surf Air, and “a new fleet of Surf Air aircraft will be brought to Texas to fly the scheduled Rise routes between Dallas, Austin, Houston and San Antonio,” Surf Air said.

Destinations currently served by Surf Air include the Los Angeles area (Hawthorne and Burbank), Santa Barbara, the Bay Area (Oakland, San Carlos and San Jose), Napa Valley, Truckee/Lake Tahoe, San Diego, Carlsbad, Palm Springs and Monterey. The carrier operates up to 90 flights a day in California.

Surf Air said that after the merger is complete, it expects to link up its California and Texas networks. A Surf Air membership starts at $1,950 a month. Both companies also offer “block pricing” that allows travelers to purchase a package of a specific number of flights without committing to a monthly membership.

The company has set up a page on its website  where members and prospective members can vote on specific new routes they’d like to see added to the existing network.

To find out more, you can check out the “frequently asked questions” sections on the websites of Surf Air and Rise.

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Getting easier to fly private (ish)

The team at Beacon celebrates the launch of Boston-New York all-you-can-fly service. (Image: Beacon)

The team at Beacon celebrates the launch of Boston-New York all-you-can-fly service. (Image: Beacon)

The northeast is the latest region to welcome a members-only air service that allows unlimited travel for a monthly fee; meanwhile, similar companies in Texas and California are adding more route options.

The new entrant in the northeast is called Beacon (www.flybeacon.com), which this week started operations between New York’s suburban Westchester Airport and Boston Logan. Members who ante up $2,000 a month can take advantage of Beacon’s 18 daily flights in the busy market. Reservations are required, but members can change or cancel flights up to 20 minutes before departure with no fees or penalties.

Three of Beacon’s four founders were involved in launching California’s Surf Air, which pioneered the all-you-can-fly concept. “The route between Boston and New York is among the most traveled in the U.S., yet there’s no way to get between the two cities in under two hours. Today, we are proud to be changing that and serving this unmet need for business travelers on the East Coast,” the company said in a statement. According to Beacon’s website, it also plans to offer seasonal service to vacation destinations including Nantucket and New York‘s Hamptons on eastern Long Island.

Beacon recently signed a deal with Dynamic Aviation to provide 27 “mid-sized executive aircraft” over the next three years. It did not identify the specific aircraft models.

In Texas, meanwhile, an all-you-can-fly operator called Rise (www.iflyrise.com) recently added new flights between Houston Hobby and Austin, giving it regular service all across the so-called Texas Triangle. In July, it started up between Dallas Love Field-Houston and Dallas-Austin.

Rise has a three-tier fee schedule for members, starting at $1,650 a month. It claims to save members up to three hours of travel time for any of its trips. Rise uses eight-passenger King Air 350 twin-engine aircraft. The company sells memberships to individuals in Houston, Dallas, Austin and Midland, Tex.

And California’s Surf Air (www.surfair.com), which offers its members all-you-can-fly service between various airports in the northern and southern parts of the state, is adding even more routes. This week it launched service between Oakland and Burbank, and it plans to begin Oakland-Palm Springs flights on November 5.  Last month, Surf Air started flying between Sacramento and Santa Barbara and from Sacramento to Hawthorne Airport, on the west side of Los Angeles just three and a half miles from LAX. Surf Air memberships start at $1,750 a month.

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