Intrav Initiates On-Board Makeover for Private Jet Trips

Intrav, relaunched last year by Barney Ebsworth, the original founder of the luxury tour operator in 1959, launched a $4 million upgrade that will include installing flat bed seats in the Boeing 757-200ER aircraft it is using for private jet trips.

The operator also extended its agreement with Icelandair, from which it leases the aircraft, from three to five years.

Intrav, reincarnated as a private jet specialist, is offering private jet tours using the Boeing 757s reconfigured to carry only 50 passengers in business class seats. With only 50 seats on an aircraft that normally accommodates closer to 200, it creates a first class environment throughout the aircraft. It’s a rarely used configuration that required Intrav to work with Icelandair engineers to bring the vision to realization.

“The flat-bed, side-by-side seats are incredibly rare for narrow body planes,” said Gudni Hreinsson, managing director of Loftleidir Icelandic, the charter and leasing arm of Icelandair Group, “and the many investments Intrav is making to the aircraft will create the ultimate in-air experience for guests.”

The private jet tour is designed to take air travel from the commodity level of service it has fallen into in mass market air travel, and re-introduce it as an experience of luxury and comfort. It makes it possible to travel to a large number of destinations in a relatively short time with much less travel fatigue than usual.

The private jet model of travel also provides some relief from the airport hassles by consolidating immigration and security procedures and baggage retrieval whenever possible. The aircraft is staffed with on-board concierges who

The company expects to have the aircraft completed in time for its first new series of private jet trips coming up next fall.

The first of Intrav’s new private jet tours will be a 25-day Timeless Destinations package departing Sept. 8 with stops in Rio de Janeiro, Easter Island, Bora Bora, Sydney, Myanmar, the Taj Majal and Jaipur, Istanbul and Marrakech.

The second program on the calendar is a 25-day Amazing Places Around the World journey departing Oct. 5 with stops in Lima, Cuzco and Machu Picchu, Tahiti, Australia's Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest, Bali, Angkor Wat, Dubai, St. Petersburg and Biarritz.