Private aviation is often discussed in terms of time savings, flexibility, and access.
All of those things matter. But every once in a while, a trip comes along that shows what that flexibility can actually make possible.
We recently helped arrange one of those trips.
A client was celebrating a birthday with a small group of family and friends, and they had an unusual idea: visit the Rose & Crown in London and the Rose & Crown at EPCOT in Orlando on the same day.
They began at the Rose & Crown in London, where the group raised a glass together as part of the birthday celebration.
Then they headed back to the aircraft, crossed the Atlantic, and continued the celebration at Walt Disney World in Florida, where EPCOT’s United Kingdom pavilion has its own Rose & Crown Pub.
London to Orlando.
Rose & Crown to Rose & Crown.
Two pints, two continents, one birthday — all in the same day.
Sometimes the Destination Isn’t the Point
There are plenty of practical reasons people choose private aviation.
A business traveler may need to visit several cities on a schedule that simply doesn’t work with airline service. A family may want to reach a destination without spending much of the day making connections. International travelers may have complicated itineraries where controlling departure times and routing becomes particularly valuable.
But sometimes the objective isn’t efficiency in the conventional sense.
Sometimes it starts with a question:
Could we actually do this?
That’s what I like about this particular trip.
It wasn’t simply about getting from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. The journey itself was part of the celebration.
Someone came up with an idea for a birthday that would have been extraordinarily difficult to accomplish using conventional transportation. Private aviation gave them the ability to build the travel around the experience rather than build the experience around an airline schedule.
For those of us working behind the scenes, that’s where the interesting part begins.
Turning an Idea Into an Itinerary
People sometimes see the aircraft as the defining element of private aviation.
From an operator’s perspective, the aircraft is only one piece of the puzzle.
A trip like this requires coordinating departure times, airports, international operations, ground transportation, crew requirements, and all the other details necessary to keep an ambitious itinerary moving.
When everything works properly, the passengers shouldn’t have to think very much about any of that.
They should be thinking about the birthday.
That’s part of the job.
Our team at Short Hills Aviation supports a wide range of missions, from straightforward business travel to complex international itineraries. Every mission is different, and sometimes the request that initially sounds a little unusual turns into one of the trips everyone remembers.
This was certainly one of those.
Travel Should Give You Stories to Tell
World Tourism Day is a good reminder that travel isn’t really about collecting airports or checking destinations off a list.
It’s about experiences.
Sometimes that means spending several weeks exploring another country.
Sometimes it’s a long-awaited family vacation.
And apparently, sometimes it’s having a pint at the Rose & Crown in London and deciding the next one ought to be at the Rose & Crown in Orlando.
I’ve worked in aviation for a long time, and I’ve seen some interesting itineraries.
This one is going to be difficult to beat.
— Jeff Dolan
Short Hills Aviation