OneJet 7 seater flies you direct with a first-class experience, at as little as 10% more than airliner's indirect coach flight

Posted by Paul Braren on Mar 5 2017 (updated on Mar 6 2018) in

I recently had two days of last-minute back-to-back business commitments where the only viable way to get from the my hometown airport BDL (Hartford CT) to PIT (Pittsburgh PA) was a late afternoon, direct flight. The only such flight I found was on OneJet, so the roughly 20% price uplift versus a much longer connecting flight on a big carrier was acceptable. The amount of difference varies. This article's focus is to share the fun of my experience with this new little carrier (not an airline) that's unlike any other. In a good way!

This isn't a charter plane with a single propeller, which can have insurance implications, and usually not allowed for corporate travel. It's a regular jet, just smaller, with two engines, and a better experience overall.

Travelogue

There is no baggage check-in stop needed if you're not carrying much. Just proceed with your luggage, heading right to the shorter First Class security line (learned this later), then onward to the gate. Feb 15 2017 was my very first experience with OneJet, flying from Hartford CT to Pittsburgh PA on Wednesday evening, February 15 2017, back again the next afternoon.

OneJet-board-pass-by-email-by-Paul-Braren-on-Feb-15-2017-for-TinkerTry.PNG

Soon after I arrived at the waiting area by the gate, a polite orange-vested OneJet guy introduces himself to me, eyeballs my boarding pass that I had ready on my phone (no app, just an emailed QR code), then offers to bring my one luggage item to his collection area, right near the exit where we soon headed down stairs as a group of just 7. Yes, nothing like a normal airline experience, and the OneJet website even boasts:

Board faster. Later. With no hassle.
Boarding remains open until five minutes prior to departure, minimizing your wait time and maximizing your day's time.

We climb aboard, unassigned seating. I of course take the first seat up front, right behind the cockpit. My brother had flown OneJet a few months earlier, and tipped me off to this airline with no doors to obstruct the view of the cockpit. So I knew where to sit. Even though I was the first to board, I wasn't in anybody's way. And the cockpit doors stayed open. Awesome! If you consider taking photos and videos like I did, you may want to ask the pilots first like I did, and be sure to disable your camera's flash.

It takes us all of about 2 minutes to taxi to the runway, and off we go. This little Hawker Beachjet 400XP really has some get up and go, seen in my take-off video below, as well as flight tracking details for BDL - PIT and PIT -> BDL. Turns out FlightAware had OneJet listed under another name, VTE, so I contacted their support, and they fixed it within hours.OneJet is now in most of the drop-down menus at FlightAware, for everybody to use. Nice!

Soon we're cruising along at around 448 ground speed, according to my phone's GPS, which actually works in such a small plane, even in airplane mode.

I decided to give the on-board free WiFi a try, worked well enough for the basics, although some proxy issues did bite me, as they might on any airline.

Paul-Braren-gets-offer-of-posed-picture-by-OneJet-staff — Author takes OneJet up on offer to take a picture, sparing travelers from terrible and dangerous selfies.

Advantages

full speed ahead, this little jet gets there as fast as any commercial jet
super-friendly boarding gate attendants, ground crew, and pilots
reduced stress throughout the whole travel experience
able to legitimately use the First Class lane of the Security Checkpoint, see also:
Flying OneJet from Pittsburgh – Convenience and Comfort
Feb 17 2017 by Angie at Discover the Burgh

...the OneJet booking system doesn’t have a space for entering your middle name, and my middle name is on my passport and my known traveler ID for TSA pre-check. When I book with OneJet again, I will try entering both my first and middle name in the “first name” field in the booking system.
...
Despite not having TSA pre-check for my recent flight, I was able to go through the first-class security lane- all OneJet passengers can go through this lane. The first-class line was even shorter than the TSA pre-check line...

Minor downsides and workarounds

I'd recommend keeping your laptop on your lap, as your baggage gets very very cold, so condensation can be an issue if you don't give your equipment enough time to return closer to room temp
OneJet's home page isn't encrypted when you check-in there, not a big deal because the ticket purchase pages are encrypted (https)
Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, and TripAdvisor don't yet include OneJet in search results, but for me, all my business travel is booked through Concur, which went without a hitch, although my boarding pass called me Paula, attaching my middle initial to my firstname for some reason, I've seen this on other airlines too
no weekend flights on OneJet
no OneJet frequent flier program, and no association with other airline's perks

Closing thoughts

I honest hope this airline continues to grow, as the experience showed me how many hours were saves for such city to city travel. What I don't really know is how many gallons of fuel this kind of plane burns per passenger mile for my 2 flights, versus the 4 flights I would have taken on a much bigger commercial jet, had a had several more hours to burn.

I also see that the big Travel search engines often don't include OneJet in the results, although Google Flights usually does, but not always. So for now, you're better off checking on flights and prices right at OneJet.

Videos

These landing and take-off videos were with my iPhone 7 Plus in 1080p 60fps mode, with obviously effective image stabilization turned on. Footage turned out pretty well for hand-held, with the view out the windows staying rather steady, despite some minor turbulence.