THE charter airline industry is gearing up for a massive increase in demand from executives determined to avoid the nightmare delays common to conventional flying after the terror alerts this month.

Charter air companies have reported a surge in inquiries and bookings from business travellers willing to pay thousands of pounds for the luxury of turning up at an airport 20 minutes before the flight departs and the reassurance of knowing who their fellow passengers are.

“In the Square Mile, there are tens of thousands of very high net worth people,” said David Savile, chief executive of Air Partner, the listed charter company. “They don’t want to travel on a flight where they don’t know who else is on board. If the flight costs £3,000 or £4,000 each way, it’s a no-brainer to them.”

August is usually a relatively quiet month for charter companies but this year is proving to be an exception. Business flyers, turned off by the delays and cancellations that have caused chaos at Heathrow, are choosing private flights that depart from smaller airports such as Stansted, Luton, Farnborough and Southampton.

While they still have to go through security screening, passengers on these flights are pre-assessed so they don’t have to turn up hours before the aircraft takes off. Charter companies pass on their passport details to the aircraft operator, which then sends them to immigration and Special Branch.

Mike Ryan, the chief executive of One Charter, said that his company usually has the details of a client 24 hours before they fly but they can be cleared within two hours.

“They still have to have their baggage screened and they are taken out by a Mercedes minivan to the aircraft,” he said. “In some cases you could actually have your own car cleared to go to the steps of the aircraft.”

Mr Ryan said that the hand-luggage restrictions on scheduled flights had driven many business travellers on to private aircraft.

“They can’t take anything with them,” he said. “If you’re going away for a few days in Europe you can’t take your suit carrier. When you get to the other end you have to wait to pick up your luggage. Then you have to buy toothpaste and shampoo. In the past you didn’t have to do that.”

He said inquiries at One Charter had increased by 50 per cent on the previous month and operators weren’t always able to provide the right type of aircraft because of the demand. “We are expecting to see further demand in September,” he said. “I don’t think people have stopped travelling. I think people are looking for alternatives.”

London Executive Aviation, one of Europe’s largest charter operators, said there had been a dramatic rise in inquiries. On the day of the terror alerts, the company received about 500 phone calls, as opposed to the average 200 a day, and staff had to work through the night.

Patrick Margetson-Rushmore, the chief executive, said that clients, 70 per cent of whom are business travellers, valued the privacy and flexibility of private air travel.

“They can control the time of their departure,” he said. “If they go on a scheduled flight they know they have to allow four or five hours. With a private aircraft it doesn’t matter if their business meeting finished early or late, the plane can wait for them.”

Bookajet, another aircraft operator, said that the number of inquiries had doubled over the past few weeks. “We get in the region of about 40 inquiries a day,” said Chris Rooney, the director. “In the first couple of days after the terror alert we were seeing three times that amount.”

Mr Rooney said that private air travel was becoming more accessible as there was a wider range of aircraft available, from light jets seating four or five people to the larger Gulfstream jets.

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