Fans and broadcasters visiting North America for the FIFA World Cup have put a positive public spotlight on the continent’s impressive stadium infrastructure.
In the background, the tournament has highlighted another strength of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. -- their private aviation networks.
The U.S. is the largest private aviation market in the world, and it’s getting an extra workout this summer from the visiting fans, celebrities, performers, dignitaries and heads of state, as well as the teams themselves, that are flying private all over the World Cup’s vast footprint.
Elevate Jet is one company doing much of the flying. It was founded by Greg Raiff, who sold an early business of flying college students to MTV Spring Break in Florida to Bain Capital in 1999, but kept the Boeing jets he had accumulated.
He soon connected with his first sports team clients, including the Celtics, Reds, Yankees and Blue Jays, in the early 2000s, and has grown that business to now roughly 40 teams. Individual players and player unions are also passengers on the company’s smaller planes.
“We still own and operate a fleet of Boeing 757s because sports teams only travel with more people, more trainers, more crap,” Raiff said laughing.
Elevate Jet’s client during the World Cup is FIFA itself, and the governing body is handling (and paying for) all of the countries’ travel during the tournament. With some variation, chartering an airplane costs roughly $50,000 per hour of flight time. All that flying in a post-Iran war environment has undoubtedly been more expensive.
The national teams typically have larger parties than average pro teams, with up to 65 people because of all the ancillary delegates tagging along. They fly through major airports because the planes tend to be too big for small private airports.
Unlike commercial airlines, Elevate Jet accounts for America’s unpredictable summer weather issues by not overscheduling its aircraft, which prevents delays from rippling through the system.
“I know that weather is going to happen today, tomorrow and the day after that,” said Raiff, the CEO of Elevate Aviation Group, Elevate Jet’s parent company. “We’ve been dealing with weather since the Wright Brothers.”
The private aviation jumping off point
Guests boarding such flights are more than likely passing through one of Signature Aviation’s 220 global private aviation hubs, which are located in airports of all sizes.
Signature Chief Commercial Officer Derek DeCross said the company has hosted France, Germany and Argentina among the 130 national team charter operations it’s been involved with since June. Signature has been working with FIFA since 2024 to coordinate these high-profile flights.
The World Cup is “a unique operational challenge because of its duration and the geographic spread and how quickly teams are shifting,” DeCross said.
Fans are a significant part of Signature’s bustling World Cup-related business. Signature had 2,000 flight operations related to the tournament in just its first week.
Private aviation’s popularity has surged since COVID-19. Security and privacy, customized handling and requests, and the immense time-saving are three big reasons. Signature customers’ average time passing through the facility is just 192 seconds, compared to roughly three hours for regular commercial airline passengers. In some cases, guests drive right out to their plane.
DeCross wouldn’t disclose the expected financial bump, but it should be significant. The number of flights that Signature had projected for the entire tournament was achieved in June alone.
“As big of an event as we had planned for the World Cup to be, it’s exceeded those expectations,” he said.
DeCross couldn’t confirm whether FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who has at times appeared at multiple games on the same day, has passed through their spaces or not, other than to say “we’re the world’s largest.”
“If he does,” DeCross added, “he will receive our usual outstanding exceptional hospitality.”
