(Bloomberg) — A private-jet broker that set out to revolutionize luxury travel faces several lawsuits from customers who say their prepaid cash is stuck at the grounded company.
Since ONEflight International stopped flying last month, the Colorado-based company and Chief Executive Officer Ferren Rajput have been hit with at least four suits. The lawsuits allege customers were encouraged to put down more money even as the broker was struggling to deliver flights that had already been paid for.
Founded in 2010, the company became the official private aviation partner of McLaren Formula One this year and also put its name on the PGA Tour’s Myrtle Beach Classic. “Shark Tank” personalities Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec have appeared in promotions for the company.
Calls to ONEflight’s main and secondary phone lines went unanswered this week. Rajput didn’t respond to a voicemail message seeking comment. The company has not responded to the lawsuit allegations in court.
Herjavec told Bloomberg News Wednesday he is no longer a ONEflight brand ambassador and said he sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding it stop using his name and likeness.
“I am very upset about what has happened to the many clients and employees that trusted and believed in Ferren and the company,” he said in an email.
Representatives of McLaren and the PGA tour declined to comment.
O’Leary never invested in ONEflight but suffered a financial loss because he paid in advance for flight credits that he can’t get back, said Nancy Cheung, a managing director at O’Leary Ventures. His team learned of the company’s troubles at the same time as the public, Cheung said.
The four lawsuits allege a similar pattern: Customers who had already put hundreds of thousands of dollars into ONEflight say the company offered increasingly generous incentives for them to deposit more cash in the months before it stopped flying.
Jet-card programs typically require customers to prepay for private-jet travel, with funds or flight credits drawn down as trips are booked.
In one of the suits, Davin Pokoik said he paid ONEflight $465,000, and an extra $200,000 in July after the company promised an equal amount in bonus flight credits if he deposited the money within two days.
As recently as about a week before it stopped flying ONEflight offered longtime customer Five-Star Audiovisual Inc. $250,000 in matching flight credits if it deposited another $250,000, according to its lawsuit. “Our Labor Day offering was the strongest promotion we have ever made available,” a salesperson wrote, according to the complaint. Five-Star said it didn’t take the offer.
In an undated post on its website, ONEflight said it was pausing flights for 30 days “or until further notice” while it evaluates its operations and status.
The private jet charter industry ran into trouble a couple of years ago as pandemic-driven demand receded and high costs persisted, but has since been bouncing back.
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