A new all business class airline plans to fly between London to New York in 2016.
Odyssey has won the backing of veteran private equity pioneer Jon Moulton, one of the investors that helped it towards a first round of funding of more than £5 million, raised via online crowdsourcing.
The start-up carrier is launching a second £5 million round this week and expects to approach institutions next year for a further £60 million, the Financial Times reported.
Adam Scott, a former Goldman Sachs banker and Odyssey’s chief executive, said technological change would prevent his venture suffering the fate of previous business-only airlines such as Silverjet, Maxjet and Eos.
Ten Bombardier CSeries aircraft, with a capability of flying non-stop from London City Airport to New York, have been acquired.
The aircraft will offer 40 lie-flat seats and will fly from London to destinations in North America, Europe and the Middle East within eight hours’ duration. The first transatlantic flights are scheduled for mid-2016.
“We are not going to be a discount airline,” Scott said, adding that previous ventures were hamstrung by flying out of Luton and Stansted, their high overheads, and their pre-financial crisis timing.
“This is more about the traveller’s experience and getting rid of the aggravation of having to go through big airports,” he said.