How To Not Have Your Jet Tracked Like Elon Musk

How To Not Have Your Jet Tracked Like Elon Musk

Over the years, there have been several instances where the private flights of high-profile individuals have been tracked, such as soccer star Lionel Messi’s private flight from his former club Barcelona to his new employer Paris Saint-Germain by almost 120,000 people. And just this past week, a 19-year old college student tracked the movements of Elon Musk’s private plane, broadcasting its location on Twitter and attempting to negotiate $50k for its removal.

Ongoing occurrences such as these have left high-profile persons questioning the security of traveling on their own jet.

Yet on numerous other occasions, the ability to track flights has been valuable to reporters and law enforcement, such as convicted automotive executive Carlos Ghosn’s escape last year from Tokyo. In some cases, flight tracking supports safety concerns, such as when business aircraft attempt to fly in closed airspaces due to urgent political or government mandates.

There is no doubt that it is easy for third-party data sources to capture ICAO aircraft addresses directly from ADS-B Out transmissions. While some data and tail numbers are blockable, the general public can subscribe to services that show jet traffic. This creates massive privacy and security concerns.

Until this information becomes better regulated and less generally accessible if ever, there is an argument for high-net-worth and high-profile individuals to utilize charter over owning an aircraft. There is even strategic value in corporate flight departments going “off fleet” occasionally or regularly swapping tail numbers to protect sensitive missions such as financial negotiations and acquisitions.

What follows is our case for charter and how PJS ensures the utmost privacy for all of its clients.

The Case For Charter vs. Ownership

  • Tail Rotating — Certain individuals and corporations require discrete travel. PJS rotates tail numbers to ensure clients fly with complete anonymity. This keeps your whereabouts private, even with ADS-B Out technology. By rotating tails and using various aircraft the general public is unable to monitor movements.
  • Top-Notch Security — We also work alongside Executive Protection to physically sweep and secure aircraft pre-flight.
  • Anonymity — We keep client information private at all times. To ensure maximum discretion, individuals who charter through PJS work closely with only a select few from our VIP team and each client communicates solely with the same dedicated member of our team every time.

 

Our team of experts advises carefully considering the security concerns of aircraft ownership to ensure better privacy and charter on the open market using different aircraft every time. Tail number rotating and all VIP privacy services are available through PJS’ Total Flight Management (TFM) program — an exclusive offer designed to ensure that our clients always have access to custom, premium and mission-critical flight options.