A car for a private flight into Farnborough, cleared with the airport in advance and waiting at the terminal door, or at the foot of the aircraft steps, where the airport allows it.
Farnborough is a business-aviation airport and nothing else. There are no scheduled airline services, no check-in desks and no arrivals hall in the usual sense: one terminal, run by the airport itself as the handling operation, looking after private and charter aircraft. It sits in north-east Hampshire, a short run from the M3, with customs, immigration and security screening done on site, so an international arrival is cleared in the building and walks out to the car rather than to another queue.
Unlike a commercial airport, it keeps hours. Its planning permission allows flying between 7am and 10pm on weekdays and between 8am and 8pm at weekends and on bank holidays, with none at all on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. For the car this matters at the end of the day. A jet that leaves Geneva or Nice late and cannot make the window will land somewhere else, and the chauffeur needs to be sent there rather than left at a terminal the aircraft is no longer coming to.
Flight tracking works differently here. The tracking that follows arrivals at the airline airports is built on airline flight numbers, and a private jet usually does not have one: it flies under its registration, or an operator's callsign. A Farnborough pickup is therefore timed from the operator's schedule and kept current by people rather than by a data feed. Give us the tail number, the operator or broker, and a contact who will know when the aircraft is wheels-up. The control room stays in touch with them, and a revised arrival time moves the car.
The car joins the M3 at junction 4. Where it meets the M25 there are two ways in: on to the end of the M3 and the A316 through Richmond, or round to the M4 and in along the A4. Which is quicker depends on the hour. The City and Canary Wharf are the same journey with the width of central London added, and in the weekday rush that last stretch is where the time goes. The airport describes the drive to central London as under an hour, which is fair outside the peaks and optimistic inside them.
Private flying often comes with a principal who values discretion, or a protection team who insist on it. Every chauffeur is SIA-vetted and named the evening before with his photograph and registration: what an airport, a family office or a security detail wants in hand before a car goes near an aircraft.
Nobody drives into Farnborough on the off-chance. The airport admits private-hire cars only when they have been pre-booked, and its rules keep them to the areas it designates, so every meeting here is arranged beforehand. The control room passes the car's registration and the chauffeur's name to the airport, and the arrangement for where he waits is agreed with them.
Each figure is the lowest the booking form quotes for that journey on an ordinary day, with the airport’s own parking charge already in it. A night, a bank holiday or the congestion charge adds what it adds, and is shown before you confirm; VAT at 20% is added on top. Price your own journey and the figure you are shown is the figure you pay.
Farnborough offers to bring a car to the aircraft, so that a passenger steps from the stairs into the back seat. Whether ours goes airside is the airport's decision, taken in advance and on the strength of the car and driver having been notified to it. Ask when you book, not on the morning.
There is no public car-park charge at Farnborough for us to pass on, so the fare is the road and the car. If a particular movement attracts a handling or access fee, the controller adds it to the job as an extra rather than hiding it in the mileage.
The Farnborough International Airshow is held on the same site every other July. That week the roads around the airfield carry exhibition traffic from early morning, so book early and allow more time.
Put the two addresses into the booking form. The fare comes back on the measured distance, not off a table, and it is the fare you pay.
Choose the vehicle and the booking type, give us the flight number if there is one, and pay or put it on the account.
His name, photograph and registration reach you the evening before. His live position reaches you on the morning.
On an airport pick-up he is inside the terminal at the barrier, not in a car park. Delays are absorbed by us, not billed to you.
Both, ideally. The registration is how the airport identifies the aircraft when the car is notified, and the operator or broker is who knows first that it has left. Either on its own leaves the control room with half of what it needs to time the car.
The booking goes with it. Biggin Hill, Northolt and Luton are all in the booking form, so the control room re-sends the car to wherever the aircraft actually lands. Tell us as soon as the operator tells you; the drive between two of those airfields is not short.
As soon as the flight is planned. A meeting at the terminal needs the car notified to the airport in advance; ramp-side access needs more notice than that, because the airport has to agree to it.
The standing choice for airport and executive work. Rear seats recline, the cabin is quiet at speed, and the partition glass is available on request.
3 PASSENGERS · 3 BAGS · FROM, EX VAT £55/HR
A shorter, faster car for city movements and single-passenger runs where the S-Class would be more than the journey needs.
3 PASSENGERS · 2 BAGS · FROM, EX VAT £45/HR
Conference seating, a folding table and full standing luggage capacity. The car we send when a party travels together and wants to keep talking.
7 PASSENGERS · 7 BAGS · FROM, EX VAT £55/HR
A raised, long-wheelbase SUV for country work and poor weather, with the rear cabin of a saloon. The car to send when the road at the far end is not a London street.
4 PASSENGERS · 4 BAGS · FROM, EX VAT £85/HR