Ready to welcome high fliers, newly launched luxury resort ME Ibiza is offering to take them there in the owner’s private jet
Any luxury hotel worth its stars can arrange transfers to ensure guests arrive at the property in appropriate style, but I’ve yet to experience a more lavish service than that offered by Spain’s Meliá Hotels International. To celebrate this summer’s launch of ME Ibiza – the latest of the company’s high-end ME lifestyle hotels – the group’s CEO Gabriel Escarrer is making his private jet available to guests who want to reach the party isle without enduring a disagreeably timed budget flight packed with frazzled clubbers.
As part of one of the first groups to avail of the service, I boarded the Me by Melia-branded Falcon 900 jet at Farnborough Airport in Hampshire. The facility caters exclusively to what it calls “business aviation”, so crowds are absent, queues non-existent and clearing security a doddle. You can park your car – or, more realistically for a typical Farnborough customer perhaps, have someone else do it for you – and be in the air within 15 minutes.
For those wishing to stay at ME Ibiza the convenience of the experience can’t be faulted, but given the price that’s the least that can be expected. The hotel’s private jet package costs from €25,000 (£20,000), based on a group of 12 staying in the property’s best suites for six nights. Other benefits, from private yoga classes to a jaunt on the ME yacht and VIP club entry, are included too, but I’m doubtful as to whether UHNW individuals who are willing to splash out so much on a holiday to Ibiza would choose to stay at a 205-room resort where rates start at £250 per night, pleasant as it is.
