The Super Bowl champion New England Patriots have had it with the costs, restrictions, and scheduling issues with America’s commercial airlines. To solve the whole problem, the team has just purchased their own jet airliner.
In fact, the five-time champs should have double the relief because they bought two jets!
The team bought two Boeing 767 wide-body jets, according to ESPN. The planes were given a fancy new paint job and had all the coach seats removed in favor of an entire plane full of first class seating.
The paint job includes images of the team’s five Super Bowl trophies on the tail fins.
Pro Football Talk speculates that the team will help pay for maintenance on the planes by renting them out when not in use. The team may lease the planes to “corporate bigwigs and well-financed fanboys who would like to fly the same way their favorite football team doe,” PFT said.
One thing is for sure, though, the Patriots just became the first NFL team to own their own fleet of jets to ferry themselves to and from games.
However, the Pats may not be the last NFL team to eye such a luxury as airlines continue raising rates. ESPN reported that sources tell them that a regular season of flights can cost teams as much as $4 million a year.
Airlines are also balking at even signing contracts with the NFL.
ESPN further noted: “American said last year that it would no longer fly the Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins. At least two of those teams, the Steelers and the Dolphins, took their business to charter-only airline Miami Air, sources said.”
Now that the Pats have launched their own fleet of jet airliners, others may be soon to follow.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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