February 17, 2022 12:50 pm
At the start of the pandemic, covid-19 was often described as an entirely random agent of chaos, a disease that affected everyone regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic status. This assumption turned out to be false in virtually every respect. While the coronavirus has managed to subvert the way humans live and work, it hasn’t done it proportionately for everyone. The crisis hit an unequal world, and when it did, it exacerbated those inequalities. By and large, living in the worst stages of the pandemic has been much easier for the wealthy, many of whom have been able to afford to maintain a semblance of normality at fewer health risks. The super rich have gotten even richer.
To take a look at the world of the rich during the pandemic, I studied the sectors that thrived on them. Private jets, superyachts, personal cooks, private medical care – these industries not only survived, but thrived during the pandemic, to a large extent because they could offer their customers anything that covid had made scarce, such as security. isolation and, above all, a sense of control.
The wealthy have already learned to live with covid-19 (albeit at a very high price). Now the rest of the world has to figure out how to do the same, with severe money constraints.
The boom of private flights
Perhaps the most obvious luxury enjoyed by the rich during the pandemic was the ability to travel relatively safely and reliably. For example with a private jet. Yann-Guillaume Jaccard, chief executive and co-founder of the private airline Simply Jet, told me that at the start of the pandemic his company, like many others in the travel industry, almost completely shut down, except for the necessary flights. to bring people back to their country.
However, with the gradual easing of restrictions on international travel, what would eventually prove to be an industry-wide boom began for Simply Jet. At a time when travel appears precarious and expensive, “we are working like never before,” said Jaccard, noting that demand for private jets today is higher than it was before the 2008 financial crisis. time considered “the golden age of private aviation”. At the time, customers chose private jets for luxury or privacy. Now the demand is fueled by one thing: security.
A transatlantic flight on a twelve-person plane can cost up to $ 120,000 one way
When flying on an airliner, you can come into contact with dozens, if not hundreds of people during check-in, security and boarding. When flying aboard a private jet, however, the number of interactions is significantly reduced. Those flying a private jet usually leave and arrive at a private terminal, where there are only security and crew. Additional services can also be provided on site, such as rapid swabs for covid-19 and even private doctors. “It would be impossible to do this on a commercial flight,” says Jaccard.
The desire to escape satisfied
This kind of serenity is very expensive. Although short-haul private flights aboard a small four-seat jet can cost as little as $ 6,000 or $ 7,000 per way, a transatlantic flight on a larger twelve-person plane can cost as much as $ 120,000 one way.
Private island real estate brokers and yacht sellers have also seen a surge in sales over the past two years due in large part to the increase in private clients trying to escape the pandemic by any means. “The islands in the strong local markets have all been sold,” Chris Krolow, CEO of the online company Private Islands and host of the reality show, told me. Island hunters. Shoppers can spend between $ 1.5 and $ 3 million on a small island, depending on size and location, and the largest can cost up to $ 300 million. However, size and location are not the main criteria buyers worry about. “He’s interested in the internet and phone connections,” says Krolow. “They ask if they can from the island”. Meanwhile, in the yachting world, Raphael Sauleau, managing director of Fraser yacht, told me that his company recorded a 175 percent sales increase in 2021, after selling boats costing $ 2 million and up. , for a total value of 1.7 billion dollars.
The search for refuge from the pandemic may have been the initial engine of the boom in private island sales – in part perhaps inspired by rich and famous who advertise their excursions to the archipelagos as a way to enjoy some form of prepandemic normality – but a lot of the people I’ve talked to don’t necessarily think so. “I think people are no longer afraid of covid,” Will Christie, founder of Christie yacht, a brokerage firm that deals with superyatches, told me. Christie credits the increased demand to people who claim their freedom to travel and see the world from the comfort of their houseboat, complete with chef and crew. “The demand to satisfy this feeling of wanting to escape and explore the world has never been higher.”
Exclusive access
The desire for more everyday luxuries, like dining in a restaurant, has been a boon to another industry that serves (literally) the rich: the services of private chefs. Michael Kaplan, restaurateur and co-founder of Miami’s New Wave Hospitality, told me that during the pandemic he helped place more than a dozen jobless chefs in the homes of wealthy clients, some of whom are willing to pay up to $ 180,000. per year for a full-time chef. According to Kaplan, the fascination is not just to recreate experiences that the pandemic has made temporarily impractical. “It’s not just about getting a restaurant reservation anymore,” he said. “It is a transition to the concepts of access and exclusivity,” which is expected to last well beyond the end of the pandemic.
The possibility of having private care has also made rich people experience the pandemic differently
Saima Khan, founder of Hampstead kitchen, a London-based catering service, told me that some of her customers have been willing to pay “an absurd amount of money” to celebrate special occasions during the pandemic while still sticking to the rules. of public health. One of these dinners took place aboard a private jet flying from London to Scotland at a cost of $ 3,377 per person. under which it was forbidden for groups of more than six people to dine together in restaurants or pubs). Another private dinner, this time to celebrate a 15th wedding anniversary, was organized in a garden with an opera singer and a huge piano. “To bring families together without breaking the rules you have to be creative,” said Khan. “To be creative you have to spend money. Our customers understand its value “.
Comodità perpetue
The ability for the wealthy to have immediate and reliable access to medical care and home-based covid-19 tests, the latter virtually impossible to obtain until recently in the United States, has also helped them experience a different kind of life. pandemic experience.
In the early months of the pandemic, Sondis health, a New York-based medical service for subscribers only, made headlines because it reportedly provided its wealthy customers with easier access to covid-19 tampons at a time when those resources were still very scarce. Sabine Heller, head of the Sondis commercial area, told me that private medical services have since expanded and today members have access to an unlimited number of rapid, antigenic or molecular tampons, as well as therapies with monoclonal antibodies and other services. The registration fee starts at $ 3,000 per year.
Thanks to this kind of affluence, the richest people can get a preview of what it might entail having to adapt to a life with the perpetual presence of covid-19 and, by extension, all the new variants, the risks of exposure and the resulting health problems.
For the rest of society, however, the path is less clear. Despite an increase, air travel continues to be subject to changing restrictions and is too expensive for some families. Dining out and other such activities, while allowed in many places, still present potential health risks. Meanwhile, regular covid-19 swabs are still expensive, despite the Biden administration’s pledge to distribute one billion free home swabs to Americans (a service currently limited to just four swabs per family). Not everyone who gets the virus can afford to take time off work to isolate themselves and heal, let alone go to a private villa by the sea.
Nearly 500 people became billionaires over the course of the pandemic, and the richest of them doubled their wealth. Meanwhile, “the vast majority of humanity has worsened their condition,” Gabriela Butcher, executive director of Oxfam international, told me. These growing inequalities – and the huge gap between the ways rich and poor live in the pandemic – have led many to call for a redistribution of wealth. If the ten richest people in the world surrendered 99 percent of the wealth gained during the pandemic, “we would have enough money to vaccinate the whole world and resources to invest in universal health care,” Butcher told me. It would be a heavy toll. But even if they just kept 1 percent of their earnings, the top ten richest humans would continue to be richer than they were in early March 2020.
(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)
This article was published on the site of the US monthly The Atlantic.