WANG, a senior employee with a Shanghai finance company, recently took his wife and daughter on a holiday to Thailand. Theirs was no ordinary flight.

Wang’s family and the families of two friends pooled their resources to rent a nine-seat Legacy 450 business jet.

They arrived at the Hongqiao International Airport two hours before their scheduled takeoff, finished all the exit procedures in only 30 minutes and were told their private jet could take off any time they wanted.