inthemix | International News | Diddy struggles with fuel prices

US rap star P Diddy has revealed he’s cutting back on flying in his private jet in response to escalating aviation fuel prices. “As you know, I do own my own jet,” the multi-millionaire Ibiza regular boasted on his weekly blog. “But I’ve been having to fly back and forth to LA pursuing my acting career. Now, if I’m flying, like, twice in a month that’s like $200,000 or $250,000 round trip. So I’m back on American Airlines right now.”

Diddy’s penny-pinching admission prompted Virgin America to reveal that scores of credit crunch challenged celebs have also started using their airline in recent months, including Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Janet Jackson. “In fact, when Janet Jackson booked to fly with us recently, I remember everyone saying: ‘But don’t these sort of people have their own planes?’” Virgin PR Abby Lunardini told the Daily Mail.

Former private jet aficionado Dave Clarke told Skrufff he’s cut back ‘massively’ on private jet travel in recent years ‘but mainly because you can fly almost anywhere to anywhere direct, which wasn’t possible 5 years ago,’ he explained. “Easyjet is ultra-reliable too,” Dave added. “Unlike BA (British Airways) who I’ve stopped using almost entirely because they are completely unreliable,” he said.

Pacha chief Danny Whittle downplayed suggestions that high-end Pacha customers are limiting their jet usage (‘if you’re worth 10 million and you lose a million because of the economy you are still worth 9 million so still in a good place financially’) though stressed that the Ibiza club takes global warming seriously.

“The owners of Pacha are very much into the environment, not long ago Ricardo started a charity to plant 1,000 palm trees on Ibiza, he also paid for a lot of them out of his own pocket,” said Danny. “I think he would never use a private jet for that very reason and he always flies economy class.”