Transatlantic travel has come a long way in a short time. From a sea crossing that at best took more than 80 hours, the air crossing by airliner takes – since the untimely demise of Concorde – about six hours.

The first non-stop aerial navigation of the Atlantic was made by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in 16 hours 29 minutes and ended in a crash into an Irish bog. But less than 90 years after that 1919 feat, aircraft zip across the ocean in huge numbers.

Most transatalantic passengers travel on large jets, but business jets can rival airliners for speed. Indeed, some cruise faster than the big Boeing and Airbus people carriers. The Cessna Citation X, which has space for 10 or more passengers, is the fastest civil aircraft at a maximum cruise of Mach 0.92, compared with a typical cruise of Mach 0.85 for a Boeing 747.

But where private jets can really win is in the total trip time.

Not long ago, I flew by a small chartered jet out of and back into Farnborough, one of the airports serving London. Just a couple of days after that, I flew by airline out of Gatwick, also just south of the UK capital.

The Farnborough experience was totally trouble-free. I could park my motorcycle a few yards from the door of the executive terminal - a car would have been as easy. Inside, after a few steps I was relieved of my bag, and offered a cup of coffee. Passport formalities were over almost before I was aware of them having begun, and the waiting time was just enough to go to the bathroom and sort out my helmet hair.

By contrast, Gatwick was a trial by queue and boredom. Public transport to get there from central London may be easy but is awkward with bags. There are long lines to check in and long, long lines for security screening.

In terms of having the time or calm required to work or think effectively, using the big airports adds a huge degree of headache to using scheduled air services.

Chartering an aircraft, with the benefits of saved time and hassle in airport procedures, can make a vital difference for a transatlantic work trip, as Richard Thomas of Air Partner, the world’s largest corporate aircraft charter company, points out.

“One investment bank was bidding for a last-minute deal in the US the next day. The only way to put in a bid was to charter a jet and for the seven-strong team to work on the plane, and put in the bid in the morning,” recalls Mr Thomas, Air Partner’s marketing director.

That flight was direct from London to New York, but most of Air Partner’s transatlantic flights are between cities that are less well-served by the airlines’ hub-and-spoke system.

A flight between Derby in the middle of Britain and Buffalo in New York state, for example, “would save absolutely hours” over using scheduled airlines, says Mr Thomas.

A Gulfstream V jet, which could fit 14 at a squeeze but on most trips would carry two to four passengers, would match the flying time of airlines, but there the similarities end. The flight could originate from a convenient local aerodrome, passengers would need to show up only 20 minutes before the takeoff time, and the aircraft taxi time alone could be 45 minutes less than at big airports. Even the long immigration lines at many US entry ports are not a problem. If immigration officers cannot come out to the aircraft, then the separate general aviation’s terminal will anyway handle few people. All that could amount to a saving of eight to 10 hours, says Mr Thomas. Each way.

The cost would be in the region of £60,000, although very short notice might cost more than a trip planned in advance. The return trip would be included in the price if the stay was just two or three days. But if the passengers stayed away for a couple of weeks, Air Partner would have to treat it as a separate charter and that would cost not far off another £60,000.

Fractional ownership - in which the client has already invested equity in the aircraft - can offer benefits here, says Robert Dranitzke, director of marketing at NetJets Europe, the largest operator of business and private jets in Europe. The same route would cost a fractional owner roughly €60,000-€70,000 (£42,000-£49,000) in a Gulfstream 550.

“And it doesn’t matter if you return in two days or two weeks,” says Mr Dranitzke. Or, if the time pressure is only in one direction, the passengers can take the jet in one direction and a commercial flight back.

For more passenger capacity, a Boeing Business Jet comfortably fits 18 to 30 people, says Mr Thomas, and would cost in the region of £100,000 to charter for the trip. And it would have a proper bedroom, so a testing red-eye trip could become a relaxing shut-eye flight.

Air Partner reckons that up to 10 per cent of its clients are private, as opposed to business, although there is often some mixing of the two.

A trip from the UK to New York, stopping for three days of meetings, then going on to Aspen in Colorado for a five-day skiing holiday, carrying the client, spouse, a couple of children and a nanny or two, in a Global Express or Gulfstream 550, would cost in the region of £120,000. If the whole trip stretched out to two weeks or so, the price would “go up significantly”, Mr Thomas says.

Those private clients might be hi-tech entrepreneurs, or from the financial community, or just wealthy old money - “it’s not just rock stars”, says Mr Thomas.

Air Partner did organise transport for a big-name band on its transcontinental tour. The band offered 20 fans the chance to see a very exclusive concert the band promised to put on between the European and US legs of the tour. Exclusivity was assured by the gig taking place at 35,000 feet in a Boeing Business Jet over the Atlantic, with just the lucky fans, band, staff and crew on board.

London-New York is so well-served by the airlines that even top companies’ best revenue-earners need to work hard to justify private jet travel, says Mr Dranitzke. Many can, and he adds that NetJets’ most common transatlantic route is London-New York.

But business-only services such as Silverjet may provide an effective alternative.

Charter operations such as Air Partner can also put together combinations of services - such as the trip for a small group it recently organised from London to upstate New York. The five passengers were flown across the Atlantic by the business class-only airline Eos, but were met by a private jet that took them on to their destination – all for a round-trip cost per person of about £15,000.

Of course, if you still want to do it the hard way, it’s possible. The first European buyer of Cessna’s entry-level, six-seat Citation Mustang jet flew her new toy across the Atlantic a couple of months ago. It took entrepreneur Jane Howell 14 hours, stopping just once for fuel. But it gave her a sense of achievement that must have been not far off what Alcock and Brown must have felt. And without the unseemly end in a bog.