The Fly-in Girl Economy, Explained

What are fly-in girls, and who flies them in?

Listen to an audio recording of the following text if you’d like to hear a terrible attempt at a Belarusian accent:

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“What, I’m gonna go get coffee at Sant Ambroeus and have small talk with her for ninety minutes about pilates or whatever?” asks Brett, an early 40something with a thinning hairline and apparently thin patience. “Why wouldn’t I just send her and maybe a few other girls a plane ticket and see how we vibe in Ibiza?” he continues. Brett is among the population of wealthy middle-aged men who believe that they are executing a power move by underwriting the Summer travels of very attractive younger women. These very attractive younger women, who have Internet jobs that do not pay them enough to afford beach trips to Southern Europe, will mostly ignore Brett on these trips, but but they will tag Brett in the bikini selfies which they post to Instagram and later showcase on Raya in order to attract more Bretts to pay for future trips. Bikini selfies and Bretts are the two most important components of what is called the fly-in girl economy.

A fly-in girl—a close relative of the sparkle pony—is a very attractive younger woman who is aware of how susceptible single, wealthy middle-aged men are, and she leverages this susceptibility to get men to fly-her-in to desirable beach destinations and entirely fund her summer in Europe.

While all wealthy middle-aged men are conceptually aware that very attractive younger women have used youth and beauty to extract value from them since the dawn of midriff, Bretts, who capitalize the fly-in girl economy, become caught up in the challenge of getting women they see but do not match with on Raya to respond to their Instagram DMs, and they overlook the fact that they are being played like the Pioneer DJ decks that all Bretts purchase but never learn to operate. Women are keenly aware that each time they leave a Brett’s DM on read, the value of what she can extract from a Brett when she finally responds to him increases exponentially.

When the younger very attractive woman responds with, “hiii,” the Brett is flooded with dopamine and many other chemicals that eradicate reason and self-respect, and he immediately invites her to the villa or boat that he will then have to rent for her in early July in Southern Italy, Southern France, or Southern Spain.

Experienced fly-in girls know that the invitation is the most critical moment in what becomes a delicate, tacit negotiation.

Where an amateur fly-in girl might end up with a Comfort Plus ticket on Delta followed by a connecting flight on Vueling or RyanAir and ambiguous sleeping arrangements, a semi-pro or professional fly-in girl will extract a tail number and a separate guest house for her and often several of her friends along with a large budget for miscellaneous travel expenses.

“He send me direct request on the Raya, and I don’t respond him,” explains Olya, a 28-year-old native of Minsk, which is the capital of a small territory in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. “Then he slipping into my DMs on the Instagram, saying heyyy baby, come to my Hampton house. But I not want to go to Hampton, I been there last summer, and it is so boring, so I tell him I like Italy beach. So, then he sending me link to villa in Porto Ercole, and I send him heart eye cat, and then I not respond for two week.”

Olya explains that much of her course work at Belarusian State University (Белору́сский госуда́рственный университе́т) was focused on microeconomics and negotiation, and that the weekend she spent at Soho Beach House in March of 2023 and that one Thursday night at Zero Bond in October of 2024 helped her to apply academic concepts to real world situations with real world Bretts.

“When I check his messages two week later, I see he sending me photo of very big boat, and I sending him two heart eye cats. He asking me if I wanna go to boat, and I telling him send me tail number, and I must bring Oksana and Irina and have $20,000 bikini allowance. He say to me, let’s fucking gooooo.”

A critical fly-in-girl skill is being able to distinguish a Brett from wealthy middle-aged men who have made their own money, spend their money with taste and restraint, and have never added any extra “y” to the word, “hey.”

Bretts typically come from a great deal of aging family money that was made far outside of New York City. The typical Brett’s grandfather founded a company in Ohio that manufactured something that was ubiquitous and expensive in the 1950s that is now obscure, cheaply made in China, and tariffed at 150%. Just before its value tanked, Brett’s father sold the manufacturing company in 1998 to a private equity firm shortly after moving the family to Fisher Island in Miami-Dade County. Brett’s dad then created a holding company to acquire an assortment of companies that made things like bridge tables, martini glasses, and polo mallets. Noting that Brett lacked most of the essential business and life skills, Brett’s dad gave control of the family holding company to his younger sister and allowed Brett to call himself the Founder & Managing Partner of his family’s family office, which is actually run by a Deloitte accountant.

Brett’s Instagram bio reads, “entrepreneur + investor + advisor” along with several emojis, including ⛷️ 🏄‍♂️ 🚲 🎾 🌱 ✈️ 🇮🇹. Brett’s grid photos are mostly of him and his grandfather, him on his dad’s fishing boat, and him partying at Cloud 9 in Aspen, standing in front of a very large surf board in Costa Rica, and grinning in a custom -made helmet and custom-made bike shorts holding a custom-made road bike over his head in Napa.

Based on census data, the location of LLCs associated with fractional plane ownerships, and the volume of empty Matchaful cups in public trash bins, economists estimate that there are approximately 193 Bretts on Bond Street in Nolita, 66 Bretts on or just off of Abbott Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach, and just over 1,000 Bretts on Ocean Avenue in Miami Beach. Fly-in girls are far more abundant and distributed around the world, but they are all within a 5-minute walk or drive of the 80 or so locations of Barry’s Bootcamp.

Economists have not been able to determine how many Bretts have successfully converted a fly-in girl into a fly-in girlfriend, so to speak, but the general rule of thumb is that Bretts with a .1% net worth have a .1% chance of having sex with a fly-in girl, and the chances of a Brett with a .01% net worth improve to 1%.

“It’s a numbers game,” says Brett, who has flown over two dozen girls over the past eight summers into various locations along the Tuscan coast and Côte d’Azur, several villas in Santa Gertrudis de Fruitera on Ibiza, a large boat anchored off of Formentera, and every St in the Caribbean except for St Vincent. “But the more hot girls who tag me in the pics they take in Capri or wherever, the higher my stock goes up, so….”

Brett takes a loud gulp his Matchaful matcha latte and opens Raya for the third time in three minutes. There are only 19 days before summer begins, and this particular Brett has not yet been findom’d by procured any fly-in girls for his summer travels, so time is of the essence. Otherwise, he may be relegated to going to Surf Lodge and buying an endless number of Endless Summers for 30something PR managers from Syosset, who will still not sleep with him.

This one is dedicated to the Fly-in Guys. You know who you are, and so does Olya.