Archive for the ‘AIR’ Category:
Code Sharing For Private Air Service
Carol Pucci from Seattle Times recently wrote this article about her experience with airlines that code-share:
“With more airlines marketing each other’s flights as code shares, it’s getting harder to figure out who’s actually doing the flying. It also makes it a bit harder to find the best price. Code shares are marketing alliances that allow airlines to sell seats under their own name for flights operated by a partner airline. The airlines share in the revenues and passengers can earn and use their frequent-flier miles on either carrier.”
The irony is that on-line travel agents started a price war that has eliminated the incentive for airlines to distinguish themselves on “service” or even distance. This relieved them of the responsibility to excel. The underlying assumption imposed on the passenger is that all airlines are equal and all flights are the same – until they are not. For example: Air France and Delta are code share partners:
Carol further writes: “Air France was selling a Seattle/Zagreb (Croatia) round trip, with a connection through Paris, for $1,214 versus $1,408 on Delta for the same flights, a savings of $194″.
The law of one price
The problem with code sharing is not that you fly on the other partner’s aircraft, the problem is that the price is does not correlate with the exact same product, rather, it varies by whom you buy the ticket – that, by any definition, is broker’s world.
Private air service carriers and charter operators currently suffer from an extreme form of broker’s world that not only prevents carriers from code sharing, they also keep prices unpublished so the customer has no idea what they are paying for.
Of Brokers and Fixers
Imagine if Air France and Delta and United all had to operate different planes and there was no way for travelers to compare compare prices. Instead, a group of brokers could manipulate supply and demand to maximize their own profits. So for example, if the airplanes fly 1/2 empty, then brokers could charge double the airfare. Obviously, this is an extremely inefficient way to operate an air service industry.
Fly Social in more ways than one
Social Flights is a platform that accommodates code sharing among many partner air service operators while also standardizing the cost of flying on a per-mile / per-time basis. Social Flights performs the same yield management operations for a diverse inventory of private jets as the commercial carriers perform for their shared fleets.
The Social Flights platform permits the private air service operators to sell charter lift on a per-seat, per-leg basis. Instead of generating dead heads (empty legs) operators can code share such that every flight is a primary leg. Operators who are closest to the passenger will inherently be lower cost since a “re-positioning” fee would not be needed. This alone may cut the price of private travel by 50% (half the cost without dead/reposition fee) while also increasing operator revenue by 50% (by doubling the size of the market).
You can call it a code-share or you can call it a ride-share, but Social Flights calls it a breakthrough in air service efficiency.
Share a Private Jet to The Preakness Stakes
The most important series of equestrian events is right around the corner and Social Flights is busy filling seats on private aircraft from several locations in the US.
Private Jet traffic can get pretty busy and prices are at a premium. Commercial airlines cannot get you in and out in the same day and booking a hotel can be a nightmare.
When you share a private jet into this event with people who you know from the same town, you enjoy a first class experience with people with whom you can share a lifelong memory. Let Social Flights be your source of air transportation service for The Preakness Stakes.
via Preakness Stakes – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Preakness Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a Grade I race run over a distance of 9.5 furlongs on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds (57 kg); fillies 121 lb (55 kg). It is the second leg of the US Triple Crown, with the Kentucky Derby preceding it and the Belmont Stakes following it. The horse must win all three races to win the Triple Crown.
The Preakness Stakes has been termed “The Run for the Black-Eyed Susans” because a blanket of Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta, the state flower of Maryland) is traditionally placed around the winner’s neck. The attendance at the Preakness Stakes ranks second in North America and usually surpasses the attendance of all other stakes races including the Belmont Stakes, the Breeders’ Cup and the Kentucky Oaks. The attendance of the Preakness Stakes typically only trails the Kentucky Derby, for more information see American Thoroughbred Racing top Attended Events.
Visit social flights to get an instant quote under “Create a Flight” option. Then we’ll notify you as others join your itinerary. The best time to start is now. Invite your family, friends, and colleagues for an exceptional experience at an most exceptional event.
Is There An Alternative To Commercial Airlines?
In Japan and Europe, high speed rail often competes with air travel for short distance routes. While it may take 3-4 hours door-to-door to travel 300 miles in an aircraft, the high-speed train can cover the same door-to-door distance in more comfort, the same time, and for less money. An automobile may need 6 hours to complete the same journey at a similar cost of ownership.
What many peoples fail to realize is the possibility that a community can operate their own airline. This alternative is being pioneered by Social Flights. The regionalization of air service is a new concept that allows communities to own and operate one or more aircraft maintaining control over the schedules and locations where the aircraft flies.
In the United States, a rift continues to grow between available air service and reasonable alternatives to air service. This creates a substantial burden on families; but it also creates a compound burden on the economy upon which those families depend for their livelihood. If corporate travel is constrained, the economy as a whole is constrained.
From this article in the NY Times:
Consider the new realities of air travel. Competition is decreasing, fares are rising and airlines are adjusting routes (and charging extra fees) in ruthless calculations to extract the greatest possible revenue per mile flown.
Many airlines will continue shrinking overall capacity and trimming domestic routes in 2012, and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, will merely exacerbate the situation. In 2012, American will “ground some planes and resize our network,” the company’s chief executive, Thomas W. Horton, recently told employees.
In addition, John P. Heimlich, the chief economist of the trade group Airlines for America, said, “Capacity reduction is one of the steps the industry is taking to preserve profitability.”
Several articles are now popping up comparing the alternatives that are available. An overnight Amtrak in a cozy sleeper car can cost the same for some routes as the aircraft - unfortunately, Amtrak is not universally connected to very many routes. High speed rail is still on the drawing boards but still many years away with fewer stops and likely connecting major hubs anyway. The other alternative is to simply drive; with the ground travel and delays incurred t hub airports, a commercial flight less than 750 miles can have an door-to-door average speed of around 70 miles per hour.
Michael Boyd, the president of the consulting company Boyd Group International, sums up the phenomenon succinctly. “The cost of flying airplanes across the sky has eclipsed the ability to support it at many communities,” he said in a recent forecast. In 2012, he predicts, airlines will accelerate the mothballing of smaller 50-seat jets, the workhorses for connecting service between many midsize airports, and even some big ones.
Social Flights can provide the knowledge, expertise, personnel, certification, and equipment to maintain and operate an aircraft fleet, as well as the social media backbone that allows people to self-organize around the aircraft asset.
As such, the community can create direct flights bypassing hubs, they can schedule flights for their corporations and shuttle their executives to new business markets for a price that is hugely favorable to any existing alternative; which is often nothing.