Plane Conversations

The Federal Aviation Administration is more than just a dour old government bureaucracy.  The FAA also collects and publishes very important information.

This chart tells a very important story.  It says that the economy depends on aviation as much (if not more) than aviation depends on the economy.  So when Social Flights talks about private jets, it’s a whole lot more than wealthy people keeping their shoes on. Private aviation is in fact an important conduit for economic growth.  The way that we organize aviation assets such as aircraft, operators, airports, and support services can have a profound impact on a region.

For all economic development professionals:

These statistics should be stark.  If your community has air service, then the products and services that your community can trade will be 69 times higher in value than ground transportation such as trucking routes.   Yet many economic development reports treat these two modes roughly equal.

Furthermore, the market is huge; 1/2 Trillion dollars worth of products are flying over your head and 1/4 Trillion dollars worth of direct expenditure is looking down at you through an impenetrable window – EVERY YEAR.  And, that’s just the tangible value. Ideas, knowledge, wisdom, trust, influence, and experience are all extremely expensive to create on your own or by trial and error.  Yet this value is readily stored and transported in the cabins of aircraft.  This intangible value far out-weighs anything that can be carried in a truck.

What is truly surprising is that it only requires 2 million people to keep 2 trillion dollars worth of value aloft.  As such, every job that an economic development office creates in aviation, can potentially return 500,000 – 1,000,000 dollars in value to a community.  If a community is going to “buy jobs” with their taxes, they should buy aviation jobs.

Likewise, it would NOT be wise to lose control of this valuable resource to the whims of the airlines or outside corporate charter – their bottom line is not the same as yours.

Social Flights now brings a complete aviation solution to your community.  Our CASP (Community Air Service Program) can provide a community with modern aircraft, operational knowledge, and certification authority to operate your own public charter airline.  The connection is clear – airplanes equal money.  Give us a call, let us design your community air service program to integrate with your hotels, restaurants, tourism board, artistic community, and industries.

After all, that is what community is all about.

Google Search for the term "Jet Charter"

Google Think Insights is an amazing resource for looking at who is searching on certain terms, and from where.  This post shows two search categories and related terms from which we can draw several general ideas about private air travel.  These data demonstrates that an increasing amount of people are searching on terms such as private jet, jet charter, VIP travel, etc.

Another curious trend is the term “Jet Charter Cost” is also increasing significantly as people seek to find the value threshold for private air travel vs commercial air travel.

Recession or transition?

These data all refer to a date range between the dates of january 2008 and December 2011 corresponding to the greatest economic downturn in the US since the Depression.  There are likely many forces acting on the market including the pullout of commercial aviation from minor market, few travel alternatives,  increased usage of internet search technology, increased business travel needs, and upper class growth rates.

The increase in terms related to cost may suggest that even the most wealthy are becoming cost conscious, more people want to fly private, more businesses need to fly private in order to access their market, and more VIP travel is required.

It is not surprising that the term “business aviation” has a similar location density to the term “Jet Charter”.  This reinforces the suggestion that corporations increasingly need to send their executives on travel outings.

Social Flights is in the business of social organization too:

It is likely that wherever executives go, so too will managers and lower level employees.  Social Flights has long suggested that there is an opportunity to increase private charter shuttle service between key locations.  Likewise, there are opportunities for companies to share private aircraft scheduled to fly between regions.

Next we looked at the term “VIP Travel” and identified the following locations where the terms were searched.  We found a similar increase in VIP Travel related terms as we did for terms related to jet charter costs, except related to supporting services such as reservation, booking, schedules, and services.

This suggests that the door-to-door experience is underserved and that an air transportation service that is able to connect the dots would hold a true value advantage over one that just drops the passenger off at a hub airport.

Search terms are important because they indicate the intentions of a market.

While little is ever conclusive, the rate at which something changes can say more than the thing being observed alone.  At Social Flights, the demands of a dynamic market are clear.

1. Companies must have business travel options.

2. A door-to-door value proposition is essential.

3. People are searching online more than ever

4. The commercial airline industry leaves a market underserved.

Economic recessions have been shown to be more about technological transition and adjustment rather than any single underlying factor.  We believe that this transition will be no different.