Archive for the ‘Time management’ Category:
Why Google Is Chasing Travel
At Social Flights, we have said many times that nothing economic truly can happen until people get together to build something. Economics is the science of incentives and no incentive is stronger in the human species than family and community. It does not take much of a chasm of reason to see why Google is so interested in travel and travel related properties.
Travel is the keystone for change; change of ideas, change of relationship, change of intentions, and change of markets. A banker is not interested in money – they are interested in the rate of change of money; it’s called “interest rate”. People are not interested in the same old story, they want the story to change – this is what keeps their “interest”
Again, we find Google at the center of the social “Interest Rate” in travel. Don’t think for a minute that Facebook “timeline” is not also a move to capture how people change and react and adapt to the conditions around them. This almost makes it pointless for people to try to react to these changes because such a reaction is, in fact, registered by the platform driving the reaction. Is this a problem?
From http://www.tnooz.com/2011/12/12/news/google-quietly-introduces-social-travel-service-schemer/
What makes you want to go to a place to begin with? When you have chosen a place – what makes you want to explore further? The inspiration phase of leisure trip planning research has been by far the hardest for tech-based services to master.
Google has announced (and started sending out Beta invites to) a new service, known as Schemer, which attempts to compete in this gap. Effectively it is local destination ideas based on tips from your (Google+) friends, celebrities (oh yes!) and professional destination content producers (ie. travel writers).
If destination research moves to starting at Google Schemer rather than Google Search, then Google will be able to pitch flights, hotels and other travel services, without having to necessarily work within the confines of their existing web properties.
Everyone else who makes it their business to build P2P platforms such as tour guides and recommendation platforms will be cut out of the loop. If Google can now branch away from their core search and into the social connectivity business, they can compete with their own customers. Is this a problem?
What Google does not do, and cannot do, is actually operate a jet aircraft. They cannot clean a hotel room or manufacture a rental car. They cannot cook a holiday dinner or wax a snowboard. Real people need to do this. Why is Google chasing Travel? Google is chasing people. At the end of the day, people drive Google. Is that a problem?
Why Google Is Chasing Travel
At Social Flights, we have said many times that nothing economic truly can happen until people get together to build something. Economics is the science of incentives and no incentive is stronger in the human species than family and community. It does not take much of a chasm of reason to see why Google is so interested in travel and travel related properties.
Travel is the keystone for change; change of ideas, change of relationship, change of intentions, and change of markets. A banker is not interested in money – they are interested in the rate of change of money; it’s called “interest rate”. People are not interested in the same old story, they want the story to change – this is what keeps their “interest”
Again, we find Google at the center of the social “Interest Rate” in travel. Don’t think for a minute that Facebook “timeline” is not also a move to capture how people change and react and adapt to the conditions around them. This almost makes it pointless for people to try to react to these changes because such a reaction is, in fact, registered by the platform driving the reaction. Is this a problem?
From http://www.tnooz.com/2011/12/12/news/google-quietly-introduces-social-travel-service-schemer/
What makes you want to go to a place to begin with? When you have chosen a place – what makes you want to explore further? The inspiration phase of leisure trip planning research has been by far the hardest for tech-based services to master.
Google has announced (and started sending out Beta invites to) a new service, known as Schemer, which attempts to compete in this gap. Effectively it is local destination ideas based on tips from your (Google+) friends, celebrities (oh yes!) and professional destination content producers (ie. travel writers).
If destination research moves to starting at Google Schemer rather than Google Search, then Google will be able to pitch flights, hotels and other travel services, without having to necessarily work within the confines of their existing web properties.
Everyone else who makes it their business to build P2P platforms such as tour guides and recommendation platforms will be cut out of the loop. If Google can now branch away from their core search and into the social connectivity business, they can compete with their own customers. Is this a problem?
What Google does not do, and cannot do, is actually operate a jet aircraft. They cannot clean a hotel room or manufacture a rental car. They cannot cook a holiday dinner or wax a snowboard. Real people need to do this. Why is Google chasing Travel? Google is chasing people. At the end of the day, people drive Google. Is that a problem?
The Intangible Value of Air Transportation
Many experts estimate that only 20% of economic impact is measured in financial value – rather, most of it is measured in intangible value. The work of visionaries in the areas of Intangible Value and the value of social networks are able to articulate value far beyond that which can be counted with money. Suppose these principles could be applied not only to corporations, but also to communities sharing an asset such as an airport?
In the race to defend valuable assets from the fiscal cutting room floor, communities are increasingly trying to define themselves in terms of shared community assets from schools to parks museums and even airports.
From: Worcester Telegram & Gazette – telegram.com.
State officials released a study yesterday saying that Worcester Regional Airport is a boon to the local economy, even though the airport has struggled for years and offers charter service through just one carrier. The study released by the Department of Transportation said the airport supports 418 jobs and has an annual economic benefit to the tune of $51.4 million.
The Intangible Value Drivers include the following questions for corporations, but this also applies to any community sharing a set of assets. From Mary Adams from her recent book Intangible Capital, she asks:
- How do you get paid (the key revenue categories on your income statement)? (strategic capital)
- What are the processes and knowledge/data that drive this revenue? (structural capital)
- What are the competencies that your people need to support this business model? (human capital)
- What are the key external relationships that make this model work? (relationship capital)
Apply these intangible principles to any community:
A community gets paid by their collective productivity – this is their strategic capital. In order to be productive, communities need access to markets and resources that support their productivity. The structural capital of a community includes their social processes and knowledge assets but also, their access to knowledge assets and data (stored value) of other communities. The community counts human capital in the skills that they collectively hold; entrepreneurs, trades, and social services, and education for example. Finally, strong and weak relationship capital includes the internal social fabric but also their external connections and associations.
All of these Intangible factors are directly tied to the ability for a community to travel and be traveled to. As such, travel assets, by definition, always return 80% ROI. If you lose one of them, you lose the other three.
The Massachusetts State Study found that overall the state’s 39 airports combined support more than 124,000 jobs and generate $11.9 billion in economic output annually.
If 80% of the value is in intangibles, one can argue that Worchester Regional is worth 250 Million and all 39 Massachusetts airports are worth 55 Billion in intangible economic output. The real connection being missed is the difference between the economic value that cannot be accounted for in existing service models. $250 Million dollars is a lot of air transportation for a region that always generates 80% ROI.
What many peoples fail to realize is the possibility that a community can operate their own airline. The regionalization of air service pioneered by Social Flights 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.
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.
Another Travel Tax Clips 4M Wings
Few people take into account the social value of air transportation. There are very few studies that can measure the impact on a community when they are immobilized due to lack of a service that had previously been available. There is no true economic category to describe such loss except as a tax on travel.
A regressive tax is taxation that takes a larger percentage from low-income people than from high-income people. A regressive tax is generally a tax that is applied uniformly. This means that it hits lower-income individuals harder. Social Flights can restore this value with a regionalized public jet charter system.
Now we can add “Travel” to the list
Sales taxes that apply to essentials are generally considered to be regressive as well because expenses for food, clothing and shelter tend to make up a higher percentage of a lower income consumer’s overall budget. In this case, even though the tax may be uniform (such as 7% sales tax), lower income consumers are more affected by it because they are less able to afford it.
<via American Eagle to park planes, reduce service – Dallas Business Journal>
The small city gets the regressive travel tax
American Eagle announced that they would reduce frequency in a few select markets, they would discontinued seasonal service from D/FW to Augusta, Ga. Eagle would also discontinued service from Chicago to Tri-Cities, Tenn as well as discontinued service between Miami and Savanna, Ga., and Miami and Fort Myers, Florida. American Eagle would also hasten the cancellation of Los Angeles-Boise, Chicago-Calgary and D/FW-Fayetteville, N.C., service from Feb. 9 to Jan. 31.
So how many people would these reduction in service decisions impact? If we just add up the populations of the smaller metropolitan area in each city pair, we can estimate economic loss of opportunity under the assumption that the larger city would have alternate options. Fair enough?
Augusta, GA: 556,877
Tri Cities, TN: 500,538
Savanna, GA: 347,611
Ft Meyers, Fl: 618,754
Boise, Id: 616,500
Calgary: 1,230,248
Fayetteville, NC: 366,383
The Creeping Costs
The total is at least 4 million who will lose one more degree of economic freedom. 4 million people will pay a regressive tax denominated in time, money, and dignity in some form or another for the benefit of stockholders in American Eagle. 4 million people will lose the economic benefit of travelers from large cities.
On closer inspection, with the exception of Calgary and Boise, all of these cities are well within 1000 miles of each other. Each of these cities is well within 1000 miles of cities just as large as those that American Eagle is diminishing service.
While a hub and spoke model may break down economically, a regionalization strategy may work quite well. It has been proven that people are willing to pay a premium for direct service (otherwise the airlines would not be dropping less profitable indirect service). It is also obvious that people place a premium on their time and hassle as demonstrated by trends in online shopping, communication, and social organization.
These ingredients simple add up to a regionalization air transportation route structure enabled by online social organization tools such as Social Flights where community airlines can form around community priorities. Social Flights can restore this value with a regionalized public jet charter system.
Charting The Course For 2012
All of us at Social Flights extend our deepest holiday wishes to all the people who have supported us during this our Launch year. A lot has happened since February 2011. We thought we should report to you what has been accomplished and some new developments underway:
Over 13,000 people have joined Social Flights Traveler’s Network receiving unlimited access to the following services:
- Over 90 Private Charter Operators have joined the Social Flights platform.
- Over 500 aircraft are available in the Social Flights Virtual Fleet.
- Social Flights website can now deliver an instant auto quote under our “Create a Flight” option.
- Social Flights Allows you to embed our quoting feature in your website
- Social Flights Developed a full suite of Community Airline services for small cities that are losing – or never had – airline service.
- Social Flights allows members to create alerts to desired locations or invitations to join a flight formation.
- Social Flights assures privacy with our internal networking features which are never released to the public domain.
Beginning next year:
- Social Flights will expand scheduled public jet charter service through the community airline program to smaller markets and even “stranded” communities.
- Social Flights will expand one-way flight program from 100 per day to over 1000 per day
- Social Flights is building out the affinity travel and social jet charter service to include colleges, Sports, concerts, conventions, events, tourism, and family travel.
- Our Elite Travel Services division will initiate international social jet charter service between the US and China as well as Latin America.
To our Partners:
Our partner network is growing to include hotels, Concierge services, tour operators, marketing firms, Facebook page owners, event managers, and economic development agencies.
Our partner network will continue to grow to serve the traffic that we now steadily deliver hassle-free to your communities.
These are the highlights off the accomplishments this year and some insider information on what to expect next year.
If you are a traveler please invite your friends and colleagues to share a jet. If you are a community or event organizer, please keep in mind that we are here to serve you and your community travel needs. If you are a certified aircraft operator, let us help you increase utilization of your inventory. If you are a hospitality or experience service provider, please let us help you build travel packages around the freedom of flight.
To Have Or To Have Not
I often feel “Lost” as I continuously review what is happening in the air transportation industry. So many people are stranded in time and place by the anxieties, harassment, and limitation the air transportation system. It is only getting worse as airlines push in and pull out of markets with abandon disrupting the dreams and aspirations of millions of people with the stroke of keyboard.
Or, perhaps it is the holiday season now upon us that leads me along the nostalgic trail of family and friends who I miss so dearly. Or, it could be the recession that forces me to look outside my own community to achieve economic security in these difficult times. Meanwhile; social media technology increases my exposure to like minded people, new ideas, and a bewildering array of events and opportunities – many of which I can no longer access efficiently.
The easy thing to do would be to accomodate the situation and limit my goals and aspirations to that which others serve up to me on the platter of their choice. I could simply give up and be content with my lot in life as determined by others. I could dedicate my talent, education, and experience to lesser parochial tasks that happen along the jungle trail.
Or, I can seek the vulnerabilities of the forces that control my ability to travel. I can exploit weaknesses in their business model and I can find others willing to join forces to bypass those externalities altogether.
I have chosen the latter and in the process, I have met some of the smartest, engaging, and interesting people that I could have imagined. I no longer flash back to the past – I flash forward to the future. That is the secret ingredient to never being stranded in the choices of others.
2012 will be the tipping point for many people. I believe that communities will begin to organize around the assets that government and corporations can no longer provide. Communities will make the choices that determine their own future, sanctity, and preservation. Self-organization will become the fabric of the social landscape.
My job it to show people that there is no reason why they cannot run their own airline; any where and any time they choose.
KLM Social Airlines
Few people get on a commercial airplane to enjoy the fine food, friendly conversation and sensational view – but that may change as KLM continues to innovate in social media. Some may remember that KLM was the first to provide on-demand service from Europe to Miami booked entirely through social media.
This time, KLM is banking on the fact that people who have both an origin city and a destination city in common, would have other things in common as well. KLM observes that people share information with each other so freely on social media- so maybe they’ll share information with each other on “Social Airlines”.
Will something get lost in the translation between the virtual and the reality? Fortunately, Anne van den Berg was kind enough to provide Social Flights with a translation of her Dutch language blog, Editor Anne Daily:
You always have to wait and see who will sit next to you on an airplane. A crying kid or a smelly man, it is not always fun. Soon, this can be in the past. The Dutch airline company KLM will be offering seating suggestions based on someone’s Twitter or Facebook account. The goal, says an executive from KLM, is letting, mainly business, passengers network. I am very curious how this will work.
Well, we are asking the same questions at Social Flights. In fact we are attempting to fill small aircraft on direct flights based on a similar assumption that people of like interests would choose to share an airplane together. While the KLM starts with a full plane and sorts people by interests, Social Flights hopes to go one step further and use such data to “kickstart” scheduled “flash Charter Jet” service. So while KLM sees an important branding advantage, Social Flights sees and entirely new paradigm for air transportation – public Charter Jets.
Anne van den Berg continues with the following analysis:
- What kind of customers are you serving? I wonder, what customer are waiting for this service? Personally, I like having some conversations with my neighbour in an airplane, but, mainly when I return from a trip, I want to sleep. Nó contact. If someone will come and sit next to me with the expectation of discussing the state of the world in a highly intellectual manner, it is very probable he will be deceived.
- And what about privacy? I expect that customers will have to do an opt-in, but do you want to give everybody insight in who you are? If you put your Twitter information out there, sure that is public already, but Facebook? That is mainly meant for family and friends (although some people will stretch that definition).
KLM has since disclosed in this CNN article that mutual acceptance to use the social seating tool will be required. KLM was quick to note that the intention is not to create a dating game and they did not disclose if they would charge an extra fee for the service. Further, they they did mention adding any amenities in support of the friendship event.
This leaves me wondering what the implications of being “unfriended” in virtual space and reality space at the edge of physical space. In any case, Social Flights will be watching KLM developments actively. Thanks Anne for the tip and translation on this story – let’s share a flight sometime.
The Personal Light Jet
National Public Radio recently aired 2 very interesting segments on the airline industry. The first segment cited companies leaving small cities because of poor air transportation service. The second segment cited an interesting statistic; all of the airlines that existed before the deregulation act of 1978 have gone bankrupt.
But wait, wasn’t airline deregulation supposed to be good for the airlines? Wasn’t it supposed to spawn innovation and drive economies of scale? Wasn’t it supposed to increase choices for the airline passenger?
Well, at least one of these impacts is true; deregulation spawned innovation – although probably not the way it was predicted in 1978. Today, new technologies are appearing everywhere from new forms of social organization to faster and smarter aircraft systems. This article features a very interesting aircraft sector called the personal sport jet. While I do not know enough about their actual business model, it would appear that they are aiming where the airlines and major manufacturers simply cannot reach.
With an operating cost of $400 per hour instead of $1200-$2000 per hour in this class, the excel sportjet can deliver a 2 hour jet flight performance in a “regionalization” market. Social media trends show us that people are connected in shorter distances and far more diverse locations than the hub and spoke system can accomodate.
This aircraft is small, lightweight, and fast. It uses a single jet engine and flies at a lower altitude reducing pressurization forces and associated cost. The Sport Jet II carries 4 people and employs extensive use of composites in addition to simplified pilot qualification requirements.
Clayton Christensen’s book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” cites numerous now classic examples of how industries are threatened by simple upstarts that deliver what the customer wants at a price they can afford without the complexity and “over-performance” burden that mainstream players evolve into.
While the aviation business is very complicated, it is truly a pleasure to witness new products and innovations that come to market under the radar of the big players. We hope that they grow to have an impact on the industry. After all, that is what Social Flights is all about.
Bravo Sport Jet II, Bravo.
When Business Follows The Airlines Out of Town
Ok, now this airline game is becoming serious business. It is bad enough when small communities that never had air service options have given up trying to grow (where new opportunities fail to materialize and young knowledge workers move away). It’s a whole different matter when companies pick up and leave a community because the airlines pull the plug on air service.
[via When Airlines Depart Cities, Businesses May Follow : NPR]
Last month when Chiquita announced it was moving its corporate headquarters from Ohio to North Carolina, it said it was lured there in part by the number of flights in and out of the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Cincinnati came out on the losing end of the deal because like so many other cities, it faces a shrinking airline hub, which can affect the city’s business climate.
US Cities are vulnerable to decreased economic development due to Airline Service loss
Regressive Economics
When a company leaves town, it takes with it the self-identity of the people who worked their entire careers to make that company great. When people are forced to migrate to find new work, they impose a cost on their families and futures. While corporations maintain economic freedom to make decisions in their own best interest, the public does not have the economic freedom to respond in their own best interest.
Daily Departures
Cincinnati; At peak, 2005: 673 daily (5 international); Current: 200 daily (1 international)
Pittsburgh; At peak, 2001: 579 daily (3 international); Current: 145 daily, (1 international)
St. Louis; peak 2001: 595 daily; Current: 250 daily
And, this is ONLY THREE Cities.
Looking at the above statistics; well over 1000 flights per day have been eliminated from these three not-so-small cities. That is 365,000 flights denying economic equality to over 50 million travelers in a single year. The scale of entrepreneur career-years alone squandered due to lack of air service is absolutely catastrophic for the American Economy. The irony is that people who move away need to travel more to stay connected to families. The economic friction imposed on communities is staggering.
“I remember coming here a few years ago and it was a hub of activity, you know, with all three concourses,” he says. “Now there’s only … one concourse left, if that, and it’s just really amazing to see this huge infrastructure supporting very little flights.”
Van der Horst with the Cincinnati chamber says she doesn’t expect Delta to go back to 673 flights a day at CVG, but she knows that for Cincinnati to attract and retain more business, it will mean landing more flights.
Social Flights is working overtime to create a Community Air Service Program that allows communities to access modern jet aircraft to fulfill their own travel needs whether they need direct flights, hub flights, corporate shuttle flights, or charter jet operations. Social Flights has the operational experience to teach communities how to manage their own air transportation operations through their own airports, FBOs, and responding to their own social priorities with modern aircraft.
Economic Freedom belongs to everyone. This is the cornerstone of the Social Flights business model – Social Flights is the people’s airline. Let us know where you want to go, before someone else does that for you….