Plane Conversations

Any number of b-school power plays will cite the competitive advantage necessary in hard economic times.  But how many people talk about the cooperative advantage?

Information is power

When the buyer has the same information as the seller, markets are more efficient.  The Internet has made information free and easy to transport.  So, understandably, any business that hopes to survive by restricting information will ultimately find competition from a start-up that does not.

The “equal information” playing field

This scenario plays out over and over as industries as diverse as newspapers to higher education to government to commercial aviation are forced into profound transformation by the availability of equal information.  True to conventional wisdom, good information creates more good information and bad information creates more bad information. For Social Flights, our best customer is the educated customer because they’ll educate each other.

Coming to an Airfield near you…

The true cost of flying private jets is one of the best-kept secrets in aviation.  Corporate Jets are a source of mystery, controversy, and symbolism. There are many reasons for suppressing true costs such as avoiding public disclosure of VIP expenditures,  or to protect profit margins enjoyed by charter brokers.

On the other hand, there are many important and legitimate reasons why some people should fly private instead of commercial. Social Flights believes that there are many situations where the true value of private flight greatly exceeds the cost of private flight for a large population of travelers. The problem is to find possibly millions of passengers who do not know that Social Flights applies to them.

Information Transparency

For this reason, it is essential that a baseline cost be established in a market so that everyone can use the same data to make educated decisions about how to travel efficiently.  It is essential that the market can eliminate price distortions, suppress arbitrage opportunities, and equalize asymmetric information.  The focus of the industry should be on expanding the market through transparency, not short term gain by hoarding the limited existing market.

Cooperation is the new market advantage

Social Flights has developed an instant flight quote feature that calculates a nominal estimate to fly a private aircraft from any airport in the US to any other airport in the US.  This establishes a baseline on the actual cost to fly.  From this baseline, jet operators can bid and win missions that are naturally most profitable to them. Or, operators can cooperate with each other by sharing legs in an abundant market rather than compete with each other for a constrained market.

Event planners, corporate executives, travel agents, economic development agencies, and travelers of every type now have the information that allows them to access private aviation inventory for businesses and the magnificent value that it brings to communities.  That is the new market advantage.

“See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to *hold* the reservation and that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”

– Jerry Seinfeld

Investors in Social Flights include our dedicated operators, our loyal customers, our gracious parent company, and our visionary seed investors.  So we pose the following idea with data to back it up:

Social Flights can fly non-stop service that carries bumped passengers to their intended destination on a private jet for less than the financial cost and social burden of federal penalties and traveler disruption.

This article furnishes FAA data showing that during the month of July – September 2011, a total of 12,516 people were involuntarily denied boarding (bumped) despite the fact that they held reservations. This does not include passengers affected by cancelled, delayed or diverted flights.

This number falls precisely within the scale, distribution, and unique capabilities of Social Flights. From  FAA Air Consumer Report

Social Flights is a revolutionary tool that can help reduce the volatility in cooperation not in competition with the airlines by providing fractional scale capacity that is deployable with great speed, flexibility, and precision.

The presence of a Social Flights terminal at a large airport can provide an alternative for airlines to honor the reservations that their travelers hold.  Once a group 8, 20, 30, or 50 bumped passengers from all airlines converge to a single location, Social Flights can initiate a non-stop flight.  Airlines can often anticipate overbooking with substantial advanced notice.  Likewise, an aircraft that only fills less than, say 50% of it’s seats can disaggregated into several component destinations to be deployed by Social Flights.

The ability to absorb volatility in the Commercial Airline industry using private and public charter service is an important asset to commercial airlines, private carriers, and most importantly, the traveling public.  Social Flights predicts that the Commercial Carriers will soon see the benefit of cooperating with private capacity using the social aggregation tools of Social Flights.

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.

Social Flights is featuring this property sharing opportunity from AirBnB.com and it’s owner to present a unique way to visit the Olympic Peninsula and the Olympic National Park in the State of Washington. This is the first time we’ve done this because it is a great way to demonstrate the versatility of Private Social Travel.

Cinnamon Bear Cabin is walking distance to the (semi) private and uncrowded Lake Cushman Golf Course and within a few miles of three amazing bodies of water; Lake Cushman, Lake Kokanee, and the Hood Canal (actually a Fjord remnant of the ice ages).  Hood Canal is known for crystal clear saltwater scuba diving, crabbing, clam digging and seasonal salmon fishing.  Lake Cushman is a 4000 acre  glacier fed lake at the foot of 7000 ft mount Washington in the Olympic Range.  Lake Kokanee sits below the Lake Cushman dam and offers a serene  trout fishing experience through its meandering canyons.

The nearest commercial airport is 2 hours away, but Social Flights can bring you and your group directly into Sanderson Field in a private aircraft from anywhere in the US, less than 15 minutes from this very special location where you will pick up your car, keys, and license for fun and adventure.

Olympic National Park is comprised of nearly 1 million acres of the Olympic Mountain range. The Olympics literally halted the glaciers that carved the surrounding geography many thousands of years ago and are now home to unique species and wildlife ecosystems.  The ONP is one of the last remaining temperate rain forests in the World with ancient old growth featuring trees of astonishing size.  Yes we all know of the great sequoias of California, but Imagine cedars, douglas firs, sitka spruce, and hemlock trees 15 ft in diameter and up to 300 feet tall.

Indian heritage is alive and dominant in several areas offering cultural and recreational opportunities found nowhere else.  You can also visit Lake Quinault, The Western shores, and many hot spring locations all easily accessible from Cinnamon Bear Cabin.  In the Northern portion of ONP, you’ll find crystal clear Crescent Lake - a body of water so rare and so old that it’s the home of some species of fishes that exist nowhere else on Earth. Crescent Lake is called a “National Treasure” with 5 stars on TripAdvisor.com

Hiking, camping, Kayaking, festivals, casinos, local artisans, scuba diving, golfing, fishing, sky diving, are all abundant in the Olympic Peninsula.  What you will not find are crowds, tourist traps, tourist crime, pollution, blight, traffic, and harassment.  The Olympic Peninsula has one of the lowest population densities in the US. Local prices are local prices and not tourist prices.  Cinnamon Bear Cabin is perfect for people who want to experience the best of the Pacific Northwest without needing a vacation from their vacation afterwards.

The choice is yours, you can navigate the Gauntlet of the travel industry whose sole purpose is to drive revenue, add fees, sell advertising impressions, waste your time, and reach into your wallet at every fork and bend  on the roads most traveled. Or, you can go for a private experience with all the cherished memories that you expect for your time and money at a cost that is comparable to anything that the commercial travel “processing” industry has to offer. It’s about a colors of time for your money, not the colors of money for your time. You live once, make it count

Economic Development is on everyone’s minds as people realize that their local economy can have a dramatic impact on the their position in the next largest markets.   Now, data is converging so rapidly with the travel experience that opportunities for unique locations to provide unique experiences are truly profound.

From Wikipedia:

Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area. Such actions can involve multiple areas including development of human capital, critical infrastructure, regional competitiveness, environmental sustainability, social inclusion, health, safety, literacy, and other initiatives. Economic development differs from economic growth.

Look at the photo above and the Wikipedia entry below it.  It is literally possible to visualize ALL economic indicators in a single flash of an IPhone.  Human capital cannot readily organize without education, transportation, clean environment, social inclusion, safety, and health services.  A community desirable to its citizens is a community desirable to its markets.

This goes without saying for cities that have grown to a size where major airports have become almost a scourge – many of these cities themselves began as a cross roads for land, water, or train transportation in their respective histories.  Efficient air transportation without the “crossroads”  may hold a distinct economic advantage for communities where the access to economic information is equalized by the Internet.  In other words, all things being equal, travelers will prefer a location that is relevant, pristine, uncrowded, and welcoming.

Social Flights is pioneering the concept of the Community Airline, specifically termed “Public Charter”.  The idea is simple; there is very little that a major airline can do for a small community that a small community cannot do for itself, better, faster, cheaper, and without sacrificing safety – all within the existing regulatory environment.  Social Flights can help communities to acquire, maintain, market, and operate modern aircraft which can be deployed on a schedule that suits the community priorities.

Look at the picture again – this is the mural upon which communities will define themselves in the digital age. Social Flights provides all the economic development benefits of an airline without the burdens of a hub airport

Investment in travel applications continues. Social Flights continues to track the convergence of these technologies and demonstrate where we fit into the new travel paradigm. This article features Gidsy.com, the “activity-booker-meets-social-networking” site - claimed to be the AirBnB of travel. Notably they are location in Berlin (not the Valley), and their lead investor is none other than @AplusK.

screen shot from Gidsy.com

Venture capitalist tend to invest in businesses that they understand and businesses that they can influence.  Ashton Kutcher is well known for his influence in both old media and new media – but where is the connection between that and travel?…except that Ashton needs to travel to get to Berlin.  Perhaps herein lies the answer.

From  VentureVillage.

“What I love about Gidsy is that they are creating a movement and a strong, credible community of likeminded people,” said supporter Felix Petersen in an interview with VentureVillage. “It’s important that like-minded businesses and individuals in Berlin cross-invest and help each other out.”

On the other hand (from the same article)

Kutcher has invested in over 40 tech companies to date, some of which remain unnamed out of fear that his own publicity would overshadow the product itself. 

How important is access to information?

Access to locations and access to information about location is critical to both the success of the people who live there as well as the people who go there.  In this light, products like Gidsy take on new meaning and impact for communities and travelers.

Gidsy.com allows users to offer paid-for activities and courses to other members of the community, as well as full social networking integration. Initially launched for the Berlin area, Gidsy now covers Amsterdam, New York and San Francisco, with London to follow soon.  Gidsy’s business model (charging 10% of each transaction) differs from similar US services like SideTour in NY (which charges a higher 20%) and Vayable (available in six cities, charging a 15% fee).  How they will hold up against American competition is yet to be seen.

The Virtuous Circle

Basically, Gidsy allows people to book activities provided by real people.  After listening to a recent program of TrendPOV by Dr. Amy Vanderbilt and her guest Reinhold Behringer about Augmented Reality, Gidsy.com seems to create the underlying dataset to this next level of travel technology.  The ability to point your smartphone down a street and see what activities are happening is only an iPhone revision away. Proximity is a play on “location” and inherently invokes transportation. So it is easy to see that many applications and technologies are converging.

Back to Ashton Kutcher and travel

Airlines and airplanes are increasingly confined to major hub airports.  Because everything is scheduled and booked far in advance, there is relatively little richness to the data that would drive an augmented reality experience in an airport.  However, where schedules are fluid, and activities are localized, and people are being creative, new markets will inevitably emerge.

Not Trivial:

Social Flights provides the dataset and certification to publish flights out of smaller local airports with the flexibility of flying non-stop to other small airports.  Combined applications such as Gidsy, augmented reality, and Social Flights can open up a new world of travel opportunities.  Maybe the “Hollywood Augmented Reality” is not so far off the mark after all.

We recently stumbled upon a great group of people dedicated to the promotion of the fastest growing specialty in social media.   The position of  Community Manager, in our opinion, is growing to a size and scope that warrants its own professional classification.

via Community Managers: Where do you live? | My Community Manager.

What is MyCMGR.com?

Much like chemistry grew from alchemy (the task of trying to turn lead into gold) Community management is more than PR.  Community Management is the science of understanding how to create many important products from all the social elements.  At Social Flights, we are developing a new class of business methods that will rely heavily on the skills and tool set of the Community Manager. It is our suspicion that we are not alone in our requirements for this emerging profession.

Community Organization:

Socia Flights is more than a charter airline, we are a ride sharing system for private jets.  In order for our transactions to be most equitable to the traveler, we need the community to self-organize around a collection of airline inventory without using a hub airport.  This is not an easy problem to solve and herein lies the perfect game for the modern community manager.

Our vision for the future…

Social Flights envisions a Community Organizer to be able to look at data related to where people want to go and match it to available aircraft that can take them there.  Next, the organizer needs to find people who want to return on the empty airplane after the first passengers are dropped off.  Each time, the community organizer creates new data and feeds it back into the system.

As the system of data from all CO’s gets larger, it will become easier for the organizer to make connections in their specialty.   In the big picture; every shared asset  in a community from airplanes, cars, hotels, schools, and even government agencies can be operated by experienced community organizers.  Now imagine that all this can happen outside the construct of the familiar “corporation”

MyCMGR.com works with:

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.