Plane Conversations

Social Flights is proud to announce one of the most important innovations in travel since the OTA.  Our new events page allows communities to promote their events and their special attributes for free to people across the country who may want to share a charter aircraft to get there.  Our “kickstarter” feature books the trip when the seats are filled – at which point we will deliver them comfortably to your doorstep.

We call this Social Flying.

Normally, the airline decides when, where, and how you will reach your destination.   With Social Flights, communities of people tell the airline where, when, and how they want to reach your destination.  Of course, many people want to attend your event or experience the natural beauty, culture, or history of your community  - the problem is that they simply cannot get there.  That’s the problem that Social Flights solves best.

Social Flights opens up a new market for air travel

For example:

• Many events require a 3 day minimum commitment; 2 days to travel commercial and 1+ days for the event.
• Weekend travel is almost impossible with the airline system. End of story.
• Spontaneity: airline seats often book solid weeks in advance or priced through the roof within the week of travel.
• Access: many of the greatest events, most amazing sites, and unforgettable experiences are NOT near a hub airport

The following screen shot is an example of how communities are using Social Flights Event service.  Go ahead and try it, contact us here or call 615 534-4590 to participate in the beta rollout of this new and exciting feature 

Airlines are taking a beating from on-line conversations.

In yesterday’s article titled “Four Strategic Social Experiences” we illustrated, using a word cloud, what a consumer might find if they were searching for shared experiences about a particular airline. Not good.

A new report from PhoCusWright finds that “Flyers are essentially giving airlines a grade of C+, which is barely above satisfactory,” said Carroll Rheem, director of research for PhoCusWright. “But even more concerning for airlines is that their most valuable customers — business travelers and those with higher annual household incomes — are even less happy than the average.” Airlines are stuck in a spiral to the bottom.  They all compete on price and subsequently as margins get squeezed so does service.

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An industry in crisis is an industry ripe for transformation.

America’s air travel system is in crisis. In response to rising fuel prices, air-space congestion and industry losses during the recession, airlines have cut capacity and raised rates. These challenges follow on the heels of delays and hassles that have cost the nation almost $33 billion in the past year alone, according to a recent study commissioned by the FAA / DOT.

Some blame the problems on government regulations over airlines and the lack of modernized air traffic control infrastucture. Others see the problem as dysfunctional management of the airline system.

Could it be that “the system of air travel” is being re-engineered before our eyes and all the current problems are part of the process?

I remember when airline travel used to be a social experience. Today it is anything but social, with the majority of passengers frustrated by the experience and loss of productivity.  Yet air travel is necessary for both leisure and business purposes.

How big is air travel and its impact on the economy here in the US?

Research from the US Travel Association says:

1. About 42 percent of U.S. adults reported traveling by air for leisure trips.  The percentage of air travelers increases to 48 percent among U.S. adults who traveled for business purposes in the past year.
2. A study by the U.S. Travel Association revealed a deep frustration among air travelers that caused them to avoid an estimated 41 million trips over the past 12 months at a cost of more than $26 billion to the U.S. economy.
3. Business travel in the U.S. is responsible for $246 billion in spending and 2.3 million American jobs; $100 billion of this spending and 1 million American jobs are linked directly to meetings and events. For every dollar invested in business travel, businesses experience an average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits.
4. The Internet was used by approximately 90 million American adults to plan travel during the past year with 76 percent of online travelers planning leisure trips online.

The Social Market of Travel Is Hot Every other day or two, you hear about a new travel app, a travel related company, or a mega travel player partnering, acquiring, or developing the next industry killer app. Consider some of the recent developments in the travel space over the last year:

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Many of us who work in business aviation wonder if people would be willing to share their travel plans, share a flight together, let others know what they are up to, so they can meet up on trips, share rides from the airport to the hotel and so forth.

In other words, will business aviation travel go social?

One of the terms used for the aircraft we operate is “private” which does not exactly line up with “social” in a public sense.  We fly “private jets.” Private sounds like I don’t want the public to know what I am doing, where I am going and I most likely do not want to share my private ride.

Sharing is already happening in the world of airline travel and the events that drive travel; maybe to ease the pain inflicted on travelers by the airline system.

As I have looked around on the internet for social media platforms related to travel some really interesting ones have started showing up.

• Planely (www.planely.com) allows airline travelers to share their flight itinerary with the hope of connecting with others on the same flight. If this builds critical mass it could become a valuable tool.
• IMGuest (www.imguest.com) allows travelers to share their hotel location and plans in order to meet up face to face with others at the same or close by hotels, and expand their network.
• Plancast (www.plancast.com) is a site that is really done well, allowing people to post their plans for attending conventions, local events, music events, etc. and easily see who else is attending. A great way to make connections both locally and at away events.
• TripIt (www.tripit.com), which just announced its acquisition by Concur (Nasdaq: CNQR), was one of the first travel sites allowing travelers to share their itineraries that gained a mass adoption. Concur is a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions and apparently thinks TripIt is on to something based on the acquisition price.

These sites allow you to sign up and use them for free, and in some cases check in through your Facebook or Twitter accounts. The Facebook check-in creates an instant profile for fellow travelers to see plus it gives the site access to your Facebook information.

So the question asked again: Are travelers willing to share their travel plans in the hope of making the experience more social? The answer seems to be yes, as travelers are signing up to these social technology platforms in droves.

What about personal and business travel in private chartered aircraft?

What is the value in sharing travel plans with others you don’t know too well? Is it too risky?  Most of these sites tout the value proposition of networking and meeting up with people you would not otherwise meet.

The value of each of us knowing where others are going can go beyond just networking.

If you and I find out we are going to the same places, we can get together and come up with new solutions for getting there more efficiently by sharing costs and buying travel collaboratively. Eventually we may even be able to drive the market to offer better solutions that fit our needs, versus what suppliers of air mass transportation offer us today.

It would great if we could go when and where we really want to go in the most efficient manner as opposed to being pushed and shoved through a system that is not designed to really meet our intentions.

When that happens can the private aircraft, and the industry that supports it, be a possible solution?

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When you and I visited last, Leon and I were at Wal-Mart buying emergency clothes and supplies since our bags were lost. I honestly thought (hoped) that would be the end of the trip drama.

Later that day, our bags showed up on the doorstep where we were staying; so, we finally had our stuff.

Tuesday night’s business dinner went late; and, we had a Wednesday morning meeting before we would leave Danbury to drive to White Plains (HPN) to catch our 11:30 departure for home.  That was the plan, anyway.

Wednesday morning there was a voice message on Leon’s cell phone notifying us the 11:30 am flight out of HPN had been canceled and that we had been rebooked on a 6:05am flight. The message was sent sometime Tuesday night while we were at dinner; but. we did not get the message. He received a text message at 6:10am saying that we were booked on the 6:05am flight (you know, the one that left five minutes ago?). For us to have made that flight, we would have had to have left Danbury about 4:15 am Wednesday morning, missing our Wednesday morning meeting completely.

After calling the help desk at Delta, we were able to get a flight out of La Guardia at 3:30pm, going non-stop to Nashville.

This wasn’t toobad since it gave us a little more time for business at Danbury.  Great.  So, we left Danbury around noon for the hour and a half drive to New York’s La Guardia airport. When we were within sight of the terminal building, I got a computer call from Delta notifying us that our 3:30pm flight had been canceled due to weather in Nashville and that we had been rebooked on a Thursday morning flight departing at  8:10am.  You’re kidding me, right?

Trying to figure out how to reduce the costs of this change, we returned the rental car, checked into an airport hotel and the day was over.

Delta had canceled all flights Wednesday afternoon into Nashville (BNA) due to forecasted surface icing conditions. I appreciate the seriousness of freezing rain and what it does to an aircraft; but, interestingly, Southwest and other carriers continued to fly into BNA all Wednesday afternoon and evening.

I wonder if the cancellations had anything to do with the “passenger bill of rights” and the new penalties for people who are left stranded on aircraft or in terminals. Maybe not, but the cancellation of that many flights for a chance of bad weather seems like a very aggressive cancellation policy.

Our next trip to Danbury will be in a Cirrus SR-22 or on Southwest to Hartford, Connecticut’s Bradley / Windsor Locks Airport if the weather is too bad for the Cirrus. No more La Guardia. How much productivity is lost by traveling in this system? The FAA study says about $33 billion per year in lost time. I don’t know exactly how they came up with that number; but, I would dare say that they have not even scratched the surface of true losses since they have no way today to measure the wear and tear on the human mind and body from traveling through the airline system.   

Bottom line: The trip home got us back to Nashville one day late with travel time Danbury to home base at Smyrna was 22 hours. I think that got us down to about 45 mph average trip speed.  In the 1930’s, Delta Air Lines advertised “Speed, Comfort and Convenience.”  Not so much.

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It takes a day like yesterday to remind me why we are in the business of business aviation.

The day started with a 4:00 am departure from the house to make it to the Nashville Airport by 5:15 am for a 6:15 am departure.  Leon Custers and I were taking a Delta flight to White Plains, NY to meet up with business partners in Danbury, CT.

Delta had the best price / schedule to get us to White Plains by noon with a 45 minute drive to Danbury.  The main benefit of White Plains (HPN) was avoiding one of the big NYC airports such as La Guardia (LGA), which are off schedule more than they are on.

Yesterday was a big snow storm day for the Midwest, and Nashville even had an inch or two on the ground, but the roads were fine.  We made it though check in and security fine and boarded the aircraft set for an on time departure. This was an originating flight so the odds for an on time departure were good. After the aircraft was loaded, we sat for 30 minutes waiting on fuel, and then a ramp worker to push the aircraft off the gate. In our world this happens rarely, and when it does, it is a major event to not make an on time departure due to line service issues.  This was not a good sign for the day.

We arrived in to Detroit for the connecting flight and it looked like the trip was going to settle back down. We were sitting at the gate with 30 minutes to spare and an on time departure status on the board for HPN.  About 30 minutes past scheduled departure the announcement was made that the flight had been canceled. Everyone was to rebook to HPN on later flights. The computer system at DTW was down so flights that had canceled were still showing as on time departures. This made it very difficult for travelers trying to rebook flights and figure out where their new departures were.  

 Here is where the problems starts for most travelers in the airline system.

Airlines have reduced their capacity (inventory of available seats). Load factors are up, providing more pricing strength and higher revenue per flight, which is good for the airlines profit margins.

It is not so good for the traveler when flights cancel. The next flight for us was not later in the day, because the next three flights were all sold out. It was the next day.

Needing to get to our destination in the same day, like most business travelers, we resorted to looking for alternatives within the system and settled on La Guardia (LGA) which is an extra hour drive to Danbury. So, after trying to avoid LGA we ended up there anyway, only 5 hours later.

While waiting on the flight to LGA we got to witness the DTW police deal with a lady who decided to go back down the jet bridge after getting off the aircraft. She ignored the warnings of the gate agent and created a whole crisis, most likely over nothing other than she panicked trying to go back after her bag.

Another lady traveling with husband and baby had a melt down because she left a bag on her previous flight and they could not find it. I know that feeling when you have just lost your lap top with your whole life on it. I felt sorry for her. The gate agent was overwhelmed with issues and could not provide much help other than to tell her to file a claim. 

Departing DTW for LGA our flight was further delayed because the catering did not get loaded on the aircraft on time.  The arriving flight aircraft could not off load passengers because the Jet bridge was broken,  and TSA decided to pull a random gate security check.  All of those issues caused a one hour delay.

On the taxi into the LGA terminal I overheard another business traveler on his cell phone recounting his day that sounded much like ours.  He had started at 4.30am, was on his third flight segment and still had not arrived at his destination. His comment – ‘this is another one of those travel Mondays”.  Another lady in front of us missed her planned dinner.

Fortunately the weather was good at LGA, so we did finally get there, but our bags did not.  A lady in the lost bags line was very upset.  She was on the last day of military leave and her stuff was lost.

We made it to Danbury and were able to make dinner with our business associates, although late.

So this morning it was the trip to Wal-Mart, when they opened at 7.00 am, for emergency clothes and a tooth brush to survive until the bags show up.  As I write this, I feel sure that this story could be told millions of times over by the road warriors who travel in the system every week.  

As we waited to board the flight in DTW to LGA, you could look at the countenance of the men and women business travelers, and see a look of exhaustion, defeat and frustration.

The purpose of air travel is to save time. Somehow the airline system is not gaining in productivity in its mission. It is slipping.  And what about the stress of the travel?  Not knowing for sure when you are going to arrive, dealing with missed meeting times, lost bags, rerouted destinations….

Enroute time from Murfreesboro, TN to Danbury, CT: 15 Hours

Average Speed door to door: 65 miles per hour

There has to be a better way, and business aviation should keep seeking to provide the solution in ways that more travelers can afford. I can tell you that everyone of the people I rode with yesterday would take another solution if they could.  

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In a recent post I commented on the study that claims delays in the airline industry costs US travelers 33 billion dollars a year in lost productivity.

Yesterday I made a small contribution to the 33 billion of lost productivity on a flight from New York back home to Nashville.

One of my business partners and I had business in Danbury and Norwalk Connecticut over a two day period. In putting the trip itinerary together it made sense to fly into New York (LGA) on Southwest, rent a car, do the multiple meetings, and then fly home the morning of the third day.

The day started with a 7am departure from the hotel in Norwalk with about a 50 mile drive to LaGuardia. We left early to avoid the worst of traffic coming into the city. The traffic was not too bad so we got to the rental car drop off at 9am and ended up at the terminal and clearing through security by 945am.   

The flight, scheduled to depart at 1135, ended up being 30 minutes late on the inbound arrival due to weather in the NY area. The weather was just some light rain and cloud cover. Nothing major, but IFR conditions nonetheless.

After boarding, the aircraft pulled way from the gate and got in line for a 45 minute wait for departure. More delay due to IFR spacing issues for landing and departing traffic.

We had to connect in Baltimore with a plane change but missed the connection due to late arrival. There was another flight to Nashville departing 40 minutes after our arrival so we rushed over to that departure gate to find out the flight was oversold. We were then put on standby for a fully booked flight 2 hours later. Reduced capacity in the airline system translates to high load factors and profit for the airlines but major inconvenience for the passenger when connections get missed.

During this process we found out that 15 of the New York passengers on the first leg were Nashville bound and all of them, like us, missed their connection in BWI.

Fortunately we were the last two passengers to get on the flight to Nashville. It was about 30 minutes late departing because it had arrived late into BWI due to weather in the Northeast.  

While boarding we walked by several very frustrated Nashville bound New Yorkers who were not so lucky.

Arriving into Nashville and retrieving bags, we were out of the Nashville Airport about 630pm. The drive home from BNA is about an hour for me so the door to door travel time from the hotel in Norwalk to the house was 13.5 hours.

On the GPS navigator that trip door to door is about 900 miles driving. Based on the drive miles we averaged 70 miles per hour door to door.

I have no complaints about Southwest Airlines. Their service was good as always. They don’t control weather and air traffic flow. The gate agents did an excellent job handling the passengers, some who were not so pleasant.  

My story could be told by millions of travelers. It happens every day in the system. All you need is a little rain and low cloud ceilings in the Northeast  and the log jam begins. It doesn’t unwind until the last aircraft hit their overnight destinations.

We have a Cirrus SR-22 available to us to fly for business. Had we taken the Cirrus we could have reduced that hotel to home travel time down to about 6.5 hours. This doesn’t account for the fact that we could have done the whole trip in two days instead of three by flying on our own schedule.

Next time I think I will fly myself and spend a few dollars more on using the Cirrus than the cost of airline tickets and the exrta hotel.

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 USA Today travel section reports in an October 19 article  by Alan Levin says that travel delays in the airline system cost US society 32.9 billion a year in lost productivity.

The research behind this assessment was funded by the FAA in order to promote the NextGen air traffic system, which they say in the article can be fully deployed by 2025. In the mean time we will just have to keep losing 32 billion in productivity; or maybe it gets worse.

A few interesting quotes from the article:

All told, people on airline flights were delayed by more than 28,000 years during 2007, the year the researchers studied.

The cost to individuals in lost time and inefficiency was $16.7 billion, the study says. Only a small fraction of travelers — ones who miss connections or whose flights are canceled — suffer about half of that cost.

 ”We call those guys disrupted passengers,” says Cynthia Barnhart, interim dean of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of the study

The FAA and the ATA (Airline Lobbyists) believe that the NextGen system and more runways at the busier airports can solve this problem.

I would contend that NextGen and more runways will help, but they are oversimplifying the solutions to a major systemic problem in our air transportation system. The airline system of hub and spoke drives inefficiencies in travel by forcing people to travel indirect routes and then end up at destinations that are not closest to their true destination. More runways at the largest airports will help the airlines but it will not increase true travel efficiency.

The one solution the ATA doesn’t want anyone to think about is the use of Business Aviation and General Aviation aircraft to bring more efficiency to travel.

With an additional 5000 airports at our disposal, many in locations more convenient to our ultimate destination, business and general aviation should be seriously considered as a major part of the solution.

Mainstream media the ATA, and the FAA to some degree continually dismiss our subset of aviation as a viable part of the solution to the inefficiency that exists in air travel.

I see a 33 Billion dollar opportunity for those of us in business aviation but the airlines and the government are not going to hand it to us on a silver platter.

We have to create and communicate a better value proposition. We also need to insert ourselves into the conversations about the future of air travel in this country and gain a voice on the national stage.

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Photograph by: Chris Ware, Getty

Bloomberg and Associated Press report that June 2010 airline traffic rose 2.3% over June last year with US airlines carrying 65 million passengers. Annualized that comes to 780 million passengers. DOT projections say we will hit the 1 billion annual passenger level in the US in about 10 years.   

In spite of low customer satisfaction with airline service, people keep coming back for more. If you listen to all the grumbling you would think that, surely, travelers have had enough.  

The need or desire to travel must outweigh the pain of going to the airport and flying by airline.

People don’t like to fly the airlines but they keep doing it and the numbers are growing.

People love to fly in their own aircraft, ride in the back of a business jet or even a prop aircraft on their own schedule, and without the hassle of airline system,  but our industry languishes in this economy.

What is wrong with this picture?

It seems that price outweighs most considerations for the masses when it comes to travel.

Wouldn’t we all rather ride in a private jet if we could do so for the price of a Southwest Airline ticket?

How do we move a very small percentage of the market of travelers over to our side of the game?

It would only take a very small percentage of those 780 million annual passengers to radically change the fortunes of business and private aviation from manufacturers to service providers to the operators of the aircraft.

Move a few percent of the market share of travel to business and general aviation and, suddenly, the world looks a lot brighter for those of us in this industry.

I see a lot of effort being put forth; but, mostly, the efforts are in their own silos. I don’t see a lot of effort as an industry working together to solve the problem. There seems to be a general acceptance that it is what it is and that the situation on a macro level is not going to change quickly anytime soon.

It is worth thinking about to see if we can come up with solutions, isn’t it?

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Based on reports in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, Delta plans to park a big majority of the 50 seat regional jet fleet, operated by its subsidiary Comair, for economic reasons.

Other regional airlines have already parked, or they are soon to park many of their 50 seat or less aircraft. Michael Boyd of Boyd Group International is quoted in an Arkansas Online article saying that by 2015 US airlines will only be operating 200 regional jets with 50 or fewer seats, down from about 1200 at an all time high.  The 50 seat regional jet does not work in a cost driven airline world, especially when fuel prices are high.

There are two outcomes of these decisions that are interesting to me.

1)      As the airlines park these aircraft, service will be cut to some number of smaller markets. They are not parking all of these aircraft to put larger aircraft on the routes. In an unregulated airline system the airlines are not going to fly where they can’t make money and that is bad news for smaller markets.

2)      There will be a big group of Canadair CRJ 100/200 and Embraer ERJ 135/145 regional jets sitting  stored in the Arizona desert, possibly numbering in the hundreds. Some percentage of these aircraft still have good time left on their airframes.

As I hear from people in the leasing industry, the market for regional airline turboprops  is strong worldwide because the used fleet can be leased or purchased very cheaply compared to new prices. The operating costs of turboprops are much lower than the regional jet, especially on short haul routes that are common in developing economies.

So what do you do with a few hundred regional jets that are parked? At what price point do they become economically viable? Where are the new missions that would bring value and a new life for these aircraft?

Back in the early part of the last decade this same problem existed with the regional airline turboprop fleet as they were parked in favor of the new regional jets. Airlines going to an all jet fleet parked their Saab 340’s, Jetstream32’s and 41’s, Embraer 120’s and Beech 1900’s and the desert was full of stored aircraft. Ten years later you don’t see many sitting around. Most are deployed outside the US meeting the mission requirements of small airlines and government special use operations.  

Eventually the market will figure out how to redeploy these regional jets. It is all about economics. The combination of capital costs (lease or financing) and operating costs have to meet a point where it makes sense in a new use. Lower capital costs allow for lower utilization operations such as air cargo and on demand charter.

It seems that a big opportunity exists for charter operators to use these aircraft for contract flying, corporate shuttles and on demand point to point charter. There is a service gap that continues to grow as airlines focus on high density domestic markets. Could these regional jets help fill the gap?  

What do you think?

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