Plane Conversations

Air Travel in and out of New York City Area is among the most complex in the world.  4100 flights per day squeak out of 3 major airports while all three rank near the bottom of 29 hubs for on-time performance.  Many people say that the Next Generation satellite air traffic control will alleviate the problem by allowing aircraft to fly closer together in crowded areas.  Others say that multiple modes of transportation such as high-speed rail would ease congestion.

Social Flights says, “Why fly someplace that you are not going?”

I grew up in Connecticut and have come to know New York as a magnificent city with huge importance in business, government, art, and culture. The cost of traveling into New York can often exceed the price of airfare outbound and almost always takes longer than the flight itself.  Commuting into the city from Connecticut can cost 100 dollars including parking, commuter train, and meals – and it can take 3 hours each way.  Commuters often spend more time traveling than working.  The cost of living in the city is exorbitant.

Look at the numbers

At around 200-250 persons per aircraft, 4100 flights represents between 750,000 and 1 million people per day.  The population of Manhattan is only 1.5 Million.  A significant percentage of people are actually traveling to, or from, Connecticut, or New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, and beyond.

In fact, there are 23 airports in the New York Metropolitan Area that can accept turbine aircraft.  At market capacity for each of these airports, the Social Flights Community Air Services Program could relieve the majors by 25-30% of their traffic while opening up air transportation to the millions of people who live outside of major cities and would otherwise not travel.

• Central Jersey Regional Airport (JVI)
• Essex County Airport (CDW)
• Greenwood Lake Airport (4N1)
• Hackettstown Airport (N05)
• Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR)
• Lincoln Park Airport (N07)
• Linden Airport (LDJ)
• Little Ferry Seaplane Base (2N7)
• Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP)
• Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU)
• Newton Airport (New Jersey) (3N5)
• Old Bridge Airport (3N6)
• Princeton Airport (39N)
• Republic Airport (FRG)
• Solberg-Hunterdon Airport (N51)
• Somerset Airport (SMQ)
• Stewart International Airport (SWF)
• Teterboro Airport (TEB)
• Trenton-Mercer Airport (TTN)
• Trenton-Robbinsville Airport (N87)
• Tweed New Haven Regional Airport (HVN)
• Twin Pine Airport (N75)
• Westchester County Airport (HPN)

Now, Let’s reintroduce those great ideas

Next Generation satellite air traffic control will alleviate the problem by allowing aircraft to fly closer together in crowded areas, but it also brings improved ATC to smaller airports at relatively low cost.  Multimode transportation like high-speed trains has a distinct advantage of being able to stop along a route.  For example; high-speed rail from Washington DC to Boston could carry passengers between airports not unlike trams carry passengers between terminals.  New mobile and big data applications can sort people and planes as effectively as hub infrastructure.

Social Flight knows where you are coming from

If you live in Connecticut, New Jersey, or upstate New York, you should be able to fly from your local airport to anywhere in the country. The Social Flights Community Air Service Program brings public charter air service to your doorstep and the doorstep that you are traveling to.

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.

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.

“Group Buying” was an idea that first surfaced during the “dot com” boom and ultimately failed to build any momentum.  The idea is again gaining popularity in the era of social media where scalability can be introduced as aggregation cost diminish on applications such as Facebook and Twitter.

Ditch the gatekeeper, axe the marketers, lose the spam.

My first reaction is to find the most unsavory business transactions today and eliminate all the unnecessary middle men and their costs, gateways, noise pollution, and inefficiencies.

Why can’t there be one cell phone store where I can buy anything for any mobile device? Why do I have to pay to use my credit card and pay to not use my credit card? Why am I still treated like a terrorist precisely when I am doing everything that I can to avoid terrorists?

There are some glimmers on the horizon.

Applications such as SocialBuy, Groupon, and Living Social, use their social media platforms that offer vouchers for steep discounts on a variety of goods, once a minimum threshold of consumers is reached.  People have an economic incentive to promote products in their social network (on Facebook and Twitter) in order to reach those thresholds more rapidly and consistently.

Product Networks?

Suppose the group buying experience could aggregate packages of products.  Strategic products would then be aggregated as  ”A Network of Products” that together increase net value.  Yes, you heard me…a ‘combination of products’ with Twitter followers.  A zip car, a movie ticket, Segway rental, and a dinner coupon could be aggregated into an entertainment / shopping package.

This is not so strange.

Apple’s enduring success is very much a model of commercial social aggregation. Nobody can compete with an iPhone without also offering iTunes, iMovie, iPad, and all the social trappings of the iStore.  Perhaps Google, with its social commercial network can compete resulting in a duopoly.  Group buying can empower the smaller players and bust monopolies in an infinite array of combinations.

Why not air travel?

The door-to-door travel time and social cost to fly between two small cities, say, 500 miles apart using commercial airlines is greater than just driving. There is no other alternative, sans high-speed rail, and the economic result is that the two cities remain small with very little new commerce or diffusion of new ideas that air travel benefits a region.  People just don’t travel much between, say, Omaha NE and Cheyenne, WY.

Yet, small city pairs within 500 miles have strong extended family roots, migration patterns, and social network density.  It would be relatively easy to offer Group Buying on a 20-25 seat private airplane for less than the cost of driving; and in 1/10 the time!

The travel package could include ground transportation, shopping coupons, and maybe even a A zip car, a movie ticket, Segway rental, and a dinner coupon could be aggregated into an entertainment / shopping package.

Every small city economic development agency in the country should be in this business of building social networks and matching them with product networks between other small city pairs…

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A recent article on www.roadwarriortips.com revealed what are the most business friendly states in the US.  And with many business travelers who utilize private charter aircraft, I thought this might be an interesting read.

And I’ll be honest, they are not the ones I would have picked right off, but after reading this article… yeah, it makes sense these were chosen. 

The article reads:   

Highlights from a recent reportby Development Counselors International on states with a favorable business environment are revealing.  One of the important findings of this report is that amount of business travel is a key influencer on where to locate new business operations.  Another, clearly related, focus of the report was to rank states based on their business-friendly environment. 

Ranked from first to third by business development executives are: Texas, North Carolina and Georgia. 

Beyond their attraction for business, each state has great attractions that make business travel as enjoyable as it is profitable.  Texas, for example, has two huge cities and plenty of fun smaller towns.  Houston, that state’s largest city, may have 25 Fortune 500 companies, but it is also home to amazing sightseeing attractions like the Johnson Space Center and a Theater District that is second only to New York City. 

North Carolina is not only one of America’s major banking centers, it also is a thriving agricultural state.  Tourists love North Carolina and have made it the sixth most visited state in the Union.   This state has it all, from a magnificent coast with beautiful barrier islands to the majestic Great Smoky Mountains. 

Known for luscious peaches, Georgia is full of wonderful places to see and things to do.  Be adventurous and take a boat tour of the Okefenokee Swamp, immerse yourself in colonial history in Savannah or tour Atlanta, one of the most exciting cities in the Southeast. 

So, next time you take a business trip to somewhere in this beautiful and diverse country, why not take at look at what the area has to offer?  Put down your iPhone for a few hours, put on some sneakers and see what’s on offer.  You might even get back from your business trip feeling better than when you left! 

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On September 11, 2001, about 20 men changed the rules.  A little later in the day, several passengers changed them again.  This holiday, sadly, another extremist tried to change them back.  That passenger on Delta flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit tried to detonate an explosive when the aircraft was over the city of Detroit.  From the reports I’ve read, he had the explosive liquids strapped to his legs somehow and was in the process of trying to mix them when at least one other passenger stopped him.

It’s been nearly 20 years since I’ve flown through the Amsterdam airport.  When I was there last, I stayed in international concourse but went through security twice between my JFK and Frankfurt flights.  Subsequent visits to the airport were similar.  The place was amazingly secure and, still, this man was able to board his Delta flight with these dangerous substances on his person.  I’m pretty astounded, I have to tell you.

We, as the traveling public, are partly responsible for weapons that end up on airplanes.  Before you get too torqued up, I really wish that I could take you back to airport security checkpoints on September 10, 2001, where you would see the abuse people like you and me heaped upon the heads of the screeners, who were making barely over minimum wage and were subjected to consistent rude behavior.  People joked about “the bomb in my bag.”  People demanded that they be allowed to bring some banned item through with them.  People demanded exceptions.

The rules were clear and, yet, I caught passengers several times in my career trying to board the aircraft with banned items.  Once, man approached the aircraft with what appeared to be an artist’s box.  When the man handed it to me gate check, I detected the strong, particular odor of turpentine.  I asked the man about it and he said that, yes, he did have turpentine in the box.  He was an artist and that box contained the tools of his trade and he would not allow them to go through the baggage system.  He had adamantly insisted to the people in security that he must carry the box on the aircraft with him.  And they let him.  They allowed him to board the aircraft with all the makings of a Molotov cocktail because he had, basically, yelled loudly enough.  To be honest, it never even occurred to him that his box was a bomb with pretty colors.

Another man approached the gate holding a driver.  I asked how it was that he came to have that golf club inside security.  He told me that it was a $200 driver and that there was no way he was putting it through the baggage system to be mangled.  As politely as I could, I countered that there was no way he was boarding my aircraft with it.  It was a weapon, had he never seen Parry Mason?

We, as the traveling public, too often had this mentality – the rules applied to everyone but us.  We wanted to carry our stuff with us; so, we made scenes at security.  After hundreds of these scenes a month, security screeners got worn down.  Hey, they’re human.  They got tired of the abuse; so, they stopped fighting back.  They let us win and look what happened.

Total aircraft security means body scans, Tyveck suits, no carry-on or checked luggage.  It means that we give up everything, trying to guarantee safety on air mass-transit.  Can you imagine?  Planes full of people who look like Oompa Loompas (minus the green hair and orange skin)?  Can you see this working at all?  I can’t.

As the stakes get higher and security necessarily a bigger hassle, what I can see is more people investigating air charter options.  The TSA still defines allowable items; but, people know who they’re traveling with, both in terms of other passengers and even flight crews.

So, what do you want – greater security when you fly?  What are you willing to put up with to get it -Tyvek suits or a little bigger price tag for a private option?

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