Plane Conversations

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

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

For all economic development professionals:

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

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

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

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

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

After all, that is what community is all about.

Things are moving very fast in the era of social media. As soon as an airline makes a move, everyone downstream needs to adjust. New applications are built a new competitors form responses.  There is no “book” to read about how to do business in this rapidly changing environment.  So when a customer has a new question for a new situation, they go directly to the Internet to find the answer. And what do they find? Enter the online travel agent (OTA).

From Travel Matter:  Why Blogging Makes Sense for Travel Agents:

Then sites like TripAdvisor entered the industry, allowing travelers to access (and create) user generated reviews of hotels and booking travel became even more of a DIY process, that didn’t require expert guidance. Other sites even let travelers find out which seat on an airplane has the most leg room or which wing of a hotel has better views. Even guidebooks began to show this DIY attitude, as Lonely Planet outsold other publishers.

DYI-mania

As more and more layers of DYI independence are offered up to customer, so too is disinformation, incomplete information, conditional information and thousands of “options” that mask the true value of the travel experience.  It is largely in the best interest of OTA to consume the “time” of the traveler seduced by the promise of low prices.  First, this allows OTAs to impress more ads; and second, the DYI’er eventually get frustrated and click through to the more expensive (profitable) option for lack of time to deep dive through the details, restrictions, and caveats.

The Indispensable Knowledge Resource

All along, the traditional travel agent; once an indispensable resource has fallen by the wayside.  Some argue that the travel agent is to blame for not reinventing their profession from “broker” to “helper”.  Perhaps being technology savvy never entered the profession as it had for so many other professions.  Increasingly, the travel agent skill set is needed.

The Experience Traveler

Travel Agents have the ability to organize people around a set of events, opportunities, locations, and modes of transportation.  The experience of travel is finding it’s way into the value proposition of the decisions that the travelers make.

Everything from social media to Google to Groupon has re-focused consumers’ attention on small businesses, and given local businesses the tools they need to compete in non-local markets.

Few can aggregate local information better than travel agents

If given the right assets, they can put together offerings in anticipation of travelers.  Social Flights is constantly looking for that perfect skill set of location knowledge, transportation knowledge, and concierge service to whom we can entrust an available aircraft asset.

Travel agents can help redefine the door-to-door value proposition and Social Flights is here to help with a full array of private jets and corporate jets for private and public charter for scheduled service between any city pair that one can envision.  We are not the only ones; hotels, experience tourism, conference and events all search for the elusive traveler who has so many options but so little time. Travel agents can now manage a scarce and protected inventory once again where their knowledge, creativity, and social skill matter.

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:

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….

As I said yesterday, both the Phenom 100 and the 300 are single pilot certified and are designed to be flown by professional pilots, as well as owner pilots. The latter present a challenge as they are generally a group with little or no pure turbojet time.  Many have flown complex turbo prop aircraft but most owner pilots have spent little time in “fast movers” and lack a complete understanding of their roles and responsibilities in the ATC system. The solution lies in training and competent mentoring.  Embraer includes two “entitlement” training slots for pilots with the purchase of an Executive Jet. The training at ECTS is a thorough introduction into the Phenom and an accurate assessment of acquired skills and knowledge.   The problem is that training ends with the check-ride and subsequent type rating.   And, in any sphere, knowledge without wisdom is incomplete.

A typical type-rating oral exam consists of knowing aircraft systems and limitations along with the immediate action items associated with specific emergency procedures.  A more thorough oral drills deeper with questions involving the working relationships of systems and an understanding of why things work the way they do. The rating-ride is a carefully choreographed series of events that test specific learned procedures such as the loss of an engine on takeoff, the“V-1 Cut”, as well as single-engine approaches and landings.  The entire check ride is given within the confines of a single airport and is an accurate assessment of skills and accomplishment. The FAA oral and rating-ride are excellent tests of pilot preparedness for the unexpected problems that seldom (thankfully) occur in real life.  What a rating-ride can’t do is impart experience and judgment to a first-time jet pilot.  With experience comes wisdom and the safest way for the first-time jet pilot to get that wisdom is with the assistance of a mentor.

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.

 (59th St. Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel)

Up until recently, Air Traffic Controllers could logically assume that everyone in a jet “kicking down the cobble stones” was a pro-pilot or at least performed like one.  The advent of the personal jet has changed that.  Now anyone with a million dollars, or even less with financing, can buy a jet to look for fun and feel groovy hanging out with the big boys.  Herein lies the problem. The old instructor adage of “slow down and make yourself time for the approach” only works at the cabbage patch, but these personal jet aircraft aren’t staying in the cabbage patch.

A gap has developed between those who understand ATC and fly accordingly and those who feel as if ATC will accommodate their lack of skills and judgment. The saner parties have been the insurance companies who have insisted upon some level of supervision for low time aviators. Insurance companies, at a loss for how gauge skills and judgment, have resorted to insisting on a certain number of hours (usually 25) of supervised flying.  Typically those hours are flown in the course of business for the newly minted personal jet aviator.

Perhaps a better way to ensure the safety and success of the owner-flown community would be to adopt the commercial aviation technique of mentor flying for newly type-rated jet pilots by creating a private IOE (initial operating experience) process. Airlines have long recognized that meaningful mentor programs consist of more than the supervised “drilling of holes” in the sky.  A truly effective mentor program imparts a higher level understanding and competence to the new pilot.

With training fresh in the mind of the newly typed pilot, the mentor reinforces good technique and emphasizes the “real world” application the newly learned skills.  And it takes both training and experience to protect your Phenom investment.

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Over the past 28 years I have been a student of business aviation. Continually gaining new knowledge and applying that knowledge to better our business is not optional: it is necessary.  Born out of my frustration with Business Aviation’s inability to get its message and value proposition to the market more effectively, I became a student of Social Media a year ago.

Those of us in Business Aviation have not done a good job of telling our story to the business traveler.  Mainstream media has not done a good job at telling our story, either. The biased filters of media seldom get the quotes right or capture the essence of the true value proposition of Business Aviation. It is much easier to overlook the real purpose and to talk about the glitz and glamour of a private jet. The efficiency and productivity message doesn’t get the ratings like glitz, glamour and controversy.     

Business and Private Aviation is supported by and made up of a handful of big businesses and thousands of small businesses across this country. Those businesses operate out of the 5500 public airports in the US, most of which are small airports providing a vital link to their communities.

Small businesses and small airports have never been able to tell their stories because they did not have the advertising and PR budgets of their big business / big airport counterparts.

In the age of social media, those small businesses in private and business aviation services can now speak up and be heard. They can communicate their value to the market without filters. More importantly, they can hear from the market of frustrated travelers out there blogging and tweeting their travel misery every day.

Those who listen to that frustration and develop an understanding of the broken system can possibly even meet the market of travelers with a much more efficient solution – a solution that even makes travel a pleasant experience.   

All of that opportunity has come to our doorstep because of the advent of Social Media.

Over the past year I have seen private and business aviation wake up to the power to communicate with the market through Social Media.

It is now up to us to take what we are learning and properly apply that knowledge for the benefit of the traveler and our industry. When we do that, everyone wins!

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Over the years of growing our business I have had the opportunity to meet many airport directors in communities looking for ways to improve air service to their airports. My brother runs an airline in the western US that provides service to many communities through the Essential Air Service (EAS) program funded by the DOT. He has probably been through 100’s of presentations from airports and their support organizations – chambers of commerce, economic development boards and city governments.

All of these airports and the communities they serve want good air service. Why?

They consider air service as a necessary ingredient for business and economic development. When you can connect to the rest of the world by air you can bring business in to your community and create jobs and prosperity. When you are disconnected from the rest of the world you lose out and no one wants to lose out. 

Over the past two years the situation has not gotten better for small airports.

In fact it has gotten worse because airlines have pulled out of many small markets either entirely or they have reduced service to the point that it no longer offers any convenience to the business traveler. Because of the geographic and demographic rules of EAS subsidies, many small airports don’t qualify for the subsidy. They are just a little too close to another airport with airline service but too far away to be convenient. Or they are not quite large enough as a market.  

So far no one has come up with a real solution that fixes the problem of the demand for convenient air travel at a reasonable price in small markets.

Small airlines like Cape Air are doing a good job of filling some of the holes but there are still a lot of airports looking for solutions. Charter companies like my company are glad to pick you up at a small airport and take you anywhere. Our problem is price. We are still too expensive for the average traveler.

As I have sat in on meetings over the years I usually hear the field of dreams story. “Build it and they will come” or in this case “show up and fly and we will fill up your aircraft with happy paying passengers”. If that was the case then why aren’t the airlines showing up and fighting for those passengers?

One of the major issues I see is that no one can really tell you or I today where people really want to go. At best, over the years, consultants to the airline and airports put together a marketing study based on DOT statistics showing Origin and Destination (O&D) traffic flow between cities based on airlines published data. With some statistical tweaking the consultant shows that a quantity of people in a community are flying to or from some close by hub airport and they would all rather leave from the home field if they just could. Those stats rarely translate into a reality for the airline or the home airport because the stats don’t correctly indentify the traveler’s true intentions.

So the question to ask is how we identify the true intentions of travelers, to really know when and where they want to go, and what it is worth to them for someone to meet their intentions.

If, in a perfect world with perfect knowledge at our fingertips, we could reach that point of knowledge could we then meet those intentions with the fleet of aircraft available in this country?

Change gears with me now and think about what is happening in the world of social media: 400 million and counting on Facebook, people tweeting every minute of the day, geo-location technology that knows where I tweet or text from, linked in profiles, and applications like TripIt that tell everyone where I am going and how I am getting there. In the past few weeks Facebook has gotten slapped for their use of the information they have been collecting on all of us, but at the end of the day I predict that we will not slow down telling everyone else everything about us. Privacy or no privacy we seem more than willing to let the world know just about anything.  

How could communities and small airports use the power of this information from Social Media to match traveler’s intentions to the supply of travel services? Could they build their very own communities online with the purposes of sharing travel intentions between travelers?  If so they could have the real knowledge of who, where, when and how much as opposed to the statistics that don’t seem to mesh with reality?

Something to think about isn’t it!

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