Plane Conversations

KLM is by far the most innovative airlines when it comes to social technologies.  We have written about them several times on Social Flights because we share a similar vision where social media can be used to organize people better than infrastructure, advertising, or marketing incentives.

The video above from KLM in very important, so watch closely.  In 58 seconds, KLM demonstrates how social value can be added to the value of flying.  This is the exact opposite of charging fees to “extract” social value from travelers held hostage.

Collaboration Economy

The KLM video shows how the two friends share a Taxi as a result.  Where many airlines charge 50 dollars for services, each of these people may have saved 50 dollars each on taxi fare in any major metro area.  If people can use meet and seat to share a taxi – they can share any number of valuable assets such as information, knowledge, insights, or more tangible assets such as discount coupons, vacation rentals, or access to their social network.

Pay attention World, Access is the Power Play:

What KLM has created is a new social platform.  As long as the “fasten seat belt sign is off” people can potentially trade things among themselves.  Wherever supply and demand for something valuable are allowed to meet, new markets form.

Talking about taxis:

Today, flying with Social Flights is a very personal affair – most people who fly together on one of our private jets usually know each other well and share deep affinities for the destination they are traveling to.  The idea of sharing a whole airplane on a per-seat basis is our core market.

However, Social Flights envisions a time where people can Meet and Fleet on the electronic curbside of the nearest airport with a fleet of airplanes waiting for instructions.   When enough people agree on a destination, the aircraft flies.  The same process can be repeated for the return trip from anywhere to anywhere.

Of course, people with similar interests will often want to go to the same places – something we share with the visionaries at KLM.  Now that’s what social flying is all about!

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.

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.

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.

Sasquatch! Music Festival is a music festival held annually at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington. It is presented by the House of Blues. There is an emphasis on indie rock bands and singer-songwriters, although there are also alternative rock, hip hop and comedy acts. The festival features four separate stages (Sasquatch! Main Stage, Bigfoot Stage, Rumpus Room, & Yeti Stage). (Wikipedia).  The 2012 event will be held on Memorial day weekend: May 25-May 29.  The line up will be announced February 2, 2012

The Gorge Amphitheatre is a 20,000+ seat concert venue, located above the Columbia River in George, Washington. It offers lawn-terrace seating and concert-friendly weather.

Administered by Live Nation, it is considered one of the premier and most scenic concert locations not just in North America, but the world. The venue has been a host to big name performers like The Who, David Bowie, Coldplay, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band and Phish. The venue offers sweeping and majestic views of the Columbia River, as well as extreme eastern Kittitas County and extreme western Grant County. It is also known for its spectacular views of the Columbia gorge canyon.

The Gorge is well over 3 hours away from Seattle or Spokane by car and absolutely no non-stop commercial service anywhere closer.  In order to attend a concert at the Gorge from anywhere, outside of driving distance, would cost quadruple the airfare because you will need to rent a car for a week, you will need to stay at a hotel for two extra nights and you will lose one or two days of work traveling.  This place is seriously hard to get to.

Social Flights can deliver you and your friends within miles of The Gorge for your concert.  Our private jets can pick you and your group up wherever you live in North America, and then wisk you back to your home on any day you choose.  The flight itself will be beautiful as you pass over the Rockies or the Cascade Mountain Ranges.  Or, you’ll follow the Pacific Coastline then cross the  amazing colors through South Eastern Washington.  Add to the the spectacular sunset and lightshow and you are in for an unforgettable event.

General admission tickets are about $250.00 for the 4 day event.  However VIP accommodations can range from $1000.00 up to $5000.000 per pair with pristine views and luxury tent.  Let Social Flights help you celebrate the music event of a lifetime in one of the most beautiful venues in the world.

“Systems Thinking” is important in aviation.  No single event acts alone from complex air traffic control to complex mechanical aircraft and complex weather systems. Economics is a complex system and markets are complex systems, human behavior is displayed in complex social systems.  This is the way that Social Flights approaches business – we are a ride sharing “system” for private jets

It is not surprising then that Google identifies 5 stages of the consumer travel system.

The following is from Trent via Statistics and Research Studies for Travel, Tourism & Lodging:

More than 87% of travelers expect to take the same or more number of personal or business trips in 2011 versus years past. This outlook is positive, and with the rise of mobile, social and video behaviors, we are now seeing seeing travelers move through five key stages of travel. Here are some insights within each stage:

Dreaming: 68% of business travelers watch travel-related online videos. Among them, 68% are thinking about a trip.

Planning: The average traveler visits ~22 travel related sites during 9.5 research sessions prior to booking.  85% of leisure travelers consider the internet their main source of travel planning.

Booking: 37% of leisure travelers report that the internet prompted them to book, up from 28% two years ago.  53% of travelers plan to increase comparison shopping this year.

Experiencing: 70% of business travelers check into their flights/hotel with their mobile device. Almost 1 in 4 hotel queries come from a mobile phone.  Over 50% of travelers use mobile phone or device for travel-related information.

Sharing: About 1 in 3 business travelers have posted reviews online of places they’ve been.

At Social Flights we have argued that there is a great need for travel related information to be made available for private aircraft and charter jet inventory.  As such, we are developing tools such as our “Instant Quote” feature, and inventory listings to supplement travel information on line. Here’s why:

62% of personal travelers use search engines as the number one source for travel information. 

51% of business travelers use mobile devices to get travel information, more than double the rate of two years ago. 

46% of personal travelers are watching travel-related videos, versus 36% two years ago. 

The quantity and the quality of information that a travel company can provide is directly proportional to the relevance in the 5 stages of consumer travel activity.  The effort is paying off.

Social Flights will soon announce several deals with municipalities that are tired of being stranded by airlines

Social Flights will annouce a deal with a major vacation spot that is tired of getting gouged by brokers

Social Flights Instant Quote feature continues to disrupt the “secret handshake” of the charter jet industry

Social Flights will soon announce major deals at world class events where we shuttle people to the doorstep of the action

Social Flights is opening travel circles across the US for people to share their experiences and plan their adventures

At Social Flights, we are aviators, we are system thinkers, we are fully aware and intentional about the system that we are building.  We thank all those who are helping, from our pilots to our partners to our investors and to our followers.  Together we are developing a Social Flying System

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:

An airplane moves people and connects them with other people and things.

The internet connects people and moves things.

Airplane operators know that using aircraft can be an expensive proposition. Use of the internet is free. If you combined something expensive with something free what happens?

Do Private Jet Operators Understand The Implications?

There has been a saying in the private jet business: If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. People who use private jets generally haven’t hunted for the best prices because it’s a status thing. These two statements used to be foundational truths in the private aviation business. But things are changing.

There are a finite number of wealthy people and/or corporations who desire to own or use a private jet regardless of the cost. Most charter operators have chased all the wealthy people for a sale so operators end up chasing the same customer over and over. Even the wealthy are feeling the economic pitch and shareholders are questioning the cost of and need for private aircraft.  Now charter operators are being pressured to justify and lower their cost. Cost has become transparent thanks to the internet.  Yet most operators do not fully understand the implications of transparency and social technology on old business models and methods.

What Are The Implications?

Business travelers and affluent individuals are becoming disenchanted with commercial flights, crowded airports, flight delays, and inconvenient schedules. These travelers are looking for alternatives to save time and reduce the hassles of commercial air travel. So they go to the internet to examine private aviation alternatives. What do they find and see?  At most, Web.1.0!

When you do a search for “private jets” or “private aviation” what comes up on the first page are listings of jet brokers (those that don’t operate or own any jets). You also see lots of references to “cost per hour, fractional jets and a host of other terms that are foreign to buyers”.

So let’s say someone decides to click on any of the links. They end up on a static web page with pretty pictures of expensive jets and self- proclaimed accolades of how great this company is then an 800 number to call for a quote.

So if someone looking for an alternative to commercial air travel hasn’t already lost interest in their search then the next step is to actually make a call. Then someone answers the call and begins asking questions to the caller of which the caller has no idea what they are talking about. Not wanting to sound stupid the caller fakes their way through the dialog expecting to get a quote at the end of the call. Instead the broker/operator says “can I have your email or number so I can get back to you?”

If the buyer agrees it then takes the broker/operator at least half a dozen phone calls, faxes, or emails, before you can get a charter estimate which may or may not be correct. Then the operator/broker emails you the quote of which has so many disclaimers and its format doesn’t make any sense to the buyer. All this, and you have not boarded the plane yet.   Besides that all he buyer wanted to know is what is my seat cost and what I get for it.

By now operators are reading this saying “You don’t understand our business model, we don’t sell seats we sell jets”.  To which I would say “I know but every jet has a certain number of seats and the total cost is represented by a cost per seat, full or not.”

Broken Business Models

According to a Forrester’s recent report, there are about 53.8 Million socially engaged eBusiness travelers in the United States alone. A new market opportunity for private aviation. It’s all about the passenger – they have the money.

Certainly not all 53.8 million business travelers would consider private aviation as an alternative travel option. But let’s say 1% would which means 53,000 potentially new customers.

The private aviation industry couldn’t imagine having 53 thousand new customers because their mindsets are frozen in old business models and expensive archaic operating processes.  Today’s charter revenues barely cover the aircraft management and operational costs, and almost never reach levels necessary to cover an aircraft’s cost of ownership. At the same time in the charter world an aircraft flies empty 40% to 60% of the time.  What a waste!

It is time for a revolution in innovative private aviation business models if the industry wants to capture the significant growth opportunity fueled by demand from disgruntled business travelers looking for viable alternatives.

Old mindsets are saying “You don’t understand how we operate”. My response is “You don’t understand how to change the way you operate”.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you‘re saying.”

Stay tuned for “What Would Jet 3.0 Look Like?”

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Alfie Kohn, author of  No Contest:The Case Against Competition writes:

Noncooperative approaches . . . almost always involve duplication of effort, since someone working independently must spend time and skills on problems that already have been encountered and overcome by someone else.

Sound familiar?  Look around and in almost every industry you see competitors beating each other into the ground while reducing the end value to the customer and increasing cost.

Julie Browser, of IBM writes “The traditional concept of business as a “winner takes all” contest is giving way to a realization that in the networked economy, companies must both co-operate and compete. Termed “co-opetition,” this new perspective requires companies to create business strategies that capitalize on relationships in order to create maximum value in the marketplace.

“Co-opetition”– a model in which a network of stakeholders co-operate and compete to create maximum value — is one of the most important business perspectives of recent years. Internet and mobile technologies have made it even more necessary for companies to both co-operate and compete, by enabling relationships through information sharing as well as integrating and streamlining processes.

In today’s networked economy, co-opetition is a powerful means of identifying new market opportunities and developing business strategy.

Take the private aviation industry.  Everyday thousands of private jets fly empty. Those who charter jets pay the round trip cost of a jet whether they use it round trip or not.  The process creates what is known as “empty legs”. Empty legs are usually one way trips flying empty and yet already paid for by somebody.  Most Private operators try and sell the empty leg at full charter prices and thus few ever sell an empty leg.  Empty legs represent seats unused leaving revenue in the air.

What if these private jet operators shared all their empty legs with the public and sold seats on those legs?  By cooperating they would expand their markets, create value for consumers and generate more revenue.  But many won’t do that because they view themselves as competing with each other rather than cooperating.  In the meantime revenue is lost to the air. In this case they end up doing less alone rather than more together.

Business is both competition and co-operation

In the past, people saw business as a “winner takes all” or “zero-sum” game. The networked economy moves away from these purely competitive plays to recognize cooperative relationships that leverage value created by those in the network. Competition — the other aspect of co-opetition — occurs after businesses have created new value in the market and expand the value proposition through quality and creativity.

Social Flights business model is about creating cooperation with private jet operators with the aim of expanding the market and creating new value for all parties involved. For it to work the suppliers must cooperate in order to gain increased market share through new value offered to travelers who in turn create new revenue.

So, will you consider cooperating?

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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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