Plane Conversations

Next Generation Air Traffic Management represents a major evolution in ground based air traffic control to satellite based air traffic management; it also represents an opportunity for private aviation to deliver far more value to the communities that they serve.

In order to accomplish this, Social Flights is developing a unifying business method that accurately and reliably matches supply and demand for private transportation assets across several thousand airports in the United States. NextGen, combined with the Internet and social media, gives the private aviation industry a set of tools that were unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago when the private aviation market last shifted.

How will private travel evolve?

NextGen will use aviation-specific applications for existing, widely-used technologies such as GPS, Weather Forecasting, data networking, and digital communication. Not surprisingly, these applications will lead to new procedures and airport infrastructure.

Some of these changes may be quite predictable

To get an idea as to how these new technologies will impact aviation, it may be a simple matter to compare how these EXACT same technologies have changed social cooperation in general.  This prediction is valid because we all cooperate for our little piece of the sky.

Society has learned to cooperate in amazing ways as mobile devices, VOIP, GPS, Weather Reports, Traffic Reports, and non-corporate social organization become evermore commonplace.  New business models constantly form around the technology.   The result has been a profound shift in power and influence to those (for better or for worse) who can access and curate relevant information AND then share that information with people in their networks (and beyond).

Social Flights is taking the lead and calling on all private operators to join with us to build a common platform for private aircraft inventory and ground operations across the United States:   

• Where are your jets stationed?
• What inventory do you have available?
• Where are your empty legs going?
• Are you willing to share facilities or “code-share” with other operators?
• Are you willing to cooperate with the major airlines?
• If entrepreneurs in your community had access to the whole system, would this help you?
• If corporations and event planners had access to the whole system, would this help you?
• Are local hospitality and support services sharing information with you?

The New Technology Advantage

Since the late 1800’s America has replaced every single telephone pole with a new one every 50 years or so.  Today, every less developed country can simply build relatively few cellular towers and avoid that mess. For this reason, we can assume that airlines no longer have the advantage of vast hub infrastructure when together, we can just as easily sort people and planes with access to the right data shared across the right network.

A strong Commercial Aviation Industry portends a strong private aviation industry.  This article features data from Honeywell Business jet forecast which correlates with the FAA forecast for 2011 through 2031 for commercial aviation.

Social Flights was launched at precisely the right time with up-to-the-minute social technology tools and business methods for aggregating large fleets of private aircraft and building out public charter routes that can meet customer needs.

According to Honeywell Aerospace’s Annual Business Outlook, business aviation is poised for recovery beginning in 2012.  The Honeywell forecast is based on surveys of more than 1,500 flight departments around the world.

The World According to FAA.gov

The carriers have stopped less profitable routes, retired older aircraft, and unbundled services while initiating new services that passengers were willing to pay for such as WiFi.  There is optimism in the industry that the next decade will show sustaining profits as the industry continues to grow in the long term.

The 2011 FAA forecast now calls for one billion passengers to be flown in 2021, two years earlier than projected in last year’s forecast.  Growth over the next five years will average 3.7 percent per year, with average annual growth of 2.5 percent per year for the remainder of the forecast period.  The level of activity and demand is expected to eclipse those published in last year’s FAA forecast. 

Some of the reasons include stronger than expected traffic and higher expectations of economic recovery.  As such, available seat miles (the benchmark for industry capacity) is expected to increase globally by 4.5% next year after years remaining flat or decreasing.  The global market is expected to increase at 3.1% through 2031.

In the domestic market, capacity grew 2.9 percent in 2011 and is expected to grow to 3.0% in the long term.  For the regional carriers, the domestic capacity will increase at 3.8% over 2010 rates.

The average size of domestic aircraft is expected to increase to 122.0 seats from just over 121.7 seats currently. The demand for 70-90 seat aircraft will continue to grow.  The FAA expects the number of 50 seat aircraft to fall (and many will become available for lease or purchase).  The average regional jet size will increase to 54.6 seats while the average length of the trip will increase.

The profitability of all air carriers will depend on stable fuel prices, increase in demand for business travelers, and the willingness of travelers to continue to accept higher prices for less services.  In order to keep costs low, the carriers will need to better match their routes, aircraft capacity, and their markets (supply and demand).  they will need to ground older aircraft, drop low margin routes, and pressure regional carriers to accept lower fees.

 This is where social flights comes in:

All this is bad news for 6-60 passenger scheduled service. However, Social Flights can effectively join these two forecasts by providing public charter services across industries.  The weakness of one mode can be hedged by the strength of the other, and vice versa.  This makes for an excellent investment opportunity in social organization methods for air transportation pioneered by Social Flights.

There is an entire segment where Social Flights can capture market share that commercial carriers would willingly cede to Social Flights in order to keep THEIR own costs low.

There is a war brewing within the online travel agency space over Google’s recent move with Google Flights and Google Hotels.

Google began positioning its new flight-finding feature at the top of general search results for airline booking information earlier this month. And its new competitors in the $110 billion online travel industry aren’t happy about the search giant crashing the party, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.

Chasing The Market To The Bottom

Travel is hot for 2012 and beyond.  An increasing number of people say they’ll do more leisure traveling in the coming year, and even more say they’ll fly if they can find good deals in 2012. Good deals are going to be hard to find. The airlines attempted to raise prices 22 times in 2011 (and nine of those attempts were successful).

Business travel spend is expected to have grown 6.9% in 2011 compared to 2010, hitting $250.2 billion.  The forecast for 2012 is 4.3% growth in business travel spend for 2012 (or $260.9 billion).

While revenue growth in the travel sector looks promising the user experience continues to decline. Flying today is like traveling by bus with few frills and even fewer fun times.  Consider some of the recent headlines:

1. Airline Technology Leading to Customer Alienation
2. Airlines Score Lowest In Customer Satisfaction
3. 92% of Executive Unhappy With Business Travel Experiences
4. Airline Delays, Cancellations and Complaints Rise

I could go on with an endless list but by now the picture should be obvious. Current market dynamics within air travel services is propelling a race to the bottom and Google knows this.  In other words air travel suppliers have boxed themselves into competing on price and thus air travel services have become a commodity. The meaning of the term commodity is used to describe a service for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.

Google knows that search has the greatest influence over consumer choices for travel services. 93% of people who seek information on travel services use search. Consumers seek ratings and reviews, news articles, word of mouth and blog post which in the end influences their decisions. When there is little differential in a market then price becomes the initial decision factor followed by “social influences”, i.e. quality of the experience.

As a result, the present online travel bazaar is very competitive and the margins are shrinking . The  tight competition led the market to compete on price rather than experience. Google recognizes this and simply stepped in and made the shopping experience better. Google doesn’t care about the price of air service they care about providing the price to consumers seamlessly.

As fortunes are made by leveraging technology to become ever more efficient, there is yet far greater wealth to be had by unleashing the discovery of new experiences and creation of new opportunities. That is exactly why we created Social Flights. We are changing the direction of the race to the top.

Click on pen to

There is a war brewing within the on-line travel agency space over Google’s recent move with Google Flights and Google Hotels.

Google began positioning its new flight-finding feature at the top of general search results for airline booking information earlier this month. And its new competitors in the $110 billion online travel industry aren’t happy about the search giant crashing the party, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.

Chasing The Market To The Bottom

Travel is hot for 2012 and beyond.  An increasing number of people say they’ll do more leisure traveling in the coming year, and even more say they’ll fly if they can find good deals in 2012. Good deals are going to be hard to find. The airlines attempted to raise prices 22 times in 2011 (and nine of those attempts were successful).

Business travel spend is expected to have grown 6.9% in 2011 compared to 2010, hitting $250.2 billion.  The forecast for 2012 is 4.3% growth in business travel spend for 2012 (or $260.9 billion).

While revenue growth in the travel sector looks promising the user experience continues to decline. Flying today is like traveling by bus with few frills and even fewer fun times.  Consider some of the recent headlines:

1. Airline Technology Leading to Customer Alienation
2. Airlines Score Lowest In Customer Satisfaction
3. 92% of Executive Unhappy With Business Travel Experiences

I could go on with an endless list but by now the picture should be obvious. Current market dynamics within air travel services is propelling a race to the bottom and Google knows this.  In other words air travel suppliers have boxed themselves into competing on price and thus air travel services have become a commodity. The meaning of the term commodity is used to describe a service for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.

Google knows that search has the greatest influence over consumer choices for travel services. 93% of people who seek information on travel services use search. Consumers seek ratings and reviews, news articles, word of mouth and blog post which in the end influences their decisions. When there is little differential in a market then price becomes the initial decision factor followed by “social influences”, i.e. quality of the experience.

As a result, the present online travel bazaar is very competitive and the margins are shrinking . The  tight competition led the market to compete on price rather than experience. Google recognizes this and simply stepped in and made the shopping experience better. Google doesn’t care about the price of air service they care about providing the price to consumers seamlessly.

As fortunes are made by leveraging technology to become ever more efficient, there is yet far greater wealth to be had by unleashing the discovery of new experiences and creation of new opportunities. That is exactly why we created Social Flights.

I often feel “Lost” as I continuously review what is happening in the air transportation industry. So many people are stranded in time and place by the anxieties, harassment, and limitation the air transportation system.  It is only getting worse as airlines push in and pull out of markets with abandon disrupting the dreams and aspirations of millions of people with the stroke of keyboard.

Or, perhaps it is the holiday season now upon us that leads me along the nostalgic trail of family and friends who I miss so dearly. Or, it could be the recession that forces me to look outside my own community to achieve economic security in these difficult times. Meanwhile; social media technology increases my exposure to like minded people, new ideas, and a bewildering array of events and opportunities – many of which I can no longer access efficiently.

The easy thing to do would be to accomodate the situation and limit my goals and aspirations to that which others serve up to me on the platter of their choice.  I could simply give up and be content with my lot in life as determined by others.  I could dedicate my talent, education, and experience to lesser parochial tasks that happen along the jungle trail.

Or, I can seek the vulnerabilities of the forces that control my ability to travel.  I can exploit weaknesses in their business model and I can find others willing to join forces to bypass those externalities altogether.

I have chosen the latter and in the process, I have met some of the smartest, engaging, and interesting people that I could have imagined.  I no longer flash back to the past – I flash forward to the future.  That is the secret ingredient to never being stranded in the choices of others.

2012 will be the tipping point for many people. I believe that communities will begin to organize around the assets that government and corporations can no longer provide.  Communities will make the choices that determine their own future, sanctity, and preservation.  Self-organization will become the fabric of the social landscape.

My job it to show people that there is no reason why they cannot run their own airline; any where and any time they choose.

Over the years we have seen more and more travel aggregators come into the online marketplace. Now you can go to dozens of different websites to find the lowest possible price for your next trip. As an industry, we have subsequently seen prices going lower as the airlines fight to the bottom to fight for market share. This does not drive down the cost of operation for flying the aircraft, it just lowers the consumer perception of what travel is worth.

(via http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/11/29/prweb8985424.DTL) Superfly, a technology startup at the forefront of travel innovation, today announced its new smart flight search engine. Superfly’s engine is a unique online platform that personalizes flight search by adding an individual’s data — frequent flyer miles, elite statuses, rewards programs and individual preferences — into the decision-making process of choosing a flight. For the first time, travelers can fully take advantage of their frequent flyer miles and rewards programs when booking travel online.

“Today’s mainstream flight search websites completely ignore the impact of consumer data,” said Jonathan Meiri, CEO of Superfly. “This is a defining issue for the future of online travel services. Superfly is a secure tool that not only has access to all the flights in the world, it also combines that information with personal travel preferences in order to help consumers figure out which flight is right for them.”

Google’s recent acquisition of ITA Software has marked the dawn of a new age in online travel. Many industry players are now using the same travel data, essentially turning flight search into a commodity. This will most likely unleash a wave of innovation as incumbents look to differentiate their services.

“Superfly is an incredible tool that will bring great value to travelers, particularly frequent flyers,” said Kenneth Esterow, an advisor of Superfly and former CEO of GTA by Travelport. “It is particularly useful to heavy users and corporate travelers.”

Superfly enables consumers to maximize the value of their miles and make better travel decisions. Rather than focusing solely on presenting the cheapest flight, Superfly helps individual consumers identify the options with the greatest personal value. Travelers can use Superfly’s personal travel insights to better manage their rewards programs and cash-in on the opportunities they present.

When all you focus on when you are looking for a service is price, everyone will lose. Value is a much more sustainable model and can lead to more growth and innovation. All of us here at Social Flights support the efforts of companies like Superfly and look forward to leading the charge with them into an innovative and prosperous age of travel.

Maybe this most recent economic crisis wasn’t Armageddon, but I think I saw a Guernsey or two fall somewhere over central Mississippi.

The technology and practices of our industrial world are changing at a mind-boggling pace.  Since we started blogging just over a year ago, the advancements have been staggering, allowing us to begin developing a “wouldn’t-it-be-cool-if” idea into a “isn’t-it-be-incredible-that” reality.  However, if we had kept believing that we already knew it all, we would still be sitting on the porch, whittling, rocking in our chairs and wishing for a brighter reality. 

This Big Idea is a gamble, to be sure; Big Ideas always are.  But, to take our industry into its next great phase, we must accept that, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” We must reject bad managerial habits that keep us trapped in a paradigm which ceased to be profitable years ago.  Aircraft operators are frustrated by rising fuel prices, rising training costs, rising salary and benefits costs.  Equipment is getting older.  Remaining competitive means newer equipment, higher standards and better practices.  Meanwhile, many charter brokers insist on lower pricing, sometimes to the point of incorrectly educating the end-user on the actual cost of operating aircraft to the highest standards.  Sadly, even some operators have been willing to operate below cost just to produce the cash flow.  Reputable operators know what it costs to run a quality operation.  Reputable brokers also know this and are willing to support the operators’ reasonable pricing structures to their own clients.  But I digress.  My point is this: charter operators are frustrated with rates which are not keeping pace with rising costs.  Even with this frustration, we hamstring ourselves by acting conservatively out of fear of making mistakes and by avoiding anything new until it’s better understood.  Neither habit is bad altogether, but the over-application of either of them can be deadly. 

As I discussed the Big Idea with a few operators this week, I was discouraged at the response of many of them.  If the Idea is flawed, I would expect rejection and would hope that someone would point out the fatal flaw; but, that’s not why it was rejected.  Their rejection of the Idea stemmed from “I’ve never thought of that” and “We’ve never done it that way before,” not from the Idea’s merits or demerits.  It’s one thing for an industry to suffer or fail due to catastrophic and unforeseen market changes, but that isn’t the case here.  The market has been changing for at least the last 10 years.  As operators and brokers began aggressively selling one-way trips, introducing our product to a wider audience, the market has been changing.  As the global economy was reeling, our market changed further with more aggressive pricing, air taxi services, and ride sharing.  I often here people lamenting the loss of the “good old days.”  Let’s face it: the good old days weren’t all that great either.  We still struggled.  We still worked on narrow margins.  I don’t think we worked any less hard, but maybe we worked a little less creatively.

While we’ve gotten more creative, it’s time for us to make a big creative leap now.  Sharing flights is a creative way to broaden our market.  Using social technology to share those flights is a creative way to work smarter.  It’s the next Big Idea.

So, yes, 150 years ago, everybody knew man couldn’t fly.  70 years ago, everybody knew that supersonic flight was deadly.  And 15 minutes ago, you knew that shared flights would never work.   Once we accept that we don’t know our market as well as we think we do, we allow ourselves to adapt our industry to the new marketplace.  When we use social innovations like Social Flights to tap into that new marketplace, we broaden our reach.

If we can learn all of that today, embrace the Big Idea of flying socially, imagine what we’ll know tomorrow.

Click on pen to

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:

Click on pen to

Knowledge is power.  It’s not what you know, but what you do with what you know that matters. 

Enter social media, web 2.0, wikinomics, the digital age, the Google era-whatever you would like to call it.  The power of this enormous infrastructure and way of life, the power of social media is the sharing of knowledge by wise leaders. 

Let me briefly explain–Google shares information, but it certainly isn’t wisdom.  On the other hand, your friend, who has been listening to a podcast about a certain subject for a year now, knows you are looking for a new job in a related industry.  He knows that the host of the podcast is great friends with a guy in that industry.  A tweet is sent with a link to the podcast… Knowledge has been applied.  Wisdom has been shared.  Now connections have been made.

Enter video.  YouTube is probably the most widely known video social media channel, but there are many.  Here is an example:

What did you see? Probably a lot of things.  Did you see an acrobatic flight from the “bird’s eye” view of the pilot? A pilot getting his first lesson could learn a lot about the cross check…looking outside at the wingtips to maintain attitude, back and forth, now forward at airspeed.  These are the kinds of things that can only be learned in real time.  It’s challenging, even for an experienced flight instructor to explain this inverted.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is video worth?

Did you see Johnny’s house in the early frames of the video, just to the far side of the brown field off the nose? How cool would it be for Johnny to see his house from that angle?! Even more exciting would be real time streaming video integrated into the flying video game on his HD TV.

Imagine a student pilot getting ready to go on his first cross-country flight.  The weather between here and the destination is forecasted to be VFR, but there is a slight chance it could deteriorate.  So he types in the web address for a new, video-based “Sky Maps” website, and sees that another pilot has just flown along that route.  By clicking on the airplane symbol on the “Sky Map,” a video is cued.  Student Pilot can now see the weather for himself, adding some knowledge to his decision-making process, painting a picture to supplement the weather forecast.

Did you see the weather off to the east in the video? Scientists could tap into a wealth of data to update meteorological models, validate predictions, understand these complex (and still quite mysterious) phenomena even better.

Did you see the turbulent airflow off of the upper wing? I didn’t either, but it won’t be long until a high-tech lens attachment the size of a dime gives Schleren photography capability to this portable video cameras.  In fact, the future holds a camera that looks wherever the pilot points it and captures images at any bandwidth in the spectrum of light.

One last application for the test pilots among us - the pilot was moving his head, large movements, and a lot of them, in other words, high frequency and high amplitude.  This data would certainly contribute to an understanding of the workload during this phase of flight.  At this point in the evolution of the technology, we don’t need six sigma certainty that it’s high workload.  We have a definitive qualitative understanding that it is.  The technology will mature, and the way we use it to collect quantitative measures of what has been previously subjectively evaluated should mature as well.

That’s what the future looks like…in HD.

Click on pen to

It has been a couple weeks since I last posted on Plane Conversations.

I usually don’t go this long without checking in but the past few weeks of travel to China, and then being part of a conference back in TN, have kept me running with little time to slow down and write.

This week I was part of a conference hosted by Middle Tennessee State University and sponsored by our company and FedEx.

The purpose of the conference was to get people together from China and the US who work in the government and private sectors of aviation to dialogue and exchange knowledge on the developments and trends in General Aviation in China.

From China we had a delegation that consisted of officials from CAAC (China’s FAA), legal scholars from the Beihang University of Aerospace and Aeronautics, industry executives from Flying Dragon Aviation China, the largest general aviation company in China, as well as China’s official news agency Xinhua. Erick Wang, CFM’s VP of our newly formed CFM China Company, was also in attendance. Erick is from Harbin, in Heilongjiang Province, Northern China.

From the US side, attendees included senior level FAA/ATC, AOPA’s International Affairs Director, representatives from FedEx’s international legal affairs and international feeder operations, MTSU aerospace professors, Chuck Howell, CEO of Great Lakes Airlines, executives from BAE Systems and Cirrus Design.

Mike Vaughn who is President of CFM China and Director of Government Sales for CFM here in the US was the conference moderator.  

This is my first experience with co-hosting and sponsoring a conference of this magnitude and I now have a new found respect for those who organize these type events. Hundreds of hours and months of planning and preparation go into an event like this, especially when trying to coordinate schedules, logistics and visas for delegates coming from the other side of the world.

Many thanks to the Aerospace Department at MTSU for hosting this conference at their facilities at the Murfreesboro Airport, and thanks to FedEx for being the major sponsor.  

My post conference impressions about what was learned and gained center around relationship building.

Nothing replaces face to face dialogue and some of the more important interactions happened, not at the speaker’s podium, but at the dinners and social times when conversations between the Chinese and US delegates was relaxed and informal in nature.

Our new aviation friends from China are no different than aviators here in the US. They are passionate and knowledgeable about their profession and have a sincere desire to learn. Aviators around the world share a common bond that trumps any cultural or political differences.  

The Chinese are very intent on growing their industry in China. They have been restrained by restrictions on use of airspace by the PLA, but nonetheless they know what they are doing.

The Chinese recognize that they need to open up their airspace for commercial activity including GA. Their government now recognizes that a healthy general aviation industry is good for economic development and prosperity in China. The country and the government are massive and opening the skies will not happen overnight, but it will happen. Before laws are enacted, policies and procedures will be put into place to allow more GA operations in the skies.  

The Chinese also recognize that the US has one of the most developed and successful aviation systems in the world and there is much to be gained by learning from both the successes and mistakes of our long history in aviation. They have a unique opportunity to leapfrog many of the inefficient systems we have and go straight to the best practices and advanced technology of today and the future.

GA in China today is small relative to the country’s economy, geography and population, so it will not take much to steer the industry quickly into a world class player.

China has done it in many other areas of their economy, first in manufacturing, now in technology and communications, and in the past two decades in the airline industry. Once the ball gets rolling in general aviation it will be fascinating to see how it develops. In my lifetime I may get to see China surpass the US in GA activity.  

The US, Brazil and Europe, with advanced GA aircraft design and manufacturing capability, expertise in operating and maintaining GA aircraft, and capabilities in training pilots, mechanics, and operations management, stand to gain in a big way as China’s GA takes off.

I believe those in the US who are willing to look at the long term, and develop relationships now, will see the payoff in 5-10 years when the door opens wider.

One of the senior delegates from China conveyed to me words of wisdom that relationships, trust and friendships must be developed first and business will naturally follow. That sounds very much like the way the US used to do business before we got in a hurry to make a quick dollar. I personally enjoy this way of doing business because it is more than just today’s profit that counts. The personal relationships come first.  

I have new found friends from China that I believe will be friends for life.   

We will write more about this conference in future blogs and an official press release.    

Click on pen to