The private jet charter industry is the last part of the aviation industry to not be truly digitized. Expedia-style flight aggregator Jettly hopes to be the company to truly bring the industry into the digital age.
Through its user friendly website and app, Jettly allow customers to input their destinations and see quotes in real time, before a service representative reaches out to them to confirm the exact pricing based on their needs.
Jettly’s hope is that their site will circumvent the need for brokers whose large fees have deterred many from flying private before.
A Problem
Before the rise of the internet, you had two options when chartering a private jet, both of which had their drawbacks.
The first, and most common, route was to contact a broker. These brokers typically had years of experience, which meant they could single out the best possible jet based on your needs and use their relationships with operators to get you a better price.
However, before the internet, the quality and pricing of these brokers were hit-and-miss. Some were great, but many were ripping off their customers through huge broker fees (sometimes up to 100%!)
The second option, was to ring the flight operations/marketing division of a local operator and pray they had an aircraft that could suit your needs without ripping you off.
Aside from that issue, most smaller operators only employed one person in their marketing division – someone who only worked regular office hours and without a cell phone – meaning it could be days before you got a response.
Safe to say that neither were particularly great for fliers, and especially not their wallets.
A Solution?
With the popularization of the internet in the 1990’s and 2000’s, most brokerages and operators began to adapt to the digital age by getting websites.
Though crude by modern standards, these began a mini-revolution in the industry.
Brokerages who’d previously made a killing from disproportionately large brokerage fees were exposed. Some, chose to lower their fees to the industry standard (5-20%) whilst others closed shop to prevent, or as a result of, lawsuits.
Operators, now had an additional marketing tool to both reach out to and inform customers. Now, they could put their entire fleet and rates out there at a fraction of the prior cost and customers could reach out to them through a whole new medium: email.
Able to access this on the go and from anywhere with an internet connection, operators’ marketers could respond to inquiries much quicker, such as after work or on weekends.
As the internet continued to gain popularity, the industry saw another change: online brokers.
Where before, brokers had typically served the needs of the local area (say, New York, London, Miami etc.), online brokers could gain clients from all across the world at a much lower cost-per-lead.
Not Really
But the pre-internet revolution issues still lingered.
Though price had come down considerably, by comparison to other aspects of the aviation industry who’d seen much greater price reduction, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Even as brokers in other industries (such as stock brokers) began to take smaller commissions or none at all, charter brokers still took fees averaging at 14%. And their justification? They could…
Plus, many of them increasingly relied upon long phone calls with clients.
When they’d have previously met a new client in person or done a brief introductory call if that wasn’t convenient, even online brokers took to ringing their clients to discuss their needs in an hourlong phone call.
Though used to fully delve into their clients’ needs, many simply couldn’t afford to spend so long on the phone. After all, they had companies to run, families to take care of or whatever else. And all these questions could be answered through a simple email.
Operators were no better either. Though email allowed their marketing managers to communicate with clients at anytime, most still employed a 9-5 mindset and refused to use email when not on the clock, to the detriment of potential clients.
As crazy as it may seem, some didn’t even reply to inquiries their aircraft were more than capable of doing. Not because they had a more profitable contract elsewhere, but because they simply didn’t.
A Better Way?
Whilst better, faster and cheaper than it had been before the internet, the industry was still a long way away from where it would be ideally. Naturally, it didn’t take long for people to notice, including Canadian pilot and entrepreneur Justin Crabbe.
A serial entrepreneur behind more than 50 internet businesses, mostly in e-commerce, Justin came to notice that having all these calls just to get the best deal was quite stressful.
Most first-time fliers call three or four brokerages/operators, all of whom want to have an hourlong conversation with you (and call you out of the blue after you request a quote), which is quite time consuming.
Though presumably some people like that, for many modern entrepreneurs – who try to be as productive as possible from sunrise to sunset – and/or millennials, this seems like time that could be better spent elsewhere.
Justin understood this, and having seen the rise of booking giant Expedia, and ride-sharing app Uber, chose to something similar for the private jet charter industry. And Jettly as we know it, was born.
An Actual Solution
Founded in 2016 and based in New York – the city Justin calls home – Jettly’s first year objectives were expressly to get off the ground.
Starting with no contacts in the industry whatsoever, Justin had to build them from scratch, convincing operators that Jettly’s $497 per month fee was worth it.
He and his team did this by analyzing the most popular US routes, and the operators that flew them most regularly. They then reached out to those operators to convince them that Jettly could help them bring in more business.
Many of them agreed, and signed up to Jettly in the coming months.
To actually back this up, Justin was simultaneously developing a state-of-the-art website and app as well, which they would use to entice fliers over traditional brokers.
Revolutionizing an Industry
And it seems to have worked.
Jettly’s website allows fliers to input their destination(s) and see quotes instantly (whereas a broker would typically take a few days to get back to you) at so-called “wholesale pricing” or the pricing that brokers would typically get before adding their commission.
They do this through two ways: 1) By allowing verified operators to put their entire fleet, including hourly pricing, on the site and 2) By acting as an outlet for constant business for operators, representing repeat business just like brokers do.
The instant quoting system, coupled with Jettly’s laissez-faire attitude to phone calls – you can have one if you want but it’s not necessary – has made the site popular with tech-savvy millennials who just want to book a flight and not have all the hassle.
Originally only targeting the US market, Jettly has expanded into other large business aviation markets, namely Europe, the UK and Justin Crabbe’s native Canada, establishing representative offices there too.
When expanding, Jettly has employed the same principles it used to establish in the US market: chiefly by researching the most common business routes and the operators who fly them, and reaching out to them.
And this seems to have worked. According to a recent with Justin Crabbe, Jettly is receiving up to 15,000 quotes every month through its website and app, with the average flight booked costing a little over $35,000.
Though there is still large demand for private jet charter brokers, Jettly is becoming a preferred method of booking private jet charters, especially among younger, more tech savvy fliers.
It has received mostly positive reviews form those who have actually used their services.
Expansion
Expressly an Expedia-style site for private jets, Jettly’s success has prompted it to add more features as time has gone on.
For clients with large charter needs – such as multiple charters per year – Jettly offers memberships at different rates with various perks – ranging from $370 per month for one booking, to $670 for three, to $997 for unlimited bookings.
For the first two, this bypasses Jettly’s 10% platform fee, whilst the last comes with a 5% platform fee (as you get several perks such as a personal flight co-ordinator, free UberBLACK transfers and free in-flight meals).
Besides their client memberships, Jettly have also ventured into other aspects of the flight-sharing industry through the Jettly Wingman program, which is sort of like Uber, but for specific routes on specific aircraft.
How it works is that owners of small General Aviation aircraft (think the Sirrus SR22 or the Cessna 340 or the Piper Comanche) post ads that they can fly between two geographically close places with large demand.
Routes like Teterboro to the Hamptons or Ottawa to Toronto, which have large demand from business customers, many of whom may have used Jettly’s private jet charter services.
These owners can then list the specs of their aircraft, number of seats, amenities on board etc. and their price for this service. Jettly doesn’t take a cut of your earnings but does charge a $370 per month membership fee, featuring your own personal web and graphic designer.
In many cases, Jettly Wingman has allowed the sharing economy to take hold in the aviation industry by allowing for the rise of freelance pilots, something which has long been thought of as an exercise in futility.
Some have even likened it to the aviation equivalent of freelancing platforms Fiverr and/or UpWork!
Criticism
But as with anything claiming to revolutionize an industry, Jettly has its fair amount of naysayers and critics who claim it is little more than a traditional brokerage wearing a different hat. Or much worse…
One of Jettly’s chief sources of criticisms is its pushing of ill-equipped aircraft. Where traditional brokers would opt for an aircraft that can do it in one leg, Jettly seems to push for aircraft that require multiple fuel stops.
Critics claim that whilst cheaper, this increases the risk of crashes and the hassle.
After all, landing and takeoff are the two most dangerous points of a flight, so increasing the number of them, increases the risk of you crashing during them. And the whole point of paying thousands to fly private is to all the hassle!
Though a key part of its branding, many Jettly critics also point to the company’s pricing. Whilst it claims to have “wholesale pricing” on all routes, there are some where booking through a traditional broker is much cheaper.
This is especially common on less popular routes, the routes that Jettly’s team likely didn’t research when starting up. What has resulted is large operators who likely wouldn’t fly those routes, charging extra to fly them.
Because Jettly has crafted an image for itself as being cheaper than everyone else, many clients assume that they are getting a much lower than they’d get from a traditional brokers, who can pick operators more suited to that route rather than only one who pays their monthly fee.
But aside from that, others have taken aim at Jettly’s 10% platform fee. For every flight you book, Jettly will charge 10% of the operator’s quote as a service fee, just as brokers do, making Jettly’s model near-indistinguishable from that of brokers.
Critics claim that this is designed to get you to sign up to Jettly’s monthly membership, which costs you $370 per month. At checkout, the site prompts you to pay for the year upfront and set up auto billing, so you buy another year’s subscription when this runs out.
Though much less than the 10% fee they’d make off your flight, this provides them with a more stable stream of income year-on-year, as they hope you forget about the auto billing of the year’s subscription.
At least according to critics anyway.
Weirdly, this criticism doesn’t seem to faze Justin Crabbe or the Jettly team, who simply chalk all their criticism up to people not liking change, or just being armchair naysayers who’ve never flown private before.
What do you think about Jettly? Would you ever fly with them? Tell me in the comments!
Featured image courtesy of Charly W. Karl via Flickr.