3 ms·

I submit this a couple years ago before the product was even built. Unlike other players in the space, we're not dealing with empty legs or per-seat pricing. Ev

I submit this a couple years ago before the product was even built. Unlike other players in the space, we're not dealing with empty legs or per-seat pricing. Everything shown is guaranteed and processed in real-time. Feedback is always welcomed!

sokoloff 11y ago
Couple pieces of feedback. I tried it out for some trips I commonly take in our aircraft (A36TN or 58P). BED-OSU pulled up 3 choices, a Beech400A, Challenger300, and a G650. The Challenger and G650 couldn't use OSU, but that wasn't called out quite explicitly enough (IMO), and each chose a different alternate airport, neither of which chose CMH, which is overwhelmingly the logical alternative (IMO). Similarly, booking that same trip from LWM only offered the two larger aircraft, with a departure alternate of ORH (rather than the closer and more sensible BED). Our other common trip is to 60J, and the site chose ILM as the alternate (rather than CRE or MYR). Realistically, you may need to start with street addresses to better inform the alternate airports. It's often the case that a charter customer won't know the possible airports, and blindly choosing an alternate without knowing where the customer wants to be is playing that game one hand tied behind your back. Searching 8pax OSU-LAS in the middle of summer, I was offered a Hawker 800 departing OSU non-stop to LAS. To say that's a snug departure is an understatement; I doubt that would be a balanced field departure and under Part 135, that's going to be a no-go I'm pretty sure. I also wasn't getting offered turboprops for some of the short searches I did. Makes little sense to fly a jet on a <30 minute hop generally, but that was all I got in New England for the searches I did. You're trying to disrupt a market that's pretty difficult technically to make fully online. I suspect you're going to get a lot of bookings that end up not flyable as offered (and still have some work to do on the alternate proposals). Similar to dbenj's feedback, I also think your pricing is well above market, especially with jet fuel as cheap as it is now. That'll be easy for you to fix though. I definitely wish you guys the best of luck, and happy to give any additional feedback if you want it.
- theodorewiles 11y ago
  I agree on the turboprop; was looking into services for some New England travel recently, and I thought a service like this would be useful for that.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    If you're looking up here (and can get over the fact that it's a single), Planesense seems to dominate that market (or maybe I have PC-12 lust); I see a N___AF PC-12 on an awful lot of ramps around New England.
- charlesdenault 11y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! We're working on a more elegant solution to handle the alternate airports, balanced field length, etc. We're erring on the safe side right now, but there are always these edge cases. As far as the prices, we're working on adding more aircraft everyday (lower repositioning costs, greater aircraft choices, etc). I'd love to ping you for some further discussion, especially around alternates.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    Email's in my profile; happy to chat more. (And just to be perfectly clear, I don't think you're erring on the safe side on the 8 pax + 2 crew H800 out of 5000' runway at KOSU for a 1525nm non-stop. ;) The good news is the charter pilots will reject that; the bad news is your customers won't get what they thought they bought.)
sokoloff 11y ago
One other random feature that may convert some users: show me where I can charter (or dry lease) a particular model. If I'm considering a B200 or C501 purchase, I may be more inclined to charter or dry lease one a few trips first, but in that case, the model matters more than the price. Maybe a corner case and surely I can find that on my own via aviation contacts, but maybe not all buyers can as easily?

sokoloff 11y ago

Couple pieces of feedback. I tried it out for some trips I commonly take in our aircraft (A36TN or 58P). BED-OSU pulled up 3 choices, a Beech400A, Challenger300, and a G650. The Challenger and G650 couldn't use OSU, but that wasn't called out quite explicitly enough (IMO), and each chose a different alternate airport, neither of which chose CMH, which is overwhelmingly the logical alternative (IMO). Similarly, booking that same trip from LWM only offered the two larger aircraft, with a departure alternate of ORH (rather than the closer and more sensible BED). Our other common trip is to 60J, and the site chose ILM as the alternate (rather than CRE or MYR). Realistically, you may need to start with street addresses to better inform the alternate airports. It's often the case that a charter customer won't know the possible airports, and blindly choosing an alternate without knowing where the customer wants to be is playing that game one hand tied behind your back. Searching 8pax OSU-LAS in the middle of summer, I was offered a Hawker 800 departing OSU non-stop to LAS. To say that's a snug departure is an understatement; I doubt that would be a balanced field departure and under Part 135, that's going to be a no-go I'm pretty sure. I also wasn't getting offered turboprops for some of the short searches I did. Makes little sense to fly a jet on a <30 minute hop generally, but that was all I got in New England for the searches I did. You're trying to disrupt a market that's pretty difficult technically to make fully online. I suspect you're going to get a lot of bookings that end up not flyable as offered (and still have some work to do on the alternate proposals). Similar to dbenj's feedback, I also think your pricing is well above market, especially with jet fuel as cheap as it is now. That'll be easy for you to fix though. I definitely wish you guys the best of luck, and happy to give any additional feedback if you want it.

theodorewiles 11y ago
I agree on the turboprop; was looking into services for some New England travel recently, and I thought a service like this would be useful for that.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  If you're looking up here (and can get over the fact that it's a single), Planesense seems to dominate that market (or maybe I have PC-12 lust); I see a N___AF PC-12 on an awful lot of ramps around New England.
charlesdenault 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback! We're working on a more elegant solution to handle the alternate airports, balanced field length, etc. We're erring on the safe side right now, but there are always these edge cases. As far as the prices, we're working on adding more aircraft everyday (lower repositioning costs, greater aircraft choices, etc). I'd love to ping you for some further discussion, especially around alternates.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  Email's in my profile; happy to chat more. (And just to be perfectly clear, I don't think you're erring on the safe side on the 8 pax + 2 crew H800 out of 5000' runway at KOSU for a 1525nm non-stop. ;) The good news is the charter pilots will reject that; the bad news is your customers won't get what they thought they bought.)

sokoloff 11y ago

One other random feature that may convert some users: show me where I can charter (or dry lease) a particular model. If I'm considering a B200 or C501 purchase, I may be more inclined to charter or dry lease one a few trips first, but in that case, the model matters more than the price. Maybe a corner case and surely I can find that on my own via aviation contacts, but maybe not all buyers can as easily?