Jetsmarter

Jetsmarter

At the recent SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas there were a number of aviation related talks and presentations.

ANA announced its $10 million investment in the Avatar project (see our cover story), Lufthansa held a Flying Lab, that kicked off with a flight from Frankfurt to Houston, and Qantas CMO Stephanie Tully spoke about the Qantas Money app and Qantas Credit Card.

Another aviation-related session was fronted by a company that though not an airline, has been called an ‘industry disruptor’ in aviation - JetSmarter. This involved JetSmarter CEO Sergey Petrossov talking about ‘social aviation.’

Backed by investors including Jay Z and the Saudi Royal family, JetSmarter is trying to ‘democratize’ private aviation, which doesn’t off course mean that they will be going for customers who normally fly Spirit, Frontier or Ryanair.

But they are setting their sights on the higher end of the airline market by trying to pull premium class passengers onto private jets.

The core idea behind the business is that most private and corporate jets sit idle for most of the time and you can lower prices for everyone by selling off spare seats for these flights, as well as creating new ones.

According to Petrossov, JetSmarter is trying to target two sets of customers. First of all people who fly private jets right now, and would welcome the opportunity to lower the cost, but who might be worried that sharing means “they are going to be on some plane with some hooligans and it might not be a good service.”

And secondly, “business or first-class flyers, who think private jets are out of their league. They think it’s going to cost them $100,000 a year just to be able to fly 10 times.”

Access to JetSmarter works first of all via a mobile app, which lists which flights are available and when (or which gives you the option to book your own).

Booking those flights has until now meant taking out an annual membership, where $15,000 a year gave you access to the whole network. But just as we were finishing this edition, we got an email from the JetSmarter membership team telling us that the company would soon be moving to a pay per fly model.

Anyone joining JetSmarter before 1 April 2018, will have the paid $15,000, which gives access to private jets on 30 routes in the US, ten in Europe and four in the Middle East. Shorter flights are free within the membership and longer ones have a surcharge.

Currently, in Europe flights include Geneva to London, Moscow and Nice, Malaga to London and Milan to Moscow, Paris and London. Under the membership plan, you can also fly London to Moscow ($300- $715), or New York ($1,500-$3,500).

Finally, you can also create your own flight to any destination where you choose the route and schedule. You then bring the cost down by seeking to share the cost with other passengers.

From Membership To Pay Per Flights

The communication we received from JetSmarter told us that the membership model would be discontinued from 2 April.

The email from senior membership executive Daniel Darroch said that “we’re discontinuing the “complimentary” model and moving over to a simplified model for new members. Seat prices will be in line with business/first-class pricing.”

We reached out to JetSmarter to get an idea of what “in line with business/firstclass pricing” actually means.

The email reply we received back stated: “We don’t have exact pricing yet but most business class flights in Europe are between £750-£1000 so I assume it will be within that bracket.”

If it really is comparable to a commercial airline ticket, then that would be significant as all of a sudden you open up the service to people who might not have wanted to be tied down to an annual $15,000 cost, and instead may just want to use it once or twice.

The chances are that a business executive looking at a first/business class ticket from London to New York could well decide to take a private jet from somewhere like Biggin Hill or Farnborough using JetSmarter instead, in exchange for the convenience, time saved at the airport and experience.

Use Of Influencers

So far, JetSmarter has had a fair amount of positive press coverage including in the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and CityAM.

As well as talking up the fact that it claims to make private aviation affordable for people who normally fly first class on commercial airlines, JetSmarter markets itself in three different ways.

First of all, it gets major A-List influencers on board.

For example, it gave model and actress Cara Delevingne a free flight in a private jet from Dublin to Prague in exchange for posting a 30 second video for the benefit of her 40+ million Instagram followers. The video itself received 7+ million views, as well as coverage in the world’s biggest English speaking online newspaper, the Daily Mail.

Secondly it sells itself on building an exclusive community of movers and shakers. You might have to share a private jet with someone you don’t know, but it could be your next investor or major customer. Indeed, at the SXSW presentation, a lot of members of the audience - US tech entrepreneurs - used the Q & A session to praise the community and the service.

And finally, it has signed deals with other premium brands to provide products for JetSmarter members.

For example, earlier this year they announced a collaboration with luxury Swiss watchmaker Hublot, to launch a limited edition timepiece collection that will be available exclusively to JetSmarter members.

Meanwhile, a deal with Pernod Ricard´s Prestige spirits, wines and champagne brands, means that Pernod Ricard will be featured on JetSmarter in-flight menus and member lounges at their private jet airports.

Finally, not all the exposure JetSmarter has received is positive.

Tech industry publication The Verge for example has accused JetSmarter of trying to “extort journalists for positive coverage” by threatening to take $2000 off their credit card, if a positive piece wasn’t posted within five days of taking a flight.

Meanwhile, last year a group of ex employees sued the company as they alleged it had failed to pay them overtime wages they were owed.

Key Take-Away

JetSmarter is an innovative business, and it’s obviously gained a loyal community of fans.

The change to a ‘pay per fly’ model is interesting (depending on what the actual ticket price is) as it could significantly widen its customer base.

However, though JetSmarter is trying to get Premium class airline passengers to ‘trade up’, where it falls down is when it comes to schedule and scale. For example, it’s European shuttles are limited and don’t operate every day.

The Nice flights will work for someone going back to Monaco at the weekend for non-domiciled tax purposes, but not for someone needing to go there for a business meeting on a given day. That seems to be a area for airlines to fight back on - flexibility, schedules, airline alliances and of course frequent flyer points and benefits.