With private aviation becoming a popular option for affluent travelers – March, April and May were record months for charter flights in the U.S. – more and more hotels are creating partnerships with private jet companies. Beyond generating coverage from press releases, few provide pertinent benefits, and in many cases, don’t include features that would be truly valuable and might actually resonate with the target audience.
Contributed by Doug Gollan, founder, Private Jet Card Comparisons, Miami, Florida
Your Offer
Many releases I see offer credits and upgrades that aren’t much different – and in some cases less attractive – than a customer could get booking through a preferred travel agency. The offers are generally targeted to customers purchasing a single room or suite. Often the upgrades, early check-in and late check-outs are predicated on availability.
To say most offers are cookie cutter is being polite. It ignores a large chunk of the target market of private jet users are extended families, often traveling with nannies, or two or three couples flying together, splitting the cost of the flight. Vacations are when many users upgrade the size of the jets they use, paying tens of thousands of dollars more than they normally would.
A Europe to Dubai roundtrip on a super midsize jet seating eight is likely to run at least US$100,000 roundtrip and it goes up from there. A similar private jet from the Northeastern U.S. to Barbados is going to run US$70,000 and up. Large cabin jets are even more expensive. Food credits for US$100 are nice. So is a class making craft cocktails with your mixologist. Neither are compelling when you consider how much the flights alone cost.
What should you offer? Think about your inventory, particularly connecting rooms that accommodate families or villas and suites that can be joined together to provide a private enclave. Maybe a discount on connecting rooms? Private dining experiences coordinated in advance could also be of interest. Include guaranteed reservations for your popular restaurants. It’s not always easy to get space for 10 or 12 people. Meet and greet and the airport, included, is a no-brainer, including coordination of any testing or protocols that might be required for the return or on arrival.
Think beyond your property, too. Work with local contacts to arrange private access to popular attractions. Private jet flyers’ tastes are diverse. Offer a variety of options to cater to different guest profiles, from hiking to hang gliding. Arrange tee times at a private club not open to the public. Partner with notable restaurants that you know to be popular with foodies to secure reservations and behind the scenes tours. Going with your chef to the local markets in the morning is merely a starting point.
Then guarantee check-in and check-out coordinated to flight times when the customer is making their reservation. Anyone who can afford to fly privately is doing so because they value their time and they are looking for a seamless experience that can be customized to their needs. They don’t want offers based on availability. Give amenities and services you can commit to delivering.
Identifying the right partners
Most of the partnerships I hear about come around because the companies were introduced casually by a mutual contact instead of any type of true vetting process. Perhaps the CEO stayed at your hotel. You likely spent more time deciding on new towels for the beach club. It’s marriage by blind date after a couple conference calls. The private jet company website looked nice. The marketing folks sounded like they knew what they were talking about. There was a healthy amount of references to celebrity clients. But is the company a good fit? Do you even know the questions to ask?
The first place to start is understanding the market of providers. There are two types of companies – brokers and operators, although the latter will sometimes broker, as well. Often operators have needs that go beyond their own fleets, so they charter from other operators to support demand.
Like travel advisors or real estate agents, brokers are middlemen. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some are large with offices around the world. Other are operating out of what could be a WeWork office. It’s hard to tell the difference from a website. A charter broker telling you he or she has access to 5,000 jets is like a travel agent saying they have access to 10,000 hotels. A private jet broker with a bunch of press clippings doesn’t necessarily mean anything more than they hired a good public relations firm.
So, what should you think about?
With few exceptions, most brokers and operators are regionally focused if we are speaking about the U.S., or nationally in Europe and Asia. Ask where the company is based? Where do they have offices or salespeople? You are probably hoping they promote your property to their customer list. Ask for a breakdown of where their customers are located. What’s their mix of business? If they are focused on corporate travel, their direct relationships are likely with the person who is booking the trips instead of the principal.
If it’s an operator, where are their aircraft based? Repositioning flights have to be paid for by the charter client and can add significant cost. Some operators have floating fleets that fly from customer to customer instead of returning to base after each trip. What are the geographic areas they float? You will want to partner with brokers whose clients are aligned with your important source markets. For operators, you want to understand what type of aircraft they have. With a full load of passengers and luggage, do they have aircraft that can fly nonstop, or will they need a refueling stop?
If it’s a broker, ask about company history. How long have they been around? How many full-time employees do they have? How is their company structured between sales and operations? How do they choose the operators they work with? How many operators do they work with on a regular basis? What standards do they have for the operators they use? Do they provide customers with verification that the aircraft and pilots have met those standards before the trip? What type of preparations do they make in case there’s a mechanical cancelation or the aircraft gets delayed upstream? Ask to visit their office if possible. Once you’ve seen several, you start to see that there are big differences.
Generating value for clients
Just like many hotels simply provide cut and paste offers, most of what I see private jet companies bringing to the table is of negligible value. A US$2,000 flight credit may sound nice, but in fact, it is a small amount if the flights cost US$100,000. And what is the quote based on anyway? Ad hoc charter flights are priced dynamically, and in most cases, there isn’t published pricing to compare against.
Much more valuable is to work with private aviation partners that will provide fixed one-way rates and roundtrip discounts. Both brokers and operators offer these guaranteed prices to members of their jet card and fractional share programs. Negotiate for your partner to offer them from your key source markets as part of your promotion.
What happens when something goes wrong?
When you book a charter flight, if the operator cancels, the customer gets a re-quote. If it’s a short notice cancelation, for example, a same-day mechanical, the new price can be much higher. The customer has the option to take the new price, get a refund or wait until prices go down, usually a couple days out.
For members of jet card programs, most providers offer service recovery at no additional cost – a huge value when you are starting a vacation. Ask them to extend that benefit to your joint customers. And then, what happens if the delay causes them to miss the first night? You should waive any cancelation penalties for travel via your partner private aviation company. That’s brings real value in booking your companies as a package.
Final thoughts
Regular private aviation users understand how the game works. They also travel privately because they want a seamless and customized experience.
Few partnerships produce more than a press release; however, there are some that actually produce business. By making your partnership thoughtful, with benefits that speak to how the charter market actually works and what the target customers are looking for, you’ll have an offer that resonates and a foundation for telling a story that brings meaningful benefits – and business.