FlyOtto, the latest
attempt to democratize
private aviation, uses simplified bookings and pricing to woo
business travelers who need short connections.
Co-founder and CEO and Rod
Rakic also runs OpenAirplane.com, a platform for pilots to "make renting
an airplane as easy as renting a car," he said. About 12,000 pilots use
that service, and he launched FlyOtto in September to tap the much larger
market of the travelers themselves.
The platform largely
targets travelers who need 200- to 700-mile flights, particularly where there's
little choice of direct commercial service between two non-hub markets, he
said. He is positioning FlyOtto as a third option outside of driving or taking
connecting flights. "Unless you're one of those folks who can make the
business justification for chartering a jet, you're stuck with these two very
terrible choices," Rakic said.
Users enter their
locations and immediately get a price quote, determined by an algorithm that
combines such factors as distance, type of aircraft and number of seats needed.
That simplifies a process usually entailing dozens of emails and several hours
of waiting, Rakic said. "Because we have relationships directly with
operators, we're not sending out a request for a quote from a bunch of
operators, waiting on them to come back," he said. "[Pricing] is
built into the network from Day One." A trip from New York City to Martha's
Vineyard, for example, costs $1,500 for a three-passenger plane. Pricing will
come down as more aircraft and operators come into the network, Rakic said.
Once a customer accepts
the price, FlyOtto sends the information to a matching operator, who has one
hour to accept the offer before FlyOtto opens the deal to other\s with similar
aircraft and the capability to accept it. If no operator bites within two hours
of the the time the client accepted the quote, FlyOtto notifies the client that
no match was possible, and the client incurs no charge.
For trips that follow
through, the company takes a 7 percent cut.
The platform covers about
5,000 public-use airports across the United States, and all operators are
certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Rakic said. "This
isn't some kind of UberX for small planes. These are professional pilots who
are going to show up and have the airplane waiting for you when you tell them
you want to leave."
Round-trip bookings factor
in wait time and accommodations for pilots, and users can request things like
catering through the tool, he said.
In the future, Rakic
hopes to integrate into other apps and tools, including corporate booking tools,
so travelers can make quicker comparisons on whether private aviation is
feasible. "It's designed to be plug and play, so we're having those
conversations on how to make it easier," he said. "It's important to
make this accessible not just to the C-suite anymore."