Online charter booking engine Stratajet is set to roll out its service to private aviation consumers on September 28. The UK-based company, which claims to offer the only real-time online booking engine for charter flights, has established a database of up to 500 available aircraft for which its software will generate live pricing information.

In a project called Operation Long Reach, Stratajet spent April through August visiting 50 charter operators and FBOs in 30 cities across 14 European countries to promote its technology. The main aim was to persuade operators to link their operations software with the Stratajet system and so make aircraft available for direct booking by customers.

Participating operators are eligible to use the company’s Stratafleet software, which uses the Stratajet search engine to generate flight quotes and more efficiently sell their available capacity. Its also offers the StrataFBO software to allow FBOs to interface with the main website.

Stratajet is now setting up meetings with operators in the U.S., Middle East and Russia to expand its database of available aircraft. The company also has just appointed David Lee as its chief financial officer. Lee has more than a decade of experience in developing Internet businesses and was recently named by the Institute of Chartered Accountants as Finance Director of the Year.

The Stratajet team includes (left to right): Olivia Scarlett, head of marketing, Mike Gadd, head of operator and FBO relations, Cecilie Øyäs, co-pilot and operator and FBO liaison and Jonny Nicol, CEO.

“Following an exhausting few months, flying around Europe in our Chieftain aircraft, it is very rewarding to be able to confirm that we have hit our targets in relation to the number and range of aircraft available on the Stratajet platform,” commented CEO Jonny Nicol. “The positive response we received throughout the campaign has proven what we knew all along: the industry needs technological development in order to grow. I think one of our greatest achievements is that we gained the understanding from the operators that other companies, claiming to do what Stratajet does, are simply not delivering.”

Stratajet has been in development for the past four years while Nicol and his team refined the algorithm that he says delivers the charter industry’s only 100-percent accurate, real-time charter booking system for consumers. Essentially, the system is intended to calculate the true cost of a so-called “partial empty leg” by working out the net difference in cost of the requested new trip and any empty leg involved.

“This means that the consumer pays less and the operator makes a greater profit margin,” Nicol told AIN. Stratajet employs a research team to ensure that the system includes up-to-date information on all relevant costs, such as airport landing and parking fees. Customers pay a 5 percent commission on the price of flights booked either online or by phone.

Article by Charles Alcock, courtesy AIN