Charter Broker Updates

Large Selection, Best Price Guarantee and Industry Reputation Propel Jet Charter Favorite New Flight Charters

U.S. private jet charter leader New Flight Charters this month celebrates its 12th anniversary and record growth, arranging and providing charter flights in the US and worldwide, according to a press release from the company. Since the company was founded in 2004, the private jet charter industry has experienced tumultuous ups and downs, just in recent times appearing to be confidently climbing out following the 2008 recession.

During this time, charter flight company New Flight Charters was growing and profitable 11 of the 12 years, including being awarded to the Inc.500 fastest growing companies list every year from 2009 to 2012, a testament to its service level and returning customers. Different from most air charter brokerages whose key personnel come from sales jobs outside of aviation, New Flight Charters’ founders had a history in private aviation and were active private and commercial pilots. “Coming from a background of flight operations and being the one responsible for the customer experience and service, we look at arranging charters quite differently than most,” states Rick Colson, New Flight Charters’ Founder and President, “It’s about the experience, trust and reputation.” Now with a Charter Management Senior Team of six and a cumulative 46 years in air charter, 51 years FAA-certified experience, 104 years executive management experience and over 17,500 hours personal flight experience, New Flight Charters boasts one of the most experienced and respected teams in the industry.  The company arranges over 1,400 flights each year. “The largest number of compliments we receive are about our people,” Colson adds. New Flight Charters has good reason to celebrate;  not only twelve years of consistent growth and success, but recognition as a favorite in the industry and as an air charter role model. Company Milestones:

• 2005 Qualified as Registered U.S. Government Contractor, qualified and accepted to the CCR-Central Contractor Registry and SAM-System Award Management.
• 2006 Awarded Credit Rating by D&B, Dun & Bradstreet, the world’s leading provider of business information for credit, marketing and sales decisions worldwide.  New Flight Charters’ rating and company details are available publicly through D&B online at www.dnb.com.
• 2008 Began aircraft ownership and management, placed on a charter operator’s certificate and separately operating it under FAR Part-91 for business.
• 2009 Launches Best Price Guarantee, assuring New Flight Charters fliers receive the best price in the total market for each and every flight.
• 2009-2012 Achieves the Inc. 500|5000 fastest growing list four consecutive years, earning the distinction of fastest growing private jet service nationwide.
• 2010 Publishes Five Questions For Your Air Charter Service, to help private fliers manage risks and ensure a quality and reputable organization is handling their private charter flight.
• 2011 First in the industry to provide a Company Credentials Report, or anything like it, providing company history, financial, personnel and business credentials to charter industry partners, vendors and clients for review and evaluation.
• 2011 Passes audit examination by the IRS Excise Tax Division, no changes ordered.
• 2011-2012 The Most Recommended Jet Charter Service in the world’s largest charter marketplace.  Air charter professionals, operators and brokers publicly recommend charter companies in the market and post comments on their service, history and experiences.
• 2012-2014 Testing and proving company for groundbreaking industry resource FlightList PRO, featuring the only complete air charter listing directory in the U.S. and 131 countries worldwide.
• 2013 New Flight Charters’ Five Questions For Your Air Charter Service is adopted and published by The Air Charter Safety Foundation based in Washington D.C. as a consumer guide to chartering an aircraft and made available as a free download at ACSF.org.
• 2013 launches the free Club New Flight, with special member charter discounts, complimentary ground transportation and custom catering, and advance information on empty legs special pricing and new charter aircraft.
• 2014 Celebrates Ten Year Anniversary as leading private jet charter company, offers special discounts, promotions and free flight concierge experiences.
• 2015 Achieves 14% growth year over year, more than quadruples total industry trend numbers of 2.9%.
• 2016 Awarded Better Business Bureau Accreditation, A+ rating. Rating based on 13 factors and no negative information since BBB's New Flight Charters file opened in 2011.

About New Flight Charters New Flight Charters arranges over 1,400 separate domestic and international flights each year, with top-rated operator aircraft at leading jet charter rates.  Extensive client and industry reviews are available on the New Flight Charters website.  The private jet charter company serves a wide variety of clientele including Fortune 500 companies, government heads of state, presidential campaigns, entertainment icons, private families and entrepreneurs.  For charter quotes, information or the latest updates, call (800) 732-1653 or visit NewFlightCharters.com nationwide or new specialty location Denver Jet Charter for Denver, Aspen and other Colorado private jet charters. Source: New Flight Charters press release

By: Bobby Burch  - Startland.com - April 14, 2016

An Overland Park, KS tech firm is bringing charter flights to the masses with its crowdsourcing platform that reduces the costs to fly in swanky private jets. Founded in 2015, Member Jets created a private aviation community that connects travelers to discounted private flights by aggregating available seats and travel opportunities. Now used at Kansas City’s Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport and the Johnson County Executive Airport, Member Jets is accepting members for its club, which targets businesses and entrepreneurs that highly value their time. “We’re trying to create a trading environment for aviation,” Member Jets CEO Ty Carter said. “We bring the price point down so you’re not buying an entire airplane — you buy a seat like you would on a commercial airline. But instead of a commercial flight, you’re on a private jet without all the hassles.” To use the service, a would-be traveler buys a Member Jets membership and creates a profile, indicating preferences and frequent domestic destinations. For safety, the user also must go through a background check and be in good standing with the TSA. A member can then search, request, select, book and, if desired, share the aircraft with other members, driving down costs.The platform also can notify users of travel opportunities to a desired locale. A pilot for more than 25 years, Carter said that Member Jets not only reduces private flight costs but also drastically cuts down on travel time when compared to a commercial flight. In addition to skipping security and check-in lines and the option to park on a nearby tarmac, private flights are direct to the desired location. For example, Carter said that Member Jets can cut off about five hours of travel time on a round trip flight to Denver, six hours to New York City and eight hours to Los Angeles. And in a world where time is money, Carter said the efficiencies are significant to a business’s bottom line. “For an entrepreneur whose time is extremely valuable — every minute is important,” Carter said. “Standing in line at airports and the commercial hassles are not efficient. … I’ve seen the advantages of what private air allows you to do — it’s like a time capsule. Your productivity is much higher.” While still more expensive when compared to commercial flights, Carter said Member Jets’ flights are cheaper than chartering an entire plane. For example, a private one-way flight to Austin, Texas costs about $800 for a 1-hour-and-40-minute flight. The company is currently only operating out of the Kansas City area but is looking to expand to Denver and Atlanta. Some of its common destinations include St. Louis, Omaha, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Austin, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Wichita, New York City, Denver and other. Source:  STARTLAND-Kansas City's Home For Innovation News

Blue Star Jets is fading to black. The private-jet-chartering company — named after the airline in the 1987 film “Wall Street” — is quietly going out of business after 16 years. Todd Rome, Blue Star’s president, is now working with his bigger former rival, Apollo Jets. Ricky Sitomer, Blue Star’s CEO who co-founded the company with Rome, is “doing his own thing,” Rome said. Blue Star, which sponsored Bridgehampton Polo for five summers and advertised in upscale magazines, will disappear. “The more volume you do, the better pricing you get,” Rome told me. “We feel our efforts combined will take over this industry.” Apollo was founded by Al Palagonia, the handsome pal of Spike Lee who once did time for pump-and-dump stock fraud schemes. Source:  Page Six article,  April 14, 2016, By Richard Johnson

ARGUS International, Inc. (ARGUS) is pleased to announce a new software integration with the online charter marketplace, SimpleCharters.com. ARGUS is now the exclusive operator ratings provider for the SimpleCharters.com online Charter Marketplace. This integration allows SimpleCharters.com users to filter their searches to obtain ARGUS rated charter operators, and verify these operators’ legitimacy through a click-to-verify system. “ARGUS wants to make sure that today’s web-based consumers have the ability to perform high level due-diligence while checking availability and price”, said ARGUS President and CEO, Joe Moeggenberg. “The internet’s ability to connect charter brokers, end consumers and suppliers in an efficient manner has become very important to the overall charter marketplace. ARGUS performs its own research on every website that seeks an integration with our ratings, and we were extremely impressed with how quickly and efficiently SimpleCharters.com allows users to perform their searches and book their trips. “I couldn’t be more excited to introduce the only online platform that enables clients to book private flights, instantly,” said Charles Denault, Founder and CEO of SimpleCharters.com. “Integrating the ARGUS ratings into our platform was a high priority for us, as many of our customers only fly with ARGUS rated charter operators. We are thrilled to announce the completion of this integration and are very much looking forward to helping the charter marketplace evolve with quicker and easier transactions.” Source:  ARGUS Press Release

Nationwide Air Charter Services Company Jets Over Industry Growth Rate, Reports Increased Charter Demand and a Movement From Light Jets to Midsize Jet Charters.

(Marketwire) February 3, 2016, – New Flight Charters, a nationwide leader in private jet charter services since 2004, announced today a 14 percent increase in 2015 charter business over 2014.  Fourth Quarter 2015 saw explosive growth in charter business, up 28 percent over the same period in 2014.

Growth during the year was seen from an increased demand in repeat business, new business and a general move in demand from smaller aircraft to larger aircraft charters.  Fourth Quarter saw a notable movement from light jets to midsize jet charters in particular, and December featured large increases in both the number of charters - up 28 percent, and average charter spend - up 18 percent, compared to December 2014. New Flight Charters arranged over 1,400 flights in 2015. 2015 increases more than quadrupled industry trend numbers for the year; market analyst Argus reported a flight activity increase of 2.9 percent for 2015 across private aviation segments including charter and Part-91, and projects a similar size increase moving forward into 2016. New Flight Charters attributes beating industry trends to several factors including its continuous flight-by-flight service level, and the company’s unique entrée to the full U.S. Part-135 aircraft market.  Not restricted to a sourcing pool or marketing network as is common in the industry, the company can provide more availability and better pricing options, including 218 additional one-way priced aircraft nationwide, along with its Best Price Guarantee for every flight. “The combination of our aircraft availability, our long term expert team and our service level is growing our repeat business,” said New Flight Charters president Rick Colson.  “We continue to gain business from experienced charter fliers and jet card holders who try us, like the service, and come back.  Without a large deposit or financial commitment to us up front, we have to earn every single charter.  It keeps you on your toes, and not surprisingly our clients like that.”  The company was top rated in a previous industry survey. The one-of-a-kind air charter company features an acclaimed six-member charter service team with a cumulative 48 years in air charter, 49 years FAA-certified experience, 99 years executive management experience, 17,400 hours pilot-in-command, and includes private and commercial pilots and retired law enforcement. About New Flight Charters Since 2004 New Flight Charters has arranged private domestic and international flights with top-rated operator aircraft at leading jet charter quotes, along with its Best Price Guarantee, industry empty legs list, and a perfect safety history.  Extensive client and industry reviews are available on the New Flight Charters website.  As a registered U.S. government contractor, and named to the Inc. 500 fastest growing list four consecutive years, the jet charter company serves a wide variety of clientele including Fortune 500 companies, government heads of state, presidential campaigns, entertainment icons, private families and entrepreneurs. For charter quotes, information or the latest updates, call (800) 732-1653 or visit NewFlightCharters.com nationwide or new specialty location Denver Jet Charter for Denver, Aspen and all Colorado private jet charters. Source:  Marketwire News Release

Etihad Airways has announced a new partnership with private jet charter broker Victor, to complement and promote its exclusive The Residence and First Apartment cabins, both available on the airline’s Airbus A380 fleet. The partnership also allows customers the ultimate convenience of chartering a seamless private aircraft connection to or from their international A380 flights. Read full article with information and comments from Victor as well as Etihad Airways, online Albawaba Business.

The idea of creating a technology enabled marketplace is one of the biggest trends among startups today. However, how does that work for something like the highly fragmented, negotiation heavy business of charter jets? Los Angeles-based VolJet (www.voljet.com) is looking to solve that puzzle, with its online system for booking charter jets, just as you would a commercial flight. We caught up with CEO Susan Sloan to learn more.

Story by Benjamin F. Kuo, from Socaltech.com, 12/7/15

What is VolJet? Susan Sloan: It's very similar to a commercial, online booking system, like Expedia.com. It's very user friendly, and will be a familiar experience to users. You go on to the site, put your city paris in, and you get back several results. You can also get commercial results for commercial bookings. We're the only system for private jets, which also offers up commercial airline operations as well. Once you go in, you have several options, from taking a commercial airline, to chartering your own jet, joining another charter, and even opening up your own charter to share with others, if you don't mind sharing with one or two other people. Who are your customers? Susan Sloan: The market segment that we are going after, is the market that pays full fare first class, but has never chartered a jet before. If you have ever tried to charter a jet, it's a real hassle, and it's very negotiation intensive. You never get a “buy now” price. All of our pricing is buy now, and the price you see is the price you pay, versus many of the extras you have to pay for when you charter your own jet normally. There's no negotiation, no haggling, no back and forth. The current system is very labor intensive, in that you'll call someone for a quote, and they call you back maybe 24 hours later, and you have to go back and forth several times. With our service, it's very simple, you don't have to self identify until you book a flight. You can go onto our site, cruise around the site, and only when you decide to book a trip do you have to put in your credit card information and name. It's also non-membership, so you don't have to pay thousands of dollars to get access to information on the site or to book a flight. What's your background? Susan Sloan: I'm a mechanical engineer, and have been in aerospace for 35 years as an executive. I'm also a private pilot. My other founder also is a private pilot. I had been flying private jets, and I realized they were going one leg of the flight back empty. That's not good for the environment, it's not goo for the jet, and it's not good for the customer, or the industry. There are three of us, and my co-founder, Rabe, and I decide there has to be a business here. Plus, we thought it shouldn't be so hard to charter a jet. That's how we created this thing. What areas can people book flights to? Susan Sloan: It's all of the U.S. We have our own database we've created of 921 airports, and we have created algorithms to make sure the right aircraft is being used for the right city pair and distance. Also, each of the airports have different runway lengths, and offer different services at those airports. Right now, we're in the U.S. Only, but we're looking at Europe for our next launch, probably by the end of next year. The market for charter flights is very fragmented, and there are a lot of charter operators – how have they reacted to your service? Susan Sloan: It's been a great benefit to charter operators. Our idea is to be a win-win-win for all around. It's got to be a win for the customer in terms of ease of booking and saving time, and we want to be a win for operators, by bringing them more revenue and filling more planes. It's also a win for the industry. The aviation industry is a great industry, and we want to make sure it has a good growth trajectory. On our site, operators have their own portal. There's both a customer portal, and an operator portal, where they can sign up. They don't have to pay a membership. Those operators can see all of the groups requesting flights, and where they want to go, what their revenue will be with taxes and everything split out, and they can select a group and assign a plane. That approach is 180 degrees from everyone else. It's on our tagline, we are bringing people to planes, rather than planes to people. We're trying to get those empty legs filled. We have a patent pending on our system and methodology, which is definitely unique. What's the hardest part of making this business work? Susan Sloan: It takes time. It takes time to actually get the system perfect and right, with all of that programming. We have several programmers on board who are working on that. It takes a lot of tenacity, you can't give up. Obviously, we love this business, we love aviation, we love traveling, and we love flying. If we didn't have that, we would have given up. It's been a long road, but it's pretty exciting as we've launched and are now getting good feedback. Finally, what are the next steps for you? Susan Sloan: Our next step, is to really ramp up the number of flights, and get the word out about VolJet. Full article and interview in SoCalTech.com here.

Regal Wings Press Release 12/3/15 SOURCE Regal Wings Since its inception over ten years ago, Regal Wings has earned a well-deserved reputation as an award winning luxury travel firm which specializes in first and business class ticketing, one satisfied client at a time. With our over the top customer service and the ability to access unpublished fares at the lowest possible prices, we have caught attention from A-list companies and high profile celebrities alike, as well as accolades from Inc. Magazine, Frommers, and Crain's New York Business. In our never ending quest to provide the highest possible level of service, we have launched an elite Private Jet Charter division which takes our legendary personal attention and unbeatable fares to new heights. As private aviation specialists we have secured relationships with major private jet operators in the United States, and our strong buying power gives us access to the quality fares that are not available anywhere else. Regal Wings is proud to announce that we have joined forces for this launch with Steven Kramer who is the founder and CEO of Oceans Capital. Steven brings his boundless expertise of the private jet industry to our new business jets division, and under his watch we will bring an unparalleled experience. Our talented team will serve each client to ensure that every aspect of their journey whether it is domestic or international will meet the unsurpassed Regal standards, and that every jet carries the highest of safety ratings. "We invite you to fly with our new private aviation team to have us take you to the loftiest of heights," said Regal Wings CEO Eli Ostreicher. "We are completely confident that with our world class customer service and industry leading rates, that once you embark with us you will never journey with anybody else." SOURCE Regal Wings

Click2Jet.com Platform Streamlines Operator Quoting Process, Eliminates Broker Mark-up; Gives Charter Users Direct Access to Best Priced Jet Charters

Click2Jet, a California web start-up that connects charter users directly with charter operators in the fast growing on-demand jet charter market segment, announced November 6 the rollout of service in its Los Angeles and San Francisco launch markets via this company press release. Click2Jet contracts with charter operators to offer a lower-priced, real time search and booking alternative to quote-based broker mark-up models that have historically driven the charter market. “We believe that Click2Jet represents a truly unique market offering in that we have eliminated the traditional middleman to the advantage of both charter users and charter operators,” said John Andruilli, Jr., Click2Jet Founder and Managing Partner. “We contract directly with premier charter operators, like Clay Lacy Aviation & Dreamline Aviation, to offer their aircraft at predetermined prices on the highest demand charter routes from our hub cities. Our operators upload pricing, inventory, and fleet information directly to our platform.”

Headquartered in Carpinteria, California. Click2Jet operator partners include Clay Lacy Aviation, Dreamline Aviation, Sun Air Jets, Global Exec Aviation, Paragon Airways, and MACAIR

Click2Jet.com provides immediate search results similar to traditional online travel sites, but in a departure from other web and app-based private charter companies, Click2Jet’s optimized search results represent the actual price for a specific aircraft flying a specific route from one of Click2Jet’s operator partners. Andruilli noted that many competitors generate quotes based on aggregated marketplace data as the basis for their search function. “The Click2Jet model is direct and transparent. We’re not accessing general data about the 7,000 jets parked around the world, creating quotes and then going back and forth trying to meet a members’ search request.” Lower charter prices are the result of a more efficient operator quoting process and the absence of a broker mark up, said Andruilli. “At Click2Jet, we’ve developed the platform and partnerships to create a sustainable business that will help grow the on-demand segment with a direct, streamlined booking process providing charter users with more transparency and less frustration in their efforts to book private air charter.” About Click2Jet Headquartered in Carpinteria, California. Click2Jet operator partners include Clay Lacy Aviation, Dreamline Aviation, Sun Air Jets, Global Exec Aviation, Paragon Airways, and MACAIR. Expansion to charter hubs across the U.S. will follow the west coast rollout. Operator and investor inquiries are welcome. Please visit www.click2jet.com. Press Release Nov. 6 2015, CARPINTERIA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)