TravTalk India Online Magazine
With the ban on international flights currently and limited domestic flight operations, private charter flight operation has seen an instant boost in interest and demand. Private aviation expert, Kanika Tekriwal, CEO & Founder, JetSetGo Aviation helps in understanding the changing dynamic of the industry and nitty-gritty of the business.
Why do you think people will prefer private charter more during COVID?
Due to the pandemic, people today are more mindful and cautious while choosing their travel options. Whether it’s health risk concerns or just getting where you need to be, people and companies that have the means to fly privately, but had previously eschewed it, will now be looking at the options due to its safety, hygiene and convenience factor. Which is possible in private jets as it gives you assurance of our operational excellence, exemplary safety record and exacting cleanliness standards. Further whilst flying private the various touch points throughout the journey also reduce making private flying favorable. A study in the states confirmed that commercial fliers have over 200 touch points at the airport whilst private jets have as little as 30, so people may prefer private flying.
What are the new trends you are observing in terms of requests received after the ban lift?
For the very first time, we are seeing requests coming from people like never before, people who weren’t necessarily wealthy or would not necessarily travel through business or first class. Mainly new customers are reaching out to us. We are getting close to 20 enquires a day with 70% of that of new customers.
We are seeing a lot of requests coming from parents whose children were stuck in colleges or schools in different countries or domestically and from families who were stuck elsewhere apart from their homeland during the lockdown. A lot of requests from Singapore, London and Australia are observed as many Indians send their kids to schools to study in these countries. 85% of these flights carried between 1-3 passengers.
There is a big surge in requests from people who had sick parents or adults stuck in various parts of the country/world. Also, from small businessmen who had travelled to places on business and were stuck wanting to return.
What is the future of private charter aviation keeping in mind the COVID is not going anywhere sooner?
As of the current situation, people will now be using it for necessity mainly because charters are considered more safe, hygienic and convenient. Flying privately gives an assurance of minimal touch points and provides extra preventive measures. Having said that, there will be more new customers that will be considering us. Also, we anticipate that both leisure and business travel will decrease as compared to earlier considering the rise in usage of video calls and conferencing in the last two months because of which the number of trips people do will reduce so previous customers may not travel as much as they used to. However, business travel to rebound ahead of leisure travel.
Do you get customers from travel agents? How do you engage with them?
Yes, we do receive requests from the agents. Usually they engage with us by taking a quote from us and sharing it with the guests after adding their percentage. Our team is connected with various agents all over the country to fulfil any query that comes to us via various mediums.
Details on few aircrafts name with no. of seat and their tentative cost
Which one is the most popular seater flight amongst the customers post Covid?
Looking at the current circumstances, our guests prefer 6 & 7 seater flight as it attracts lower risk due to lower capacity. It also depends on other co-passengers travelling in the aircraft.
How are customers engaging – are they looking at booking a less seater aircraft or buying an entire plane due to safety concerns?
We usually receive multiple queries which comprise of guests looking for either entire charter or just a seat in the charter. Since safety is a priority for everyone during such situations, we are mostly getting bookings for the entire aircraft. However, we do have empty legs available too for various sectors where the cost is much cheaper in comparison.
8. How many requests received since the ban lift? How many new customers are sending in requests to fly privately since the ban lift? How many requests were received during the lockdown and just before the lockdown?
We are getting approximately 20 requests in a day. Out of that, 70% are from the new customers. We have seen a nine-fold increase in demand just before the lockdown was announced and were able to fulfil only 50-60% of the requests mainly because the regulations kept changing overnight in one country or the other. Post the lockdowns, which were being implemented in various parts of the world we’ve received 10-12 requests a day to bring home people stuck in various parts of the world.
