It’s not surprising that the high costs of starting and running any aviation-related business leave many investors and entrepreneurs feeling hesitant. Nonetheless, a great deal of reward awaits those who decide to take the risk; here are a few more reasons to do so.
1. The industry is opening up to a wider market.
The stereotype of private flight being solely the territory of the rich, famous, and extravagant is making way to the idea of everyday people choosing it for more practical reasons. From businesspeople who need to make urgent trips to families with children and pets that wouldn’t be comfortable on an airline, the market for charter flights is increasingly diverse.
2. There’s a chance of getting in first.
Expect competition to be there in major cities. In smaller cities and certain countries, however, there’s a good chance you could be the first to enter the market. And as consumer trust is vital to an aviation company, being there before anyone else can offer you a significant advantage.
3. You don’t even need to own planes.
The “share economy” has made its way to countless industries, and aviation is no exception. The now-familiar “Uber model” applies to private flight, and you can now build a business in the industry without having to own aircraft. Companies working as flight brokers are becoming increasingly common; this offers an opportunity to enter the industry without the prohibitively high costs of purchasing and operating a fleet.
4. The technology for running your business is always improving.
The new ways of running a jet charter business don’t stop at the big idea. These days, there’s also constantly new tech for handling the nitty-gritty of operating your company.
Perhaps the most impactful aspect of these is the prevalence of apps that place your service literally in your customers’ hands. The UI/UX industry is always finding new ways to make the customer more interested, and the transaction more convenient.
On the other end, there are also various software-as-a-service (SaaS) products that make it far easier to run a business smoothly and with fewer errors. Nowadays you’ll find a software suite for everything from managing employees to accounting, and the fact that they work in the cloud means that all the data the company needs to work with are integrated seamlessly and in real time.
5. More businesses nowadays rely on frequent and time-sensitive flights.
More and more organizations now operate across several countries; this applies to companies of different sizes, not just multinational giants that have their own corporate jets. Businesspeople need to make time-critical trips that wouldn’t be possible on an airline; entire teams need to be flown to work at an overseas site; companies need to send people and products to an important trade convention in a different state, and so on. There is now a greater need for flights that, in many cases, commercial jets can’t cater to.