An Upgrade For The Airline Market
After a story went viral several months ago about a man being kicked off of an overbooked United flight, the viral attention surrounding the incident highlighted some glaring issues within the airline industry that are a still problem for many today.
The commercial aviation industry has been busy innovating throughout the years, but there are some areas of the industry that could benefit from an upgrade in the way of doing things.
A variety of airlines today will overbook their flights because of the algorithms that their company uses, which try to ensure that each flight will be as full as possible and yield as high of a return as possible. And though this approach is said to have improved over the years, it still isn't as efficient as it could be. On several occasions the inaccuracy of this planning approach has caused quite a problem for travelers. Also, a number of travelers find that when booking their travel plans that it isn't as hassle-free of an approach as they would like it to be.
Today it is much easier for someone to buy a train ticket or a ferry ticket and travel on the same day, than it is for them to purchase an airline ticket; maybe there is potential to improve upon that.
For most travelers, they will often book their trip many months in advance and that is because traditionally this method is often going to be a much cheaper option. For those who are faced with needing to find an impromptu flight somewhere, they will find that it can easily get very pricey and sometimes be quite difficult to find the right flight on short notice.
To try and sort out some of the mess, we've seen the introduction of new subscription-based flight services that are looking to offer consumers cheap airfares if they are subscribed to their monthly travel club. We can get subscription services for household goods, entertainment, and music etc, so why not our flights as well?
One of the businesses that is offering this subscription based model is the SkyHi travel club that is still in beta at the moment. SkyHi already offers access to early members for a monthly fee of $199 and that includes 5 one-way flights each month. Those flights need to be within 1,500 miles of the departure location and if you want to add on any additional flights, it's only $35 each.
They plan to open more widely in a little over a month from now, they will be increasing the amount of flights that are offered on their platform and also increasing the regional areas that they service. SkyHi also isn't the only subscription model out there that is trying to revolutionize the travel space in this way, there are other similar services like OneGo, Beacon, Surf Air, and Rise.
With these subscription services, though they are trying to better cater to the last-minute traveler, they still require some time in advance for flights to be booked. OneGo for example requires flights to be booked 7 days in advance for those who are booking through their subscription service. The availability of alternative seating, for business class or first class etc, is also going to vary depending on who you go with.
SkyHi and similar ventures, are hoping to decrease the stress, time, and expense for travelers, by offering them something that is hopefully going to be easier for them to use, quicker for them to use, and provide a cheaper price for them. It might take quite a while but these services could really change the way that consumers go about buying their plane tickets.
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Sources:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/overbooking/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/business/all-you-can-fly-for-a-monthly-subscription.html?mcubz=3
https://skift.com/2016/02/01/onego-offers-unlimited-flights-for-a-price/
https://www.fastcompany.com/3042224/a-netflix-for-private-flights-surfair-founders-take-off-with-rival-members-only-airline
http://fortune.com/2017/06/23/surf-air-subscription-airline-europe/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/skyhi-flight-subscription-app/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2017/05/17/not-so-new-promise-of-subscription-economy/#38996a8e4343
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Wow, I like the idea very much. I had this trouble with overbooking in one of my previous travels , so I would love such a subscription service!
SkyHi is only for US right? Hopefully we can get similar service in the third world.
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@doitvoluntarily - An interesting business model. If they can really make those price levels work, this will become a very popular thing very fast I think. The only factor I am worried about is that such ideas start in a great way but when the business grows, the logistics starts breaking down. Hope they plan for a rapid growth.
Thanks for this heads up article. Cheers. Upvoted.
Regards,
This is a pretty cool idea but I find it hard to believe that there would ever be mass adoption. I t would be beneficial for airline companies and passengers to have last minute seats filled, but I dont think governments or international aviation will care much about it and remain stringent about check in policies. Now if there was a way to bypass all the check in requirements with a different form of pre-screening, now that could be really big
OOO how interesting.... that would be a better solution than dragging a person off the plane! :)
Airlines make a really small profit margin less than 1% on average. It is a highly competitive field and they all have the same business model. It is great to see that some companies are trying to innovate in this industry but we are a long way from finding a better model that is sustainable. Let's wait and see :) thanks for sharing!
nice post....
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Sounds good. :)
@doitvoluntarily It is the safest form of travel. Too bad about the claim of overbooking. That's irregularity at its finest. No amount of damage control or spin can calm future passengers.