Comments on: Virgin Charter Launches: Private Aviation Marketplace

By: Jason Voorhees

Jason Voorhees — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:05:03 +0000

I agree with tz and Anders above. Most of the sites listed here are just junk. I have played with them caroscene.. airnetz.. etc..The only true system that really works for realtime quoting and aircraft availability on private jets is really http://www.avinode.com and it is also the only one with global coverage..

By: charter a jet

charter a jet — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:12:27 +0000

ive had goodluck with http://www.priv...charterjets.com – also uses the charterx booking system

By: By the numbers - Part 1 « virginchartersucks

By the numbers - Part 1 « virginchartersucks — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:06:54 +0000

[...] info By virginchartersucks Categories: Uncategorized Source - http://www.tech...on-marketplace/ The U.S. is most of the worldwide market for private aviation, Duffy says, with about 75% of [...]

By: golferdude

golferdude — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:01:13 +0000

Wow

By: atcflyer

atcflyer — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:49:01 +0000

We used http://www.caeroscene.com quite a lot which works just great ! This system comes up with new innovations every couple of weeks…

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:52:09 +0000

We recently booked a charter flight enroute to India on http://www.airnetzcharter.com They interface and usage is lot simpler. They have a nice team that co-ordinates everything well..

By: Scotty

Scotty — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 20:39:00 +0000

Excellent point. In fact, now that I think about it, this idea is probably going to flop or turn the private aviation upside down. Should be an interesting company to track over the next year.

By: Steve Mertz

Steve Mertz — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:23:34 +0000

Food for thought: If I booked a flight from Los Angeles to my city of Denver, I could pay $20,000 for the roundtrip-if I don’t go back to LA, too bad! If the company that charged me $20,000 for the one leg now sells that empty leg to another buyer for $5,000-they have made money twice and I can’t be feeling real happy about my “deal”. It will be interesting to see how this plays out!

By: John Daniels

John Daniels — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:56:14 +0000

What a great business idea. I wish I could have a creative brain like all of these folks.

By: Pam Donovan

Pam Donovan — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 21:30:00 +0000

I googled their CTO and found his rather interesting blog at http://rondam.blogspot.com. The guy is surely quite eclectic but what else can you expect from rocket scientists?!? I wasn’t aware of the VC connection and took a look at that in more detail. It doesn’t look like they funded the company (otherwise Duffy wouldn’t have looked for money in the first place), but they ran it through what they call their Acceleration program, which sounded like a type of incubation for younger companies to me. Aloha!

By: CJ Flores

CJ Flores — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:14:32 +0000

I guess you have a point there, Jake but I still believe the business model is awesome and provides several environmental benefits.

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:26:54 +0000

I am not so sure about the environmental impact to be honest. I do think the concept of getting rid of the dead legs is fabulous but I am worried that these increased efficiencies will only make the private jet business grow, ultimately causing more pollution. I’ve heard of the VC firm they worked with, looks like their CTO Ron Garret is a venture partner there.

By: CJ Flores

CJ Flores — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:21:32 +0000

I think this article fails to mention the environmental implications, particularly the significant reduction of the excessive pollution caused by all those empty legs. Why isn’t anyone writing about the environment when this is clearly an important part of what they are doing? I think this company could really make a difference. When I Googled them this morning I ran across a venture capital firm by the name of Funk Ventures which evidently built this company with the CEO from scratch before Virgin came on board. I took a look at their website and it looks like all they do is socially-responsible investing; no wonder Richard Branson thought this was right up his alley. I even read on another site that Branson is going to put the profits from Virgin Charter towards his $3 billion pledge towards clean-tech. Not a bad gig if you ask me. Not just do investors and entrepreneurs like Branson and Funk Ventures seem to become more socially inclined these days, now the rich guys get to fly in their private jets (which they will anyway), and Virgin Charter will make sure it’s done in the most environmentally-friendly way.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:28:12 +0000

Unfortunately, margins in the charter jet world can be quite thin and erratic based on the supply chain variability. Putting a Web 2.0 spin on a business with old-line margins may not quite work. We’ll see, I am certainly pulling for them.

By: Roger Burton

Roger Burton — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:52:17 +0000

We’ve already launched a similar site that connects travelers and shippers directly to aircraft operators that can service the requested flight. Check out http://www.Taxijet.com.

Roger Burton
CEO – Taxijet.com

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:58:32 +0000

That’s http://www.Jets.com.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:57:40 +0000

This service already exists…see http://www.Jets...com–which provides top tier charters to clients around the world based on an auction model. I couldn’t recommend them more highly.

By: Jessup

Jessup — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:17:45 +0000

I’ve have good experiences with http://www.aircharterguide.com

It connects you directly with operators. You can even search by airport.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:31:57 +0000

This is one of those “I wish I thought of that first” businesses – the demographic is wealthy (good for cross promotion and advertiser acquisition), the referral $$$ will be very good compared to what expedia etc get and it fits perfectly with the other brands Virgin owns (including non-charter flights and space trips).

Jon

By: Brooke Hammerling

Brooke Hammerling — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:59:14 +0000

Hi Crunchback — My firm is handling the PR for Virgin Charter. You are right — right now the service itself is in an invite only beta as they continue to work with operators and so forth. We will be launching the service in the fall.

By: CrunchBack

CrunchBack — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:55:28 +0000

so when does it launch? the site appears to be info only and there’s no launch date and only a keep in touch link with a possibility to get into the beta…

By: patricia

patricia — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:44:19 +0000

This is really cool. Will it expand to include other types of charters? The charter boat business would probably really benefit from something like this. I’m sending this story to my brother.

By: Concrete Stain

Concrete Stain — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:56:06 +0000

- give someone 3x the amount of funding they wanted / and take controlling interest …

IE (buy the company) …and save face with current employees / dvelopers

By: Clyve Van Damm

Clyve Van Damm — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:01:22 +0000

While CharterX seems to have partnered with this company; they certainly are the dominant player on the scene. (www.CharterX.com).

By: Anders Fredriksson

Anders Fredriksson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:35:16 +0000

As tz beat me to the comment, Avinode is a strong player in this area and has been since 2003 I believe.

//Anders