There is much of what distrusts when choosing private aircraft flight suppliers. Failures with both fractional operators, such as reaction and jet card suppliers, such as Jetsuite, costs customers tens of millions of dollars in cumulative losses. In both cases, it was probably a stew of growth plans that were too ambitious, defects in their business models, external problems with their suppliers and only a bad moment. More recently, in the case of Aerovanti, there are demands, fraud accusations, and its CEO has been accused by the Department of Justice for Actions in unrelated companies. In these cases, buyers were generally UHNWs that disbursed six figures or more to fly privately. Similarly, it is easy to lose smaller amounts, perhaps not inconsequential for your bank account. Come-ons are wrapped in cheap private reaction flights, often through empty legs.

These flights are launched as a low rental form of flying privately. Here, the risk is less than the supplier is out of the general of what it did not understand what it was recorded.

The Kinectair startup is the last provider to make large promises of cheap flights. The formula is to register a public relations agency and issue press releases that claim to revolutionize and democratize trips in private airplanes, which makes it affordable for the masses.

The presentation letter of the Kinectair Public Relations Consultant declared: “Next week, a pioneer in the private air travel industry will announce the launch of its empty leg market, a set of industry software that takes advantage of without exploiting technological tools as flight repositioning and coordination of empty legs to offer reasonable and effective prices in a rich reserve experience and without problems.”

In the press release, Kinectair affirmed his empty leg market: “This is the best tool for flexible and spontaneous travelers, which really democratizes private flights, making them as accessible as reserving a car and as affordable as commercial air trips. Everyone should experience the convenience of private air trips and the joy and wonder of the free flight of free stress.”

More than Forbes advisor

The result was the points of sale of CNN (“the trips of private aircraft super style are here, and the flights cost from $ 111”) until even the public transmission (“the startup based in Vancouver, Washington, Kinectair, wants to expand the private flight beyond the ultra rich”) covered the announcement.

It is a great media coverage for what is a smaller corridor. It is as if its local hardware store has launched a new website and was receiving writings that made it seem to be taken home depot.

After talking to an executive at Kinectair and then playing with his website, the best I could say, there is little revolutionary about what the company is doing. Some beautiful interfaces adorn the field. Without specifically choosing Kinectair, it is worth discussing how these “cheap” flights really work.

First, it is essential to understand that low prices are based on the buyer that fills all seats. For example, when you see $ 157, in the case of an empty leg from Bishop to Monterrey, California, currently at the Kinectair site, which is based on paying the total price of $ 1,259 and divided by the eight seats on the plane.

While empty leg delivery time is typically 24 hours until a few days before departure, some are published months in advance, as is the case with this flight, which is for July 29.

Kinectair’s innovations include a sliding output window and the ability to find a possible empty leg back. In this case, it could leave between 10:30 am and noon. If I wanted to return to the Bishop, there was an empty leg at a similar price on August 6. If I had wanted to fly from Monterey to Bishop on August 6, there were no empty leg options.

Even so, he must be aware of what is getting into. The empty legs are empty for a specific reason. They are repositioning the plane to pick up someone who is paying the full load to fly privately, returning to the base after leaving them or moving to where the next client leaves in case of floating fleets, a term of the industry for airplanes that do not need to return to their base.

In some cases, the person at the other end of the empty leg can be the owner of the plane. Let’s say the owner is flying to Aspen for a week from his home in Las Vegas. After leaving them, the pilots fly back to their base in Las Vegas, since it would be cheaper for the owner than to put them for a week at the Ritzy resort. If the plane is in a charter certificate, that flight back to Nevada can be marketed as an empty leg.

The average cost per hour for a turboprops such as the one that Kinectair shows for the flight to Monterey is more than $ 6,000 on a reaction card or a guaranteed membership program. These programs allow customers to reserve and cancel from hours to a few days before departure. So, yes, empty legs can be a good business. But if the owner, the reaction card or the letter client changes their plans, their empty leg flight can be canceled.

In that case, you will get a refund. Then I could pay the full price, whatever late date for rent, find your own way or simply file the trip.

The cancellation could come the day after reserving the flight or the day he leaves.

With California’s empty leg for July, I received an email that offered assistance with the reservation. He warned: “Due to the nature of empty leg flights, they can be more susceptible to cancellations. If the initial letter required by the empty leg is altered or canceled, its flight can be affected. In such cases, we will strive to provide alternative arrangements, but this cannot be guaranteed.”

When I click an empty leg between Spartanburg and Columbia, South Carolina, for January 24, I could reach the payment page without warnings. That could be a problem. Even if you are a “spontaneous traveler,” you are likely to find a place to stay.

The email for the Julio flight said: “To ensure this empty leg of the leg, a quick payment is required after confirmation. Once confirmed, the flight is not reimbursable due to the specific nature and the reduced price of these trips.” For the flight next week, there were no such resignations that were prominent before entering my credit card, which I did not do.

So when a treatment is not a deal?

In addition to finding seven friends or some other people to divide the price of empty legs with discount, you must be careful to make plans, such as buying tickets for sporting events or hotels and resorts that are not reimbursable or have cancellation penalties, unless you have a plan B to get there.

Many charter contracts for empty legs or regular flights allow positions after the flight for additional services such as dishonors or additional flight time caused by air traffic control or weather. The Wi -Fi, if available, can also be an additional if it is not stipulated as included, something that can be quite expensive if you are transmitting movies or downloading large files.

Finally, you must also ensure what are the final terms if it is going through a corridor. Since the runners hire with the operators to fly, in some cases, there will be a discharge of responsibility that the terms of the operator for cancellations, other positions, and so on the contract it has with the corridor when they are in conflict.

I love empty legs. I currently belong to Vauunt, a branch of the supplier of fractional cards and volume jet, which works in a lottery system. I paid $ 1,000 to join, and then my flights during the next 12 months are free. If I compare my success rate with baseball, my batting average would return to the minor leagues. That said, I have already received at least $ 15,000 on flights for my initial membership. Before that, he was a member of a similar Delta Private Jet program. It costs $ 6,500 per year and was the first contest to click to book empty leg flights after they were published. I registered more than $ 200,000 on private flights in reaction in two years.

There are still limitations.

I rarely found friends who could leave everything and go a day or two days. Next, due to how empty legs work, it is always difficult to solve the side of the hotel of the equation, with often too risky cancellation sanctions for my tolerance. Finally, there is getting home, which generally means buying airline tickets, which can be expensive today.

The other warning words are where you fly. Many UHNWS and Corporations use private planes because they can access convenient airports for their homes or businesses. In Aviation General Airports, there are sometimes car rental pills if organized beforehand. I have also landed in places that do not have ubers or taxis. Therefore, it is possible that you must reserve land transport in advance, and want to verify which are the terms of cancellation.

When talking to Kinectair, my conclusion is that they were not doing much, that is different from other runners who sell empty legs, which do hundreds. In addition, your offer is far from complete. When I talked to them in December, they were working with around 30 charter operators. There are almost 2,000 in the US.

I was impressed that behind the scene, and the press releases, Kinectair seem to function as traditional corridors work. That means building relationships with operators so that when there are problems, hopefully they can solve problems. Of course, that is not a great story.

What are my thoughts?

Cheap private flights come with strings. Even if he booked an empty leg trip in the small turbopropulsores and the characteristics of the piston plane, he must find friends to share the cost if he hopes to pay a couple of hundreds of dollars or less. Assuming that it divides it with someone, it still has hotels, land transport, the time dedicated to organizing all that and paying attention to the terms of cancellation or having plan B and the cost. In other words, you are more likely to spend a couple of thousands of dollars instead of $ 111.