Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: All Right, folks, let me give you some primary research
Speaker 1: on the aviation business here in the Northeast. I live
Speaker 1: very close to Newark Airport and to Marstown Municipal Airport,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you that the traffic coming out
Speaker 1: of Newark is just a fraction of what it was
Speaker 1: pre pandemic. But the planes zipping in and out of
Speaker 1: the jets, primarily zipping in and out of Marstown Airport,
Speaker 1: remains very busy. Let's talk about private aircraft travel. We
Speaker 1: can do that with Andrew Collins, President and chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of Sentient Jet. He joined us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Boston. Andrew, thanks so much for joining us here. Again,
Speaker 1: just from my little sample here in New Jersey, it
Speaker 1: seems like private jet travel remains very active. Give us
Speaker 1: a sense of how it's evolved during this pandemic. Sure,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on. It's great to be back. Um. Listen,
Speaker 1: the pandemic has obviously been you know, something very unfortunate
Speaker 1: for the world. Uh, it is a specially hit commercial airlines.
Speaker 1: As you pointed out, I think yesterday, which would have
Speaker 1: been a peak travel day, they saw half of what
Speaker 1: they would normally see go through you know, your t
Speaker 1: s A checkpoints. Meanwhile, private aviation, you know, our business
Speaker 1: right now is up ten in flight volume year over year.
Speaker 1: So people are looking to avoid crowds and they are
Speaker 1: seeking alternative solutions. And what we've seen was a bit
Speaker 1: of a dip at the beginning of the pandemic and
Speaker 1: then a curve upward in growth, uh, you know, progressively
Speaker 1: each month as more and more people and especially people
Speaker 1: that haven't really flown privately before, start to discover, um,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the benefits of being able to
Speaker 1: avoid exposure points and being able to control the crowds
Speaker 1: and and travel privately. So and it just seems to me,
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm just a tune to this because I
Speaker 1: like aviation, but I just see more and more companies
Speaker 1: offering more and more types of private travel options, whether
Speaker 1: it's a you know, a shared plane, you know, cards
Speaker 1: with mileage on it. It just seems to be so
Speaker 1: many more options for consumers. Has that driven the demand
Speaker 1: for this, I guess private jet travel all over the
Speaker 1: last ten twenty years, So, you know, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: point ball, which is you know, accessing private jets has
Speaker 1: gotten incrementally easier over the years. We invented something called
Speaker 1: the Private Jet Card and we lead the category globally.
Speaker 1: You just pre purchased twenty five hours of time. It's
Speaker 1: one way to access private jets. Other models include fractional
Speaker 1: where you purchase part of an asset a jet or
Speaker 1: you charter a jet on demand, and it's become much
Speaker 1: more prevalent for business models and unique business models at that.
Speaker 1: And I see a lot of creativity in the space. Look,
Speaker 1: we think that you know, our model has really, you know,
Speaker 1: hit kind of a wheelhouse moment here, and people just
Speaker 1: need to fly and they need flexibility, and something like
Speaker 1: a jet card, you know, provides that you don't have
Speaker 1: to go through kind of the arduous process of purchasing
Speaker 1: an asset or purchasing a jet. But I think it
Speaker 1: really boils down to your profile. And there's certainly a
Speaker 1: lot of great companies in the space. And uh, again,
Speaker 1: you're right, it's it's been something that I think we've
Speaker 1: seen the models and and and the actual addressable market
Speaker 1: expand over time. What's an hour on a sentiment jet
Speaker 1: go for these days? So on a sentient light jet.
Speaker 1: You're starting at about for one way flying, um, and
Speaker 1: it can go up from there. And we offer light, mid,
Speaker 1: super mid, and large cabin aircraft. And you know, as
Speaker 1: the name denotes, once you start approaching large cabin, it's
Speaker 1: about flying you know, ten to twelve people and going uh,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly long distances and such. But it's a
Speaker 1: very flexible model. And you know, within ten hours advanced notice,
Speaker 1: we can January and the forty eight contiguous United States
Speaker 1: on a jet. What a hey, what are the types
Speaker 1: of flights that people are buying here? Are they just
Speaker 1: going to their vacation homes and getting away from the cities? Yeah? Great,
Speaker 1: great question and something We've really been observing a couple
Speaker 1: of things that I'm seeing trend wise, So due to
Speaker 1: the pandemic, as I mentioned, you're seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: new entrants. Normally we would see people that about a
Speaker 1: third of our customers are a third of our our
Speaker 1: client purchases in a given month would be new clients.
Speaker 1: It's actually flipped. It's two thirds now new clients, one
Speaker 1: third returning clients. Um, they're going to warm weather destinations.
Speaker 1: You can imagine that West Pond Beach, parts of Florida,
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, or you know, spaced out destinations for social
Speaker 1: distancing and activity. Aspen is a big one, Montana's another one.
Speaker 1: Um And the thing that we've also noticed is there's
Speaker 1: been a drop in around trips. So people that can
Speaker 1: actually you know, work virtually and school virtually are going
Speaker 1: places and they're staying there. And and this is the
Speaker 1: first for for our business because we're used to seeing
Speaker 1: people kind of go out and back in a few days. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the beauties of private aviation, but
Speaker 1: they're actually taking one ways out and staying for for
Speaker 1: quite some time. Andrew, you know, one of the issues
Speaker 1: when we saw this pandemic come we obviously saw air travel,
Speaker 1: you know, drop off a cliff. And now as people
Speaker 1: start to think about how air travel is going to
Speaker 1: come back, there seems to be a consensus that leisure
Speaker 1: travel will come back rather quickly while they robustly, but
Speaker 1: business travel maybe structurally uh smaller, or people will travel
Speaker 1: less than they did before the pandemic. How are you
Speaker 1: guys at sent In thinking about that and how's that
Speaker 1: changing your strategy? I think we're thinking less zoom and
Speaker 1: more jet That's okay. But I think at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, you're right, personal travel is really fueling
Speaker 1: our business right now, and I think that's going to continue. Um.
Speaker 1: We are having our biggest sales month in company history
Speaker 1: in twenty one years this month, so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of forward purchasing and pent up demand. I do think
Speaker 1: we are a precursor to kind of you know, predictively
Speaker 1: seeing where the consumers going. I would tell you on
Speaker 1: the business side, the flying that we think we're gonna
Speaker 1: see is really you know around folks that are transactional,
Speaker 1: small deal teams. You know your investment banking, you know
Speaker 1: your consultants, you know those type of folks where in
Speaker 1: person just is a necessity, right. You know, you can't
Speaker 1: just do due diligence in a data room. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to do it in person at times. So I
Speaker 1: do think that there is a competitive landscape out there
Speaker 1: that's going to need um things like private travel. I
Speaker 1: think to get back to the business travel, that first
Speaker 1: class business travel on the commercial side, it is going
Speaker 1: to take time. Um, but I do think you're gonna
Speaker 1: see a personal curve kind of grow and and my
Speaker 1: guess is probably midyear really start to unleash. So what
Speaker 1: type of four I guess view do you have on
Speaker 1: your revenue are to help far out to people typically
Speaker 1: book time. So you know, look, we're top line right now,
Speaker 1: we're about a three million dollar company. UM, My guess
Speaker 1: is we will probably grow somewhere between twenty and um
Speaker 1: in one barring you know, any sort of uncontrollable or
Speaker 1: unforeseen thing like a macroeconomic dip or something like that.
Speaker 1: But the way that we're forecasting and looking out, that's
Speaker 1: what we see again, a lot of it fueled by
Speaker 1: you know, that personal level of travel. Um, I will
Speaker 1: say that that you know, I have to believe that
Speaker 1: is going to bring back a really healthy set of
Speaker 1: revenue streams over time, both for commercial as well as
Speaker 1: for private. And as you guys were just talking, we
Speaker 1: need airlines, we need private aviation, we need people back
Speaker 1: up flying and doing things. For lack of a better
Speaker 1: way of saying it, Andrew, where do you source your planes,
Speaker 1: source your crews? And how has that changed or how
Speaker 1: do you think that may change, you know, post pandemic.
Speaker 1: Great questions. So we've actually created a certified process that
Speaker 1: we've developed. It's cost us millions of dollars to do.
Speaker 1: We certify the best jet operators in the business. We
Speaker 1: only use about of the operators out there. Um, all
Speaker 1: crews are certified. We go through a proprietary database of
Speaker 1: millions of records per flight to make sure that everything
Speaker 1: is is where it needs to be. But where it's
Speaker 1: changed And I don't even want to say change because
Speaker 1: I feel like we've been doing this, But where we've
Speaker 1: enhanced visibility is around kind of that health journey and
Speaker 1: those protocols. I don't think we're going to get away from,
Speaker 1: you know, the true sanitization that's happening. We certify now
Speaker 1: are are ground providers to make sure that environments are
Speaker 1: clean and sterile, to make sure that crews or drivers
Speaker 1: are math socially distanced. Uh, there are pre flight checks.
Speaker 1: There's a number of things. I don't see that going away, right.
Speaker 1: So even as the pandemic, I think the best word
Speaker 1: I've heard dims because it doesn't just disappear in a
Speaker 1: binary sense. I think you're going to see these things
Speaker 1: remain and they really resonate. I mean I have to
Speaker 1: say that. Um, there's a reason that a lot of
Speaker 1: people are coming off the sidelines to fly with us,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it has to do with how
Speaker 1: we've looked at sourcing our aircraft and sourcing our crews,
Speaker 1: and and looking at those health protocols. So, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the issues for the airlines. I guess at
Speaker 1: some point they're gonna have to try to, you know,
Speaker 1: get the message across the people that it's actually safe
Speaker 1: to get on an airplane. And that kind of brings
Speaker 1: it back to an issue. I don't recall too many
Speaker 1: stories of super spreader events emanating from air travel. I mean,
Speaker 1: give us a sense of what, you know, ten months
Speaker 1: of hindsight here, how is air travel faired relative, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of spreading the virus. So I feel like, um,
Speaker 1: there's been you know, an unjust kind of bias, especially
Speaker 1: placed on commercial where you know, you're kind of led
Speaker 1: to believe that it's unhealthy to fly on a commercial aircraft.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that's true. I believe there's exposure points.
Speaker 1: I do think in the commercial journey there's a lot
Speaker 1: more than say flying privately. But in general, you know,
Speaker 1: you've seen the highlighted pieces where you know, perhaps somebody
Speaker 1: was on an aircraft and then other people were infected
Speaker 1: at a commercial level, but they have not been to
Speaker 1: the extent or almost to the manic nature by which
Speaker 1: they've been you know, discussed or talked about. UM. So,
Speaker 1: I don't think that air travel is really going to
Speaker 1: end up being something in hindsight where you're going to
Speaker 1: see a lot of super spreader events. And I do
Speaker 1: think that, you know, if there's a silver lining to this,
Speaker 1: the exposure of just how much work goes into you know,
Speaker 1: cleansing and sterilizing aircraft and putting people into a safe environment,
Speaker 1: I think is really gonna emanate from this, and I
Speaker 1: think that's going to be something that you know, our
Speaker 1: industry should be held accountable for. All Right, Andrew, I'm
Speaker 1: asking this question on behalf of our our Bloomberg colleague,
Speaker 1: Tom Keene. What's the top of the line aircraft that
Speaker 1: you offer and what will that do for me? How
Speaker 1: far will it take me? How many people can I
Speaker 1: bring along? All that kind of fun stuff? So we
Speaker 1: can put you on like a Global Express. We could
Speaker 1: put you on a gulf Stream six fifty. You could
Speaker 1: go transatlantic. You could put you know a dozen people
Speaker 1: on board, uh and feel very spacious and comfortable. You'll
Speaker 1: have a flight attendant and a crew and you could
Speaker 1: pretty much go where you want to go um without
Speaker 1: you know, any sort of fuel stops. So that's really
Speaker 1: the we call that the large cabin aircraft. And and
Speaker 1: and that's one that you know, Tom would certainly enjoy
Speaker 1: and and probably feel like you really conquered the universe.
Speaker 1: And one of those So is your business? Is your
Speaker 1: business global or is it primarily domestic? So it it
Speaker 1: is global. We purchased a company in Europe. UM we
Speaker 1: do fly internationally. We have set rates internationally. That said,
Speaker 1: about eight percent of our business right now is within
Speaker 1: the forty eight contiguous United States, but that is declining
Speaker 1: rapidly as we push on into different international waters. Andrew,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Just the
Speaker 1: fascinating business and it really interesting to see how your
Speaker 1: business has evolved here during the pandemic. Andrew Collins, he's
Speaker 1: president and chief executive officer of Sentient Jet. He joined
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Boston.