Wheels Up's core business is selling lift on its proprietary fleet of King Air 350s and Citation Excels.
It functions like other jet card or membership programs. You pay your membership fee and have access to lift at a set hourly rate. Putting funds on deposit in advance vs. pay-as-you-go may give you a slightly better hourly rate and better guarantees on minimum call-out time to get an airplane, peak day concessions, etc.
Wheels Up owns its proprietary fleet though it is not an AOC and dry leases its fleet to the actual operator/AOC-holder Gama Charters.
They have alliances where funds on deposit can be used towards charters they arrange on larger aircraft not in the Wheels Up owned fleet.
The core business model is chartering a whole airplane on your schedule, not sharing one on someone else's.
It looks like they are now moving into having some new offerings that duplicate JetSmarter offerings (empty legs, shared shuttles, etc.).
Last edited by Herb687; Aug 1, 2016 at 8:47 pm
Reason: syntax