SFO777

Thanks very much Delta77L. Flight was great, crew was great.

Thank you gaobest.

Yes, the women shared their desserts as we were chatting with them.

I would have probably taken the PIT-DEN nonstop.
I used 4,500 Avios for PIT-LGA and then $268 for a LAX-DFW-DEN Y ticket on AA. As an EXP, I was upgraded on both legs.

Regarding JetSmarter, all the flights are $0 but they are now on a shared basis only.
Members get 5 free seats on a light jet and 3 free seats on a midsize. You can buy out the plane to insure it's really private.

Thanks spizzy. Agree completely on the shared concept. As Mrs. SFO777 says "well, it's not really private then, is it?"
I would not go so far out of the way to do this again. I did it primarily to try it out and sample the shuttle.

Thanks very much Andriyko.

Huntress

Thanks so much for the post. I'm new to Flyertalk and found your experience and the comments very informative.

gooseman13

As always, thanks for posting SFO777. This led to some really great discussion. I like the switch to the per seat model only because I don't think the full jet was sustainable.

With regards to the shuttles, I wonder if they will have a limited number, so that even as they grow in membership the number of free shuttle seats won't go up.

I got in on the free $1000 in credits this past week, so I'll give that a whirl and then see my thoughts from here.

Ber2dca

The situation of the lads in the back there reminds me of going on school trips by train. A lot of laughs were had but it certainly didn't feel like luxury and it's an open question of whether it would have been so much fun if one had sat with anyone but your friends from school

mrfussion

SFO 777 – the $500 per empty leg amazes me if those were really the terms with Travel Management. Instead of subscribing Mrs. SFO 777 have you asked if a double membership on your account is possible? I know there are times you travel without her and it’d be nice to get the benefits of the extra seats if you have the second membership. Plus it'd be less hassle when booking. I’d actually be interested in the answer to this as well.

oenophilist

I simply (and somewhat vehemently) disagree with this. First, you can't look at it based on a single person. You look at it based on the whole of the community, including the potential churn of customers. Second, JetSmarter has control over how many flights they automatically set up as Shuttles, as well as how much it costs to initiate a Shuttle. Third, the cost basis varies per plane, including with volume discounts. Finally, JetSmarter has some controls over how often you take a flight via the "active reservations". If you have an active reservation for an LA to NYC flight, then you cannot use any other JetShuttles until the flight has been completed. This curtails abuse of the system.

I can absolutely see a clear business model of making JetShuttles profitable.

oenophilist

My pleasure. I did fly in the 4-seat Mustang today, and it really is a nice little plane. The nice part about the Mustangs is that you still get the whole plane, even if you are traveling by yourself (like I did today). But I'm very glad they've added a lot more variety.

Question: what was the demographic of the people on board the LA flight? I'm curious who their customer base is, as there are very few Flyertalkers that have subscribed thus far, and I would think we would be a prime target.

SFO777

Thank you very much Huntress, and welcome to FlyerTalk.

Thanks gooseman13. And good for you for doing the JetSmarter promo.
They are definitely limiting those shuttles to only a few per week in each direction.

LOL, Ber2dca. Absolutely. I think most of the foursome knew each other but the other two singletons across from them in the Y seats didn't know them or each other. Talk about the back of the bus.

Good thought mrfussion. I already asked my JS rep. No deals for spouses or other family members, although I would get the referral credit.
Also confirmed by one of the women who has 4 memberships for her family, including the nanny. She got 3 referrals credits.
A 2nd membership would guarantee a private light jet and close to a private midsize... I'd probably buy out the remaining 2 seats.

Good to hear oenophilist. I believe that all of us were members, although the Saudi couple may have been on a freebie since he's an investor or at least claimed to be. Other than the 2 old guys, me and my "seat-mate", every one else was a 30/40-something. One of the three women up front was traveling on her fiancée's membership while the other two had their own memberships, including the one with a family 4 pack.

mrfussion

oenophilist – your control over supply argument is flawed. If they are signing up customers who purchased based on the shuttles those members will only renew their memberships if availability continues to exist and they use it to the extent they feel they got value. Do you think someone is going to renew their membership based on taking one LA-NY flight per year because that is all JetSmarter made available? You can read the responses in this thread and see that no one sees this shuttle as a one of a kind product they’d pay a premium for.

Staying on the LA-NY example, I could generate a million AA points tomorrow if I felt like it and it’d cost 0.0088 cents per point … an option any business owner has, with the number of points they can create dependent on their expenses/profitability. That means an AAnytime award LAX-JFK costs me a maximum of $750 (and $290 if SAAver space exists). That’s my way of doing things and I’m sure others have their own that are comparable or better. So why would I pay JetSmarter $7,000 based on my membership, $9,000 for new members, to take this flight once or twice per year (twice being the maximum number of times a member can take it before JetSmarter goes red)? In my opinion, and that of most I’ve heard, a full shuttle is simply an inferior product to what the existing airlines are offering (with the exception being ground service) at a premium price.

In short with simple numbers: a better product is readily available in the market to customers for $750 whereas JetSmarter is trying to enter the market with a product carrying a $1,600+ operating cost. And they now need to make a profit on that $1,600 whereas at $750 it’s coming from an already profitable business. That doesn’t sound like a good business model to me ...

At the end of the day it comes down to JetSmarter being able to churn customers. Are there enough people out there to pay $12,000 for a one or two and done to subsidize the heavy users? And I’d say it’s pretty clear there are not. JetSmarter will need to acquire and retain customers to be successful long term.

I can explain this a different way without having knowledge of your background. I operate a medium sized logistics organization. The fundamentals of the full truckload side of our business operate remarkably similar to the charter business with the obvious differences being we have trucks instead of planes and move freight instead of people. If I offered a flat rate, unlimited shipping model I would get nothing but abusers and those who were shipping enough to justify. The reason for this is there are competitive alternatives in the marketplace that the light users would go to. We’d get smoked on it without question. And it’s the exact same thing here—at the end of the day you will have only the high rate users in the program which will not be financially viable for JetSmarter.

I will caveat all this by saying the only way they could make it work is if they found a way to provide seats at a lower cost than the commercial airlines. And I don't see how you get a per seat cost on a G-IV carrying 13 passengers LA-NY lower than an Airbus carrying 100 passengers ...

FTA

Why do you keep saying free when you paid 7K up front? Am I missing something, are there other benefits?

peasant

Interesting trip report!

What's the legality of this? Offering ride sharing type service on repositioning legs is one thing, but having "scheduled" shuttle flights starts to look suspiciously like a common carriage airline, with all the extra FAA oversight that needs.

spizzy

I forgot about this as well. Now with the possibility of ending up in the back of the plane, as opposed to having it all to yourself or the possibility of not sitting with your partner or where you want to sit then Jetsmarter IMO loses its attractiveness, especially for the $7k (discounted?) upfront fee. YMMV.

I agree with her completely.

Thunderroad

Fascinating analysis. And your critique of the JetSmarter model sounds sound to me...though given my understanding of the economics of this business, that's not saying much.

However, I wonder about a couple of elements of your analysis...First, might you be over-estimating the ability and willingness of "any business owner" to generate oodles of AA/UA/DL miles? For one thing, whether out of ignorance or reluctance to learn this game, many could not be bothered to do so the way those of us on FT might. For another, I wonder whether there are so many business owners out there who could generate the miles if so inclined, given the ways they might be paid, might manage their books, etc.

In addition, I'd think that JetSmarter is not only competing for business owners, but for many other wealthy enough individuals who work for corporations, are retired, are paid for individual services (such as Hollywood entertainment types), etc. So the market extends way beyond those who could use miles instead of JetSmarter.

Townshend

SFO777 we missed eachother at the heliport by a day. My girlfriend and myself (for demographics we are early 30s) took a Jetsmarter flight to NYC for the weekend. Used the helicopter transport to ORD and from HPN to West 30th then Uber over to a Marriott a mile away. We were fortunate to fly their Bombardier Challenger 850 by ourselves, one flight attendant, and two pilots. Pilot and FA couldn't have been more professional and courteous. The bouquet of flowers they gave my girlfriend at the end of the flight was a nice touch. The couple negatives were the JS rep seemed a tad disorganized leading up to the flight and the wifi onboard was virtually useless. Thus far I am happy with the product however. As to whether or not I would fly F on an A321 cross country vs a full load G4, that's a coin toss and I would likely fly F because of the lie flat (SFO, how was the wifi on the G4?). A few pics of the experience..

macabus

Sorry SFO777, I just don't see how this flight left you "officially spoiled." It looks like a frat party in the sky...

Back in the 80's I used to fly MGM Grand Air between LAX and JFK, and that definitely felt like I was being spoiled – 33 seats on an all first class 727 with 5 foxy FAs in tuxedos, two chefs and gold plated bathrooms catering to the LA and NYC elite.

Here's a link to my trip report about these flights on MGM Grand Air: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...s-lax-jfk.html

After all of your over-the-top first-class flights, are you really intimating that this one left you "officially spoiled?"